I went to a wedding a few weekends ago.  The bride was beautiful, the food was excellent, and the guest list was huge.  It was about an 8 hour day of shooting for us, and when we were packing up at about 10pm to head on home, one of the groomsmen asked me if we were going to do a same-day edit and get the video to them soon.

A same day edit?  Starting at 10PM?!

It was then that it struck me that most people probably have no idea how long the editing process takes.  I wanted to take this opportunity to shed a little light on the matter for those brides, families and eager groomsmen who want their movie ASAP.

Let’s say a wedding happens on Saturday.  The camera man drives 45 minutes home after a long hot day shooting in the sun and falls right to sleep.  He wakes up Sunday and brings it into the office and begins to download all of the footage onto the computer.

Now this is the part where I come in; Monday morning comes and I’m looking forward to getting that new footage!  I open the project and have to watch every single minute of video (luckily I can watch them in extra fast forward), starting from the time the videographer begins shooting to the end.  Mind you, the cameras are not rolling continuously throughout the day (thank goodness), so the clips range from anywhere between 4 seconds (for detail shots) to over an hour (during the ceremony).  As I watch the clips I name them, as well as mark the ones I want to use for the Trailer.

The whole process of just naming (or, as we call it, logging) the videos takes about an hour and a half or longer depending on the amount of hours the couple hired us to shoot. This gives us the organization that we need to begin the editing process.

Now the fun begins – the actual editing!  A good rule of thumb is that it takes about one hour for every minute of video that you see and that’s BEFORE the special effects. The color correcting, slowing down or speeding up footage, getting the timing, audio and transitions just perfect – it all takes time.  This of course depends on the editor’s skill, as well as how involved the video is – Trailers take a little less because there is little to no audio, and Hightlight films may take more with all of the story, music, and audio involved.

Here is a list of features, and the amount of work spent on them on average –

The Shoot Day – 6-10 hours

Logging – 2-3 hours

Trailers – 4 hours

Chapter Menus – 4 hours

Highlight Film – 20-40 hours +

Creating, burning, and copying the DVD – 3 hours

That is a total of between 80-90 hours of editing. So when you take a look at a videographer and are surprised by the investment recognize that the majority of what you are paying for is the editing time. One thing that I love about editing is the time that I put into it, creating every perfect detail to please the new bride, and creating something that didn’t exist before.  It is a science, a creative science and it’s not a cookie cutter formula that we use.  Each video is as unique as the couples we film.  So, same day edit?  Probably not.  But if you want a quality video that is made with love and meticulous care and that tells your story, we’ve got you covered!