Juelie + Andre

Many speeches given at weddings tend to focus on either inside jokes between the speech giver and the bride or groom, or be more of a list of adjectives that describe the bride or groom. This is nice! And I know I love hearing how great I am in a carefully selected string of descriptive words - but I realized that its sort of rare to be able to hear the story of a couple and how they met from attending their wedding! If it wasn’t obvious until now, Maclean and I are big fat fans of ‘story’ (have we said that before?) So we were super jazzed (yes, jazzed) to be able to hear Juelie (Joo-elle-ee) and Andre (Dre)’s story through many different people while at their wedding. And their story is funny! Which makes sense because these two are hi-LARIOUS. Each time we met with them Mac and I would laugh our pants off! I asked Mac after our final meeting before their wedding “Can I just film Juelies face the entire day? Cause she’s TOO funny! I don’t wanna miss anything she says!” (We later decided that maybe we should film other things as well, but that it was a good idea).

Moral of the story (see what I did there?) - its fun to be able to tell a story of a story! Does that make sense? It will – watch it and see!

juelie + andre || my camp crush from Hello Tomorrow on Vimeo.

PS A HUGE thank you to Jarusha Brown for not only being an incredible photographer, but also a flat out awesome human. Check out her work!

-Erin

Haleigh + Jordan

Mac and I love Palm Springs. You may think you love Palm Springs, but Mac I REALLY looooooove Palm Springs. We go a little too often, but every time is the best time. Its so beautiful! The sharp brown mountains against the clear blue sky and palm trees silhouetted everywhere – its just gorgeous! So when we met with Haleigh and Jordan (who we already knew we loved – not just because Haleigh is Mac’s cousin, but because they are generally just awesome people) and they said they wanted to get married in Palm Springs we said “YES WE’RE AVAILABLE YAAAAAAY!!!!!”

We knew we would love this wedding from the start. Haleigh's vision for the day was "I just want it to feel like a Sunday brunch". This really influenced our approach to the day and in telling the story. We not only wanted to portrait the intimacy of the wedding, but we wanted that feeling to carry throughout the entire story.

So Palm Springs, Haleigh and Jordan, and brunch. Best. Ever. We hope you enjoy the film!   -Erin

As always, if you have any questions or thoughts that you'd like to share, please leave us a comment :)

Hello Tomorrow Q&A

Over the past while we've been receiving a slew of emails, tweets, comments, and courier pigeons asking us questions about filmmaking. So much so that we've decided to start a little Q&A series on the blog. We love that people are inspired by our work and want to learn more, so we thought we'd bring the conversation here to the blog. Recently we received this email from Alex...

My name is Alex, and it's been so exciting stalking your website and blog as of late. Not to start off creepy, but your work is very inspiring and empowering to me who is trying to jump in fully within the industry myself. I have been doing weddings and any other sort of commercial work I can scavenge along the way for about a year now. I recently (like yesterday) left my job, and hoping to follow my passion within this industry (film/video, storytelling, weddings, etc.) I've taught myself everything (which isn't much). I learn from other film companies (such as yourselves) and latch onto bits and pieces to help grow and challenge myself in my skills. I caught onto Stillmotion awhile back, and they have mentioned some of your stuff in their blogs, and that's how I stumbled upon your work.

My wife and I live in Tennessee, and we got married this past May. I'm 24, and ambitious about seeking this new gift I have found, or think I have found. I know I have a lot to learn, but I wanted to introduce myself to you to see if you had any tips or thoughts on how you started and what set yourselves apart from the rest. I do see you put a lot of your skills in not only finding the story, but determining "who" it is that is involved in the story and what makes them who they are. Very awesome. I would love to connect better with my clients, and from the product of your work, you guys breathe that in every film.

Best, Alex

We replied to Alex's email, but this has been something we've wanted to expand on in a post on for a while now. So thank you Alex for getting us going! :)

When we were first getting started, we were passionate and eager to make compelling and exciting films. We wanted to move people emotionally, to change how they looked at the world, and to leave a lasting impression. We quickly realized that that doesn't just mean cool shots and an upbeat song. Story had always been important to us, but in the beginning it wasn't what we put first. It wasn't until going to film school that it really sunk in that Story is king. It's one thing to say, but another to truly realize it.

On our site we talk about the importance of story and how it should always come first. A lot of people don't know exactly what this means. Story is often thrown around as a general filmmaking and marketing term, but to us it is much more. A story is made up many different parts such as plot, narrative, structure, rising/falling action, and of course character. Character is a huge one for us. Here's what Martin Scorsese has to say about character...

"The films that I constantly revisited or saw repeatedly held up longer for me over the years not because of plot but because of character, and a very different approach to story."

When we approach a story, be it a wedding or a commercial project, we want to find out about the main "characters" that will be in our story. For weddings, this is often but not always only the Bride + Groom. These are real people. No not just "Man in suit" and "Woman in dress", but real people. We want the films we make to be unique to the couple and the only way you can truly do that is to get to know them. An example of this is Robyn + Joe.  We don't live very close to Robyn + Joe, in fact we're not even in the same Province, but we didn't let that get in the way of us learning as much as possible about them. Through hanging out with them on Skype, emailing, and meeting them in person the day before the wedding, we went into the shoot having a clear vision for the story and the characters that would drive it. We find this to be KEY in telling a unique and personal story. Like Alex kindly said in his email "...determining 'who' it is that is involved in the story and what makes them who they are."

robyn + joe || one hundred & two from Hello Tomorrow on Vimeo.

The important thing to remember as a storyteller is that YOU are the one telling the story. Your perspective is unique. No one else has it. A common mistake is going online, seeing what's popular and then mimicking that in your films. It's OK to be inspired by what you see others doing but don't imitate, innovate! Push yourself. Find your own vision and follow it. These are things we often remind ourselves of.

Another mistake can be getting sucked into all the latest gear and equipment and saying to yourself, "Oh man, if I only had this camera then I would make great films!". Sorry but that is not even close to true. Story is king. Not the gear. If you're a storyteller, go out and tell your story. You don't need a RED, just grab an iPhone or whatever you can get your hands on and get to it!

Photo by James Moes

Apologies for the super long post, but this is something we're super passionate about and have been wanting to talk about for a long time :) Have thoughts on this post or questions for a future Q+A? We'd love it if you would leave a comment below.

-Mac

PS Give us a follow on Instagram for more BTS photos! @hellotmrw

Haleigh + Devon

Maclean and I have been together for eight and a half years. I know him pretty well. Even when we were dating we spent almost every day together, we work together and for the past almost four years, we have lived together too. I should know who his friends are… right? I have always known who ‘Devon Penner’ is. Maybe from church, or from Maclean’s tiny school, but I’ve known who he is. This young kid with great style who went off to the States to become a Chiropractor. So impressive. But for many years I didn’t know that Devon and Maclean were buddies. How did I miss this? One day I look over as Mac is reading an email and it's the length of an essay! I asked him who it was from. Devon Penner. Mac starts emailing back. Another essay. Mac doesn’t write essays. He’s never written me one… Well that must be because I am not his secret movie buddy.

I didn’t think anyone could love movies more than Maclean. He really loves movies. His dream birthday party is a kids pizza party at colossus followed by a movie. (Unfortunately you have to be under 12 to do that… and no you can’t just bring one kid.) But Devon really loves movies. He has actually watched ALL the movies. This might be even more impressive than the fact that he is a Chiropractor. Maclean and Devon and movies have a very special relationship and I’m so happy they found each other.

Devon is probably even more happy that he found Haleigh. She watches all the movies with him and also married him. Can’t beat that! These two have an adorable story that started long ago. Rather than give it all away in this post, we think you should watch their movie.

- Erin

haleigh + devon || the hunt is over from Hello Tomorrow on Vimeo.

The vendors at this wedding were the complete dream team. We had a blast as always working with the incredible Filosophi Events who delivered a gorgeous and seamless day once again. Our friends Shari + Mike photographed the wedding and it never ceases to amaze us how passionate, hard working, and talented these two are. Not to mention flat out awesome. The whole day was beautiful and beyond fun and we can't wait to work with these people again!

TECHY STUFF:

As you already know, story comes first in all we do. We want the tools we use to free us from the technical and allow us to tell the story in the most creative and effective way possible. For us this means our trusty Canon C100s and Canon glass. But for a while now we've been eyeing the Sony A7s (if you don't know about it, check out Philip Blooms review of it here). This camera has some killer features like it's amazing low light ability, slow motion, full frame sensor, and most of all it's size (the thing is tiny). We finally caved and picked one up and this was our first wedding using it. Our minds were blown after using it on this shoot. So much punch in such a small package. We were able to shoot at insanely high ISO's and stop down to get a deep depth of field in extremely low light situations, something that hasn't been possible before. We loved being able to quickly jump into 60p to capture certain moments in slow motion which we have missed oh so much since the C100 mk1 doesn't have 60p. Also with the camera being the size of a small rangefinder, we were able to shoot even more candidly than before. From the subject's perspective we just look like a guest with a camera. All in all this camera is an awesome addition to our wedding kit. It can't quite replace the quality and ease-of-use of the Canon C100, but it is the perfect B cam and a great tool to have.