A Wedding is about about two people who are in love and share similar yet opposite interests. Traditionally, the bride is more keen and interested in minor details as it’s the day she has a been looking forward to for a very long time.
However, things are changing now. Lately, there are few weddings that we have done where grooms have taken a keen interest in all the details That being said, Saif is one of those rare grooms whose eyes were glowing with happiness from the initial consultation. To backtrack, he was in one of the most memorable performances that we captured 2 years ago. He did a performance at his cousin’s wedding which led him to meet Samia.
He wanted everything to go perfect from the very beginning. Yes a groom. Normally that’s the bride’s department. He is one of the nicest and detail oriented guys we have ever met. From the grande entrance of mehndi to the unexpected ride for his wedding entrance, he wanted everything to be different and to our knowledge, it certainly was. Kudos to him.
Enough about Saif now let’s talk about Samia. If there is one person that Saif can be with it’s Samia. She literary drives and inspires him in every way. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that. It’s all in his eyes. And if that becomes the basis of every relationship, nothing can come between the two souls.
In short, a true gem of a couple and we are extremely proud to have the chance to cover this fabulous wedding.
Every south asian wedding is filled with colours, joys and smiles all around. However, there is one portion that is very emotional and can make the girl and her side of the family to cry. Some of you may know it as Doli others Vidaai or to some it’s called Rukhsati. Different words, but all have same meaning. This is where bride bids farewell to her family.
During all this, normally, the groom side is happy as they are gaining someone special but still portray themselves as serious due to the nature of situation. Having done so many of these weddings, we have seen almost everything but never seen the groom and his side of the family in tears as well. And believe it or not that even got to us.
Wedding is composed of everything from bride and groom to decor to the hall but mostly it’s the people that make the event memorable.
Zainab and Bilal’s friends and families are simply gems. Everyone from their immediate family to in-laws to cousins all showed so much devotion and love. Each and everyone did their utmost best to make their wedding unforgettable.
And what to say about Bilal and Zainab. Sometimes, words are not enough to justify someone’s traits. And literary we are speechless.
When was the last time you had a bride designing her own wedding outfits. That’s right, the bride (Aman) designed not only her wedding outfit but also 3 other outfits pertaining to her events. She then took those designs to India and had them made.
If that doesn’t impress you then get this. She had a strong hand in the decor for her reception. She made hundreds of paper cranes, designed flowers and many other details to make her dream day become reality.
Now even though, Aman did all this, what about the groom (Parv). Parv did what any good man would do. He supported her vision.
Aman and Parv’s wedding although very simple had a certain elegance to it. Their outfits and events literary were reflection of their personalities. To add to that, they had one heck of a wedding party. The bridesmaid and groom’s men were extremely outspoken contrasting to the couple’s soft spoken personality. They did and said the silliest things as you would witness in this Next Day Edit.
We have always believed that every wedding is about everything but nothing. Remember how everyone loved Seinfeld back in the day with absolutely no plot but different stories emerging into one. We feel weddings are more or less like that. They are all the same but it’s the things that take place from early morning until late at night that defines it. May it be the grand entrance or the dancing baraat or Much Ado About Nothing
Every time a couple books us for a concept film along with their wedding, our goal is either to tell their story with visuals or use certain elements in their personalities and interests in the project. The case was no different with Aman + Parv.
Aman is one of the rare creative brides we have come across. She did some incredible stuff for her wedding outfits and decor (I will talk about that during her wedding film). Among many of her creative talent, Aman loves to paint and make paper cranes hence we decided to create short film around that. After we started talking and began to grind out details about their story and personality, we started to add elements of their interest in locations and story.
We met Priya almost 3 years ago at her brother’s Shawn and his wife Sapna’s concept film back in 2009. Incidentally, that was the first time Amit met Priya as well. Small world.
We have known Priya for 3 years now and between now and then have met her at countless weddings. She is a shy, down to earth and simple girl who expects nothing from life but is always willing to give. As for Amit, we began seeing him at various weddings as well as time progressed. He is full of life, fun and quite opposite from Priya. Not that opposite but enough for them to be 100% compatible with each other.
Our most challenging task is to get to know the couple as a couple after they sign up with us. In this case, it was a little different. We already knew Priya very well but it was Amit who we grew to learn about in the past year. And believe it or not that’s always challenging. It’s easy to get to know two people and their tastes towards life, each other a lot faster but somehow very difficult when you already know one person and you have to get to know the other person separately. But we did and it was an experience getting to know him. He is one of those guys who is always looking to be better at what they do.
The wedding festivities kicked off few days before the grande ceremony itself. Both families are so full of warmth that we blended as their own. From the heroic entrance of the groom to the beautiful bride, everything about this wedding was perfect. The people, the decor, the chemistry all clicked.
We met Priya almost 3 years ago at her brother’s Shawn and his wife Sapna’s concept film back in 2009. Incidentally, that was the first time Amit met Priya as well. Small world.
We have known Priya for 3 years now and between now and then have met her at countless weddings. She is a shy, down to earth and simple girl who expects nothing from life but is always willing to give. As for Amit, we began seeing him at various weddings as well as time progressed. He is full of life, fun and quite opposite from Priya. Not that opposite but enough for them to be 100% compatible with each other.
Our most challenging task is to get to know the couple as a couple after they sign up with us. In this case, it was a little different. We already knew Priya very well but it was Amit who we grew to learn about in the past year. And believe it or not that’s always challenging. It’s easy to get to know two people and their tastes towards life, each other a lot faster but somehow very difficult when you already know one person and you have to get to know the other person separately. But we did and it was an experience getting to know him. He is one of those guys who is always looking to be better at what they do.
The birth of ‘Tasveer’ came into play when Amit told us that there is this one song from film ‘Pardes’ that he has always loved and wanted to see if we could do something with it. Upon listening to him, we knew he wasn’t professional but he had the potential to do something which was a very risky move. That is have him sing. He agreed to the idea.
From that point on, we hired professional services of a singer to make him sound better and tasteful. We all know that professional singers takes years to become great at their vocals and didn’t expect that but despite that, we feel Amit did a reasonably well job with the time at hand.
Watch the full and final version of ‘Tasveer’ the week of April 8th, 2012
Every year, we have couples who gives us the opportunity to film their special day. And every year, we get different couples with different ideas and although traditionally more or less they are all same, each wedding has it’s own spark.
To salute our 2011 Couples, we have put together a Reel as we bid them farewell in the married lives and look forward to 2012 couples.
Enjoy
Arsh + Ronnie approached us last year for their wedding coming up in May of 2012 in Toronto. However, since Ronnie is originally from Vancouver, the engagement party was held there back in October.
Aside from using our services for their wedding day, they also wanted to create a concept short showcasing their home cities (Vancouver & Toronto) as well as their affection for each other. That whole idea gave birth to “The Poem/Kavita”. What is it exactly? Well, you will find out the details in May but for now here is the teaser of that concept short.
Sometimes, you capture a couple’s story by laying it in the actual context of its occurrence.
Other times, we lay it out against the backdrop of a fictional setting.
This fictional backdrop lends a strange authenticity to a couple’s story. For while the story in and of itself may not be uncommon, its presentation is what defines it, sets it apart. And when presented as a culturally recognized plotline, that story becomes all the more memorable, fun, and ironically–unique.
That’s precisely the manner in which we approached Justin and Kajal’s story, and demonstrative of their mutual love of mafia films.
When they came in, I made it clear to both Justin and Kajal that whatever we end up doing as a concept film, it will take a huge commitment on their part which will include a lot of rehearsals, travelling and a # of days of filming. Once they agreed, we decided to figure out how to approach their story. In our discussions, one thing that stood out the most was their mutual interest in mafia films. They were a fan of everything from ‘The Godfather’ to ‘Boardwalk Empire’. Justin’s bedroom is draped in classic mafia film posters. So we took their story of how they actually met through friends at a restaurant and their interests and hobby and tossed that into a fictional setting. From the beginning, I wanted to give tribute to these classic films by tying them into the story and not being cheesy.
After the scripting stage, we did at least 2-3 rehearsal sessions with the lead actors involved and 1-2 with the rest. Like any production, the idea behind rehearsals of course to get things right before the production. Believe me that makes a big difference on production day. Because on that day, there are all these unexpected problems which did happen to us. Here are few ; while filming at Kelsey’s for the opening scene, there was constant background refrigerator noise and it being restaurant, that couldn’t be turned off. And then on top of that, we ended up getting just 2 hours to shoot the scene as oppose to 3 hours originally planned. 2 hours are decent, if you have one set up and rehearsals. But we had at least 4 set ups for coverage purposes. For each set up, lighting and make up needed to be adjusted and then making sure timing of actors entering is dot on for continuity sake.
So all in all for Day 1, the production lasted 6 hours, with 3 hours dedicated to b-roll footage (couple hanging out together). Add another 2 hours to make up:)
Day 2 lasted 8 hours. It started with Make Up by Huma’s Bridals (who btw did a fantastic job) followed by 5 scenes. Originally we were planning to do only 4 scenes. The Pie scene was planned for another day at a BMW dealership but since that wasn’t 100% go, I decided that we should film it just in case we can’t access to other location. And guess what, it never worked out so we saved ourselves
Day 3 consisted of two final scenes all in one location. The fact that this was the third day and actors involved were used to screen direction, it flew by. We spent 2 hours in Bombay Bhel and wrapped it all up.
A special thanks goes out to Kelsey’s, Bombay Bhel Thornhill and The Vig Law Professional Corporation for providing us with some key locations.
When we decided to tell this story, we knew it would be a challenge during the production. With so many different set ups, indoor and outdoor scenes, we wanted to use the right tools but in a limited way. Thanks to ‘Cinevate’ and ‘Small HD’ we were able to do that. We used Cinevate’s Atlas 10, Pegasus, Durus Follow Focus and Cyclops during this film. Our original plan was to use Pegasus quite a bit for in door scenes and Atlas FLT for outdoor scenes. However, due to time constraints we ended up using Pegasus a lot less than we had anticipated. Not because it wasn’t a good enough tool to work with but more so due production hurdles. We also used Cinevate’s Durus Follow Focus with 15mm rails. It’s one of the most versatile Follow Focus on the market. While some may argue that Cinevate’s Cyclops is not a great viewfinder due to it’s size, I would disagree. For us, it has been a great tool as it allows you to give a full perspective with both of your eyes instead of one.
When deciding to use a monitor, SmallHD was the obvious choice. In my view they make the best DSLR Monitors. Again we utilized this for indoor scenes while we stuck to Cyclops for most of the outdoor scenes. SmallHD 1280×720 resolution really made our life a lot easier on the set. In the web design world, there is a term WSYWIG. What you see is What you get. And that’s the bottom line for SmallHD.
Again thanks to everyone involved in the production, my crew who did a great job, Huma’s Bridals for a marvellous job, the cast and of course our supporters who helped us made this film
Besides sharing a vibrant chemistry, Salman and Arooj bring similar family values in each other’s lives.
As always, our goal is to reflect couple’s personality in our wedding films and we made an attempt to keep the essence of their Next Day Edit. But we also wanted to give this wedding trailer an emotional touch.
We proudly present Salman + Arooj Wedding Trailer filled with tears, laughters and endless joy.
Late bookings are a rarity. But Kulsoom and Hadi were a couple we just couldn’t turn down.
It was their down-to-earth nature, their honesty and humility that drew us in. But even these words fall rather short of describing them aptly and fully.
The coverage began with the Nikkah ceremony held at a Mosque and was followed by cultural traditions. The Nikkah took place in the morning and was followed, at night, by their vivid Mehndi ceremony, full of colour, life and energy.
The next day was the Wedding Day. Our goal in the Next/Same Day Edit was to incorporate the getting ready footage as well as the reception entrances. And yes, we pulled it off and completed the final edit a tight ten minutes before the viewing.
