Hollywood Blockbuster Style Wedding Films | Wedding Filmmaker Spotlight: Ray Roman

Cinematic Drums

The first thing that jumps out to me about this film is the sound design and the cinematic drums. If you want to get some drums like this into your films, because this is the sort of effect you want, then google cinematic drum loops/samples. Here: https://weraveyou.com/2020/08/the-best-cinematic-drums-sample-packs-in-2020/ is an example of what that looks like. These are the easiest way to add that cinematic blockbuster drum sound into your films. 

 

Professional Audio Production

Another thing that jumps out is the super clean audio coming from the groom. This is what professional level audio clean up and production sounds like. Listen to that audio and tell me it’s bringing the production value of this video up. You can’t. 

 

Fader Riding

Listen to the way the audio levels fade in and out and get quieter when people are speaking, and when something epic is happening the music gets even louder. This is called fader riding and audio ducking. It helps keep the viewer interested and it underlines the most important parts of the video. 

 

The Song

The Linkin Park Cover gives the film a more expensive quality, because it’s something we all know and recognise. We’re used to hearing artists we’ve never heard of before in wedding films so this change makes the film standout. 

 

Location

Like it or not, location and time of day are super important when shooting exteriors. The crew nailed both by shooting close to and through sunset in the middle of the desert. The absence of distracting background elements make the compositions clean and compelling. 

 

Drone

I think it goes without saying that if you want your films to look as expensive as possible you are going to need a drone. One thing I’d like to mention about flying the drone however is that your drone shots will look more expensive when you do less. Let me explain. For a really, really long time no one had a drone and the only way you could get what we today call drone shots was with a helicopter. Helicopters have limitations in the way they can move and those limitations are now apart of how we expect arial footage to look. Stick to simple movements with your drone: forward and backward and side to side. Try to resist the temptation to pan left and right while moving forward or to pan up and down while moving side to side. These kinds of movements give away the fact that it’s a drone. 

 

Editing

The editing of this film is very fast paced and forward movement is added in post to keep the viewer engaged. For those trying to emulate this style I would say that anything you can do to keep the viewer engaged and wanting to see the next shot is going to be what you want to do. Push-ins, sound effects, and audio panning will be your friends. 

Composition

All of Ray Roman’s films are beautifully composed and that’s one of the things that make his films stand above the rest. He has put in the reps and thought critically about what he can do to make his films better, and he’s been perfecting his craft for years. I recommend you study all of his films, take screen shots of the shots you love, and make notes to try and figure out what it is you like about them and how you can recreate them. 

 

Go and checkout Ray Roman: https://rayromanfilms.com