Best Vendors in Utah: Videographer Aaron Allsop

[intro]Utah has so many amazing wedding vendors! Each Wednesday we feature one. This week we interviewed Aaron, owner of Aaron Allsop Videography. We’re so excited for you read all about his services and the tips he has to offer. We first worked with Aaron at Alexandra and Steen’s wedding. Check out the amazing video he made for for them.[/intro]

[embed_video url=”http://vimeo.com/72524396″]

Tell us a little about your business:

My name is Aaron Allsop and I make wedding films. Everybody needs something that sets them apart right? Well, I always wanted to go into filmmaking but at college but there were only news broadcasting classes offered. I took those and made short films as a hobby. Then one day I had two good friends getting married and as a wedding gift to them I told them that I would make their wedding video for them. There was about four hours in between the wedding at the temple and their reception so I planned on doing a same day edit. Fortunately personally studying film and cinematic techniques let me get some beautiful shots and my college training with news helped me take those beautiful shots and edit them together in the short amount of time I had to create a video that their families enjoyed that night at their reception up until now. I didn’t plan on sticking with wedding videos but the groom’s sister and brother asked me to do their wedding video. Then the Bride’s friend and cousin asked me to do theirs as well. It has kind of grown from there. Since then I have changed a lot of what I do in order to both improve the same day edits I do and also make them more streamlined. I have been able to do a same day edit with only an hour and a half of time. For me this is possible because I put a large focus on the planning of the video. I go into it knowing that the first 34 seconds of the song that the bride and groom chose (but lets be honest, the bride is the one who picked it out) is going to be shots of the temple. I then break that up and now that I am going to be having 7 different shots with in that time and have those written down before I get to the temple. A lot of times I won’t be filming and people might think that I should always be filming because I might miss that one shot. That might be true but, the more clips I have to sort through means the less time I have to focus on the fine tuning of the edit. To me time is a precious resource when doing a same day edit and I make sure to make the most of it so that the product I deliver is the best it can be.

How far in advance should a bride be looking for a videographer, and when should she book by?

I think that a bride should be looking for a videographer at least three months before hand and even more so if possible. There are some people who do wedding videos as a full time gig and I know that they fill up pretty fast during the spring and summer. With them you will want to book with them as soon as possible because someone else might getting married that same day might book them on the same day. Someone like me who does other freelance video work along with wedding videos might have a more open schedule because instead of strictly doing wedding videos I work with companies. Because of that I might have a more flexible schedule shoots with companies with what works best for me.

At what price do your services start at, and do you have any upcoming specials?

I keep my prices simple and easy. I charge $750 for a same day edit and $1,500 for a standard wedding film. If you would like both a same day edit and another video that I go back and spend more time editing and have footage of the reception I charge $2,000. Those prices are good for any wedding in Idaho and Utah (except St. George and Manti). Anywhere outside of there and we’ll have to talk about adding travel arrangements to that. A special I have for friends or referrals is $500 for a same day edit and I would love passing that onto Moxie readers.

Another special as well! My friends are working with me to get into doing slow motion wedding videos like this one: http://vimeo.com/75259949 The only thing is that we have the camera and skills to make one like this but we have never done it before. So before we go around and tell people that we can do this we want to make one ourselves to show people. So basically – the first person to contact me, who is getting married soon (in Utah), and fits in our schedules will get a video like this for free. We haven’t solidified pricing but if someone contacts me and we already agreed to do one for free we can offer them a good deal on it.