HD Delivery

I was going to do something a little more complicated with this, and will undoubtedly add to this later but my hand was somewhat forced as a result of another post I made.

A few weeks back(July actually) I photographed a wedding where I filled in for the regular photographer due to illness.(see blog entry An unintended Saturday ) There was a twist to this I've not mentioned previously.

The entire deliverable was to be in a slideshow format for presentation at HD 1080 quality. There were a specified number (more than 50 I can say) of DVD copies to be produced and mailed. This was the result of a pretty tech savvy couple who never have like the whole selling of the photographs game. Both have bro and sis's who've gone through the whole thing and they just were fed up with it. So . . .

They approached several photographer's with:

We don't want to buy ANY photos, ever. We don't want' to sell photos for you or have you go through all kinds of exercises to get us to buy a package. We want to write a series of three checks, a deposit, a work completion, and an acceptance/delivery payment.

We want, followed by a list of several hundred 'standard' and some not so standard photos plus whatever else you take (the photog wants to shoot), there will be a girls/fashion shoot, a guys golf outing, a family dinner/rehearsal/get together and it will all be delivered in the following 'format'. They proceeded to spell out what standards they expected, the quality of DVD production and they would provide sound track/narration if necessary. They would alot so many hours (30 I think) between them and a representative to help select and compile the final 'show'.

But they didn't want just some one wandering about with a video camera either! They had that and I understand it didn't go as intended. But that's another story!

They didn't blink when a 5-figure amount was mentioned (i.e. in excess of $10,000). Of course there were finally 5 photographers, two production assistants and I think six or seven locations. I shot at two. I also worked (and had planned on that part before also shooting) on the post production which we really wrapped up within a month.

The extra copies were gifts to wedding party members and selected guests and family members. There were finally three distinct DVD's delivered, the main specified images, outakes and extras and specials for events such one DVD that included the 'fashion shoot'.

I have seen simliar to this a time or two before and I've done some slide shows for non commercial work in the past but this is starting to look like a very large portion of future business in the wedding field.

Have you begun to see this type of business come your way or fellow photographers way of late?