Local Company Getting National Recognition For Wedding Videos
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - So much time and money is spent on a wedding day, but the video is the only thing that captures those memories in pictures and sound for a lifetime.
Now, a local company is taking those videos to a whole new level.
They're making wedding movies for your special day.
The movies naturally star the bride and groom and are produced, shot and edited by ShoFilms of Pittsburgh.
Elise Wolff, of Fox Chapel, and Brendan Kneram, who's originally from Boston, watched their wedding movie in a small theater at ShoFilms' location in South Park, along with their friends and family.
The movie tells the story of how they met, fell in love and got engaged and culminates in the couple's wedding at Fox Chapel Presbyterian Church on June 9.
"They just have a different, unique style to it that I think makes your whole wedding seem more glamorous and more interesting. It's a really neat way to see that side of your wedding," Wolff said.
Elise works for TheKnot.com, which is a leading wedding website based in New York, so she sees the best of the best when it comes to videographers around the country.
She chose ShoFilms for her wedding after being blown away by a clip she saw online.
"They had a video on there that made me cry. I didn't even know the couple, I was actually only watching it for like a minute and I was like, 'What's wrong with me, why am I crying right now?' But their videos are just really touching," Wolff said.
Paul Saunders, co-founder of ShoFilms, said that's exactly what they were going for.
"It becomes real emotional. The feedback we get is about the emotion of the video and that's what we try to create," Saunders said.
Saunders, Mindy Harkless and Justin O'Grosky founded the company after seeing a similar wedding movie in Canada.
"They were charging $18,000. We knew we wanted to start at $3,000. It was a big challenge to figure out how to do that amount of work and that quality of work and put it into a $3,000 dollar package, but I think we've accomplished that," Saunders said.
They use what look like still photography cameras that allow them to get in smaller spaces and be less obtrusive. The bride, groom and guests also tend to be more comfortable and relaxed without the big video camera.
ShoFilms also uses a slider, a mono pod instead of a tri-pod, and a glide cam all to give it that movie effect.
The bride and groom get a four-minute highlight film, a 10-minute feature film and then all the extras, including the full ceremony and toasts, are included after that.
"A lot of times brides will say, 'I really don't even remember that. I'm so glad you captured that,'" Harkless said.
"That night sped by so fast. It seemed like it was just five minutes and it was over, so it will be kind of nice to relive a lot of the stuff that I didn't really notice or was too busy to see," Kneram said.
More than half of the weddings ShoFilms shoots have been in Pittsburgh, but over the next year, they're scheduled to film weddings in New York City, Philadelphia, Ohio, New Jersey, Texas and maybe even India.
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