Roo Stain - Award winning wedding videographer who started as a photographer

Steve and Nick's guest for this episode is Roo Stain, a multi-award winning photographer based in the West Midlands of the UK. Although Roo studied film-making at University, he initial worked as a wedding photographer, before transitioning into full time videography. He tells Steve and Nick about:

• How his photography experience helped define his approach to videography
• The gear and lenses he uses and why he prefers a minimalistic approach
• How he approaches audio capture
• His editing style and in camera settings
• Why he doesn't routinely shoot hybrid photo/video
• His views on content creators at weddings 

The 10 minute techy talk is about focusing and hyperfocal distance. The book of the week is Every Week We Follow, a BTS fans perspective of Aston Villa's 2023/24 season.

Roo Stain Website https://www.roostain.com/
Gamut.io Video LUT's https://gamut.io/
Every Week We Follow by Pete Hithchman https://lowerblock.com/articles/aston-villa-every-week-we-follow/

Music by Artlist.io 

Transcript

Steve Vaughan (00:00)
Hello again and welcome to the photography pod, a photography podcast for both working professionals and enthusiast photographers alike. My name is Steve Vaughan, I'm a wedding photographer here in Oxfordshire and I've got my good mate and great wedding photographer down in Bristol, Nick Church with me once again. Nick, how you doing?

Nick Church (00:17)
Very well, Steve. Good to see you again. It's a, it's a late one today. We're, we're, is it because our guest has pushed our, our limits of how, how let me want to go. And, so I've, I've got a cup of coffee and it's going to be fine. It'd be absolutely fine. Nothing can go wrong. it does a bit. Yeah. That's quite a big, that's quite a big sample. I know if you've ever given a sample to the doctors. They don't expect that much normally.

Steve Vaughan (00:19)
And you mate, yeah, yeah.

I've got a bottle. I've got a kind of beer. Actually, it looks like a sample, doesn't it? To be honest, look at that. It is actually a beer. It's Marks and Spencer Citra. Nothing. No. It's it's. That's after I've had five pints of it, probably anyway, let's not let's not go there. Let's not disappear and down a rabbit hole before we even get into two minutes of the podcast. So so Nick, know you're always super busy. What have been up to since we last did a show?

Nick Church (00:48)
You

yeah, really busy as normal, but it's kind of made me think that I think lots of people are. So whenever I do weddings this, this time of year, or we sort of from sort of September onwards, whenever you speak to other photographers or filmmakers, we're all in the same boat that you're just crushed with work at this time of year. And what you'd like to do is say to all of your clients,

there's going to be a six month delivery time and then you can just use it, use that sort of fallow period of just for editing and stuff and just really smooth out the hummus. But you can't do that. So you're crushing with those stuff. And it just makes me think that it's almost like as, sole traders as well as in, individual sort of creatives, it's almost like our measure of success. We almost kind of welcome it. It's like take on more and more work is our, our metric, our barometer of how successful we're being. And actually that success is, is a fairly like small axes really.

of what's, you know, because it's at the expense of your hobbies and fitness and eating healthily and family time and all the other, all the other things. and it's, it's funny, Steve, do you ever like to say no to work when you're, see, I never do. And this is, this is the problem.

Steve Vaughan (01:54)
Yeah, yeah.

yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think it's one of the most important things you do in business. As you know, I've got two businesses. I've got my wedding photography business and we've also got the training business that I'm going to major on as I move forward. I think it's really important knowing how to say no, because if you'd say yes to something that isn't right, you're only going to regret it further down the line and probably your heart's not going to be in it as well. And probably the work you deliver won't be as good. Yeah.

Nick Church (02:21)
Mm.

Yeah, I think that's, that's definitely, that's certainly one, one thing about, know, it is a particular job going to be, you know, is that going to be a right fit for you? But there's the other thing about how many times are you saying yes to, let's say if you're, if you're doing loads, you know, if you're being, if you're doing really well, you're getting a large stream of perfect clients, you know, do it at any point, you say, right, actually, that's enough now. I need to sort of, you know,

Steve Vaughan (02:41)
Hmm.

I think anybody that runs their own business or a small company is always frightened to death of having no business and understandably, you know, and there's always the temptation just to be super busy because that feels like what you should be really. But let's be honest, most of us started working in these kinds of industries and me particularly because we left the corporate world. You left the IT world. I left the big business world of

of instrumentation or sales because I had no work-life balance. You know, was never at home, and when I was at home, I was always working. So the reason that I've done what I've done for the last 10 years is I wanted to get that work-life balance back. And I think the temptation is that we get super busy for that reason because we feel like we should be really. And I think, you know, without getting too much into sales speak, it's what they call qualification. It's knowing.

Nick Church (03:25)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (03:45)
the jobs to take on, you know, whether the right kind of customer, obviously the budget's got to be right, what they want to do, but also it's got to be right for you, the return for us to be right as well. So, see if I can deepen philosophical for two minutes in.

Nick Church (03:55)
Yeah. mean, it's, it's, it's an interesting thing. I've been thinking about it because I'm doing my, I said to you before I'm doing my wedding photography workshop in two weeks. 14th, 15th of December. And a lot of that is about outsourcing things and working out because it's the problem that we all have is quite similar to somebody that's starting out in a, as a professional photographer that they've often got a full-time job or, some other, something else is taking all of their time, childcare, whatever it might be.

Steve Vaughan (04:04)
Hmm. Yeah.

Nick Church (04:25)
And it's the same problem that you just don't have that time. the idea of outsourcing outsource, you know, do what you do best outsource the rest, you know, that's, that's the, that's the idea. And, and I do find things like, after shoots and other things that kind of. Make us bring more things back into our, you know, circle of things that we're in control of is a bit of a bad thing in some ways it's good because it's a lot faster than editing your own images.

Steve Vaughan (04:46)
Yeah.

Nick Church (04:53)
but it's not as quick and as reliable as an outsourced, know, but it is cheaper. Yeah. So it's, it's an interesting kind of angle, but anyway, that's where I'm at the moment. I've also, as, as I said, I'm doing a, doing a music project at the moment as well. So that's, that's taking, a chunk of time. So that is completely, a selfish thing of my own, you know, it's my own fault. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (04:56)
Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. This is you writing your own songs, playing guitar, singing, yeah.

Nick Church (05:19)
Yeah, so that's going really well, but that's my fault. That's something that I've decided to do.

Steve Vaughan (05:26)
So while we're talking about music, let me tell you what I got up to last weekend. So I went to Planet Rockstock. So what's Planet Rockstock? So Planet Rock is an internet radio station that plays rock music, mostly classic rock, but some new bands. And every year they do a festival, hence the stock bit. And it's at Treco Bay in Porth Core, which is a giant holiday park. So I went with an old university mate of mine I've known for 40 years. That's your age. And we shared a caravan together.

not a room but a caravan. And we had the whole weekend from Thursday till Sunday night walking around the caravan park listening to bands and it was bloody great. It was such fun. So the main stage is actually a proper stage. The headliners were Uriah Heap. You're both, you're too young. My guest who we're going to introduce in a second is definitely too young. But we, there were some bands, mean to sort of Southern rock and all that kind of stuff. There was a couple of great bands, Robert John and The Rick, the commonest bands like that.

Nick Church (06:04)
Amazing.

Steve Vaughan (06:24)
But also there's a marquee at the side and you can just walk in. There'd be like young bands just playing and you walk in and you think, actually these are quite good. I might stop and have another beer. And the best part of it, Nick, was I actually felt young there. There aren't many rock songs or rock festivals where you have parking for mobility scooters, but this is where, this is what it definitely does. So it was a lot of fun.

Nick Church (06:33)
Mm.

I

Because most festivals, if you're able to go to it, just look like we've come to pick up the kids and we've got lost somehow and we need some help to get to the exit.

Steve Vaughan (06:51)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, I definitely felt like I belong there. So if you fancy it next year, mate, we can go. Yeah, you can share our car if I do it.

Nick Church (06:59)
sounds good. Well, you terrified me because when you said you were is a campsite or like I imagined you were camping and I looked at the weather last weekend. Yeah. Right. Okay.

Steve Vaughan (07:06)
No,

Roo Stain (07:26)
I'm very well guys, thanks for having me on.

Steve Vaughan (07:28)
great to have you here. You're our first videographer. You are. So, yeah, it's great to have you here. So, so for those of you, and we will obviously do more into the show notes, but Roo is a videographer based in Warwickshire. He's also a YouTuber and a podcaster as well. So he probably knows more about what he's doing here than we do, but still. So we'll explore that over that course of our chat together.

Roo Stain (07:31)
Am I? What a pleasure.

Steve Vaughan (07:55)
I'm going to take a little bit of backseat on this one because although I've chatted with Roo often, I've never actually met you in the face, and I still haven't because we're doing this over Riverside, but Nick, you and Roo have worked together in a real life wedding.

Nick Church (08:06)
We did once, didn't we, about two or three years ago. And I was trying to think earlier of the name of the couple, it was, that's right. Well done. Yeah. So I just couldn't, like, it's funny when you can't, you can't search something when you just need the names to search it. And that was the thing I couldn't, I couldn't find, but it's in the most random place. It was a beautiful location, wasn't it? And was it Froome? Is it Wiltshire somewhere?

Roo Stain (08:13)
Yeah, Alicia and Jamie.

Steve Vaughan (08:15)
Well remembered.

Roo Stain (08:22)
Yeah.

Yeah. It was, I think. Yeah. And it's the one wedding I've shot where the view from being stood was actually better than my drone. Cause we were up quite high, weren't we? Unlike a, like a hill overlooking this great landscape. I took my drone out, but it actually looked worse.

Nick Church (08:38)
It was, yeah. Yeah.

No, it was epic. was really, really lovely. that was, you know, that was really nice. It was great to work with Ru. As Steve said, really nice guy. And just, you know, I never work with anyone that's really hard work to get on with, but sometimes with people that you just think, well, what a pleasure to be, you know, part of the same, same job. And that was definitely the case here. So, and there was a good band as well, wasn't there? Do remember? There was like a...

Steve Vaughan (08:44)
You

Roo Stain (09:05)
Thank you.

Yes!

Nick Church (09:08)
cover like Guns N Roses, they were doing all kinds of covers, but really, really good covers, really, you know, putting their own stamp on it. I couldn't remember the couple's name though, to be fair. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (09:13)
I can't remember what I was doing three months ago, let alone three years ago.

Roo Stain (09:16)
Hahaha

Yeah, but you can remember the band. To be fair to you, it was in that whole post-COVID hustle though, wasn't it? It was one of those weddings where it was just like season of chaos.

Nick Church (09:27)
It was.

Yeah. And the actual venue was a marquee on top of this beautiful hill with a great view. But I seem to remember it was the family's land and it was, but it was in the middle of nowhere and we basically had a Google pin to get there. And I was about 20 minutes after the ceremony, was about 20 minutes late because I just could not find it. I think Ru was there and I think, bugger, he's got there early. But then he said he only got there about three minutes before me. So we were both in the same boat.

Roo Stain (09:41)
Yeah.

Mm.

Steve Vaughan (09:56)
Hahaha.

Roo Stain (09:56)
Literally, yeah.

Nick Church (10:01)
So Rui, do you want to give us a bit of a background of your journey into sort of how you've got to where you are now?

Steve Vaughan (10:01)
So.

Roo Stain (10:05)
Yeah.

Okay, yeah. I mean, I started, I did start off as a wedding photographer originally. And, but my background, my degree is in filmmaking. I did film production at university. So even as a photographer, I always had my eye on videography to a certain extent. But when I first started out doing photography, there wasn't much, there wasn't much in terms of video, videography out there. if you, and the videographers I was working with,

all had such insane amounts of gear and equipment. And it really just felt like something I didn't really want to be involved in. In fact, like too much faff, but I would find myself with every videographer I did work with kind of quizzing them because I was just intrigued by it, the whole process. And I feel even my, my photography style was very filmic in a way in terms of, I used to deliver a slideshow to my couples as well, as well as the full gallery, but I was always work shooting with that slideshow in mind. Like, so I wanted like an establishing shot. I then wanted like,

wide shots, mid shots. very, very kind of video videography style in a way. so when it, so when it came to moving over to video, it's almost like I'd been practicing as a videographer, even with my photography to a certain extent. But there was one year in particular where I found that I shot with more, I had more videographers working with me in that one season than I had my entire three or four years up to that point.

Steve Vaughan (11:18)
Right.

Roo Stain (11:33)
So I could see a shift in the market. So I was thinking if, if I'm going to make this move into video now is the time, because I felt like the photography market was just getting more more saturated. And as much as I liked it, I thought I felt like a small fish in a massive pond. Whereas I thought if I moved to video, I could perhaps elevate my brand a bit further quicker. So that was part of my thing. So it was part of, was a creative endeavor for, guess, for the most part, because

I just like the power of video has like we have what we have with like sound and emotion, what that has over photo. It's just something I kind of wanted to explore a little bit. so yeah, so that, that, that mindset was set, set in my head that I kind of wanted to make the shift. And then it was a chance meeting with, Phil, Phil white. I don't know if you know Phil, but he is kind of like, I'd say the, I'd say grandfather, he's the same age as me, but the majority of,

Nick Church (12:05)
Hmm.

Roo Stain (12:25)
wedding videographers now, like the new breed of wedding filmmakers. A lot of us have come through his kind of online course or his in-person course that he did. He did like a groundbreaking course quite, it's a few years ago now. It's probably like six years ago he did it. But I met him. cause I had a vision for how I want, if I was going to do videography, I had a vision of how I was going to do it. Cause from a photo point of view, I was always shooting on a 35 mil lens and an 85. And, the shots I was getting on my 85 mil.

Nick Church (12:33)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Roo Stain (12:55)
loved them, but they didn't really tell a story in the frame because like they're nice, beautiful tight shots, but didn't really tell a story. But I thought with video, because you're piecing together little frames, I thought if I shot a whole day on an 85 in video and pieced those scenes together, it looked beautiful and tell a story in like, really beautiful, beautiful aesthetic way. And I was chatting to Phil and he said he's a videographer. So I went through my usual process of quizzing a videographer that I've met.

And so the things that holding me back were kind of, didn't want lots of equipment. And I was a bit concerned about how I'll do sound because all the videographers I've worked with were using the lav mics with the wires. And it just seemed a lot of faff and stress. And so I asked Phil, I was like, so what kind of focal length are you using? And he was like, I use an 85 mil all day. And I was straight away, was like, light bulb has gone off here. Like this is exactly what I was considering for my work. And then I asked him what, you're using for sound. And he said, I just use these tiny little Sony Dictaphones.

which I don't know if they, it's the Sony TX 650, which is some, like all of us these now, but at the time they were, Phil was the only, Phil was the first person to use them. So nobody else knew about these. so again, I was like, this is the two things that I was kind of like thinking about. This guy is doing it. I really hope his work's good. And he left the room. So then I went, I went and I searched him straight away to have a look at his work. And then it ended up being, it was the most beautiful wedding videography I've ever seen in my life. It was just.

Nick Church (13:57)
Mm.

Steve Vaughan (13:57)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. All right.

Hahaha.

Roo Stain (14:21)
I'd never seen anything like this. And it was exactly how I envisioned I wanted my work to look. And he was, he was doing it with minimum gear, minimum force. was just ticking all those boxes. So straight away, I learned that he was doing courses as like, mate, I've got to come on your course. And, yeah, so I went on his course and like, that was the, set the foundations really for them, how I moved on and transitioned over.

Steve Vaughan (14:45)
So let's just explore that a bit more then Ru. So first of all, I'm fascinated by the choice of the lens. So you're sort of, I guess being much more immersive with a short telephoto. Is that the thinking? Yeah. Okay.

Roo Stain (14:57)
Yes. Yes. So it's developed it's developed since then. So now I started off on that 85 mil literally kind of it was, that was my vision initially. And then just copying Phil's course, the 85 mil. I soon found that was too tight. because the other problem I had Phil was always using like a monopod and like anyone that was shooting an 85 was using a monopod. Cause that's the only way to keep them stable. I soon realized being a photographer initially, and then suddenly going to having a stick attached to you all day. I was just.

I couldn't get the same compositions I was used to. I just couldn't move as freely. So I needed to ditch that as soon as possible. And then, so my compromise was to go to a 50 mil, which kind of gave that still a nice compression, nice tight frames, but it also meant I could keep it stable, handheld. So that was a shift I made. But the big difference between shooting photo and video is with video, with photo, sorry, you need to tell a story.

Quite often you need to tell a story in a single frame, don't you? With video, it's the opposite. You need multiple frames because you need to, for video, you want multiple cuts and move around in space and time to keep the edit kind of engaging. Single long takes of a frame are just super boring and dull to watch. So the way around that is if you shoot lots of tighter shots, it means you can cut between different frames and different angles and it keeps it more engaging. So by using a tighter lens, it kind of lends itself to that.

Steve Vaughan (16:19)
Right.

Roo Stain (16:24)
so yeah, and also you need to shoot around a photographer. So if you, if you're shooting on a 35 mil, they're going to be a frame like all the time. So yeah. Yeah. Well, I can't, I can't remember it. So you must've just been all right to work with Nick. Cause I can't remember you being away. I remember the bad ones. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (16:27)
Pesky Photographers.

Nick Church (16:31)
He's talking about me.

I'm well, I'm normally, I'm normally, I'm normally rocking at 7,200. So I was probably behind you. I was probably even further back. Yeah. I worked with a, I don't know you know a guy called Louis or Louis Arnold. I do wedding films. It's quite, it's on the South coast, but I suspect he's either gone through the same course or it's got a similar way of thinking in that he would use a 70. I've never seen anyone use 7,200 for a wedding filmmaker on a monopod. That's the only lens he used all day.

Steve Vaughan (16:39)
Hahaha

He was in the car park.

Wow.

Nick Church (17:09)
say we do a hundred, really tight shots, really narrowed down the field, very fast. Cause I looked at the edits afterwards cause I was interested to see how they've been put together. And yeah, just a completely different film to one I've ever seen before. And when I do films, I don't do them like that, but it's totally different to mine. And it's just really, it is really, normally you go wide to get that kind of set and get close to be, but when it's so that that feels like that's immersive.

Roo Stain (17:09)
wow, yeah.

Nick Church (17:37)
but it's also mercy to get far back and get really, you know, really tight in, because you just do feel like it's not, so it's just very observational, you know, it's kind of, you know, very intimate, intimate, intimate feeling when you, cause I know I do remember when you, when we shot together, you didn't have tons of kit. And I know exactly, cause I started in wedding, photography, probably about the time that you.

Steve Vaughan (17:48)
Yeah.

Nick Church (18:04)
made that leap. When I was first starting, the videographers were often still with shoulder, you know, the last kind of shoulder mount things, loads of stuff, really massive tripods and loads of boom mics all over the place. And that would have put me off completely. So that's interesting. Where did you study really when you did filmmaking at university? Okay.

Roo Stain (18:12)
Yeah, polo shirts and shoulder mounts, yeah.

Steve Vaughan (18:17)
Well.

Roo Stain (18:28)
Manchester Met I was yeah, I was there and Yeah, my plan was to be a film director. That's what I want Honestly, if I'd been told at that point in my life that I ended up I was gonna end up being a wedding videographer I don't I would have been devastated But it wasn't much yeah

Nick Church (18:35)
Yeah.

Well, plenty of people do that, don't they, as a means to an end. And then, you know, they do their own kind of non-fiction, you know, or fiction stuff on the sides. But, no, no. Absolutely.

Roo Stain (18:55)
But it wasn't cool back then, there was it at all. like, honestly, I think I've got the best career in the world with what the job I get to do is phenomenal. yeah, the landscape of it is all changed. But going back to what you're saying about kind of like the, a focal lens then, cause with a 30, with video, cause you've got like being close with a wide lens, you can't really do it with video, can you? With photo you can get in and you can get a shot and can get out again. With video, you've got to be sitting there for at least six seconds. And if you were the 35th, you're tight.

that's how I used to shoot a photo I soon found out that my style of photography would not work for video so I'm going go title yeah

Steve Vaughan (19:28)
It's completely alien to me because my preferred way of is getting really close. I'm often with a 24 even because I love to be close in to the couple, but also get the, you know, the layers and the background as well. And I just listened to conversations where that clearly wouldn't work from your approach from a video. So is what you're describing, and you this is a word that gets used an awful lot, but I'm not sure everybody really knows what it means, is what you're describing a cinematic approach.

Roo Stain (19:32)
Yeah. Right.

No, a bit creepy for a videographer, yeah.

don't know. don't know if it's cinematic. That is the word that we all use, isn't it? I guess. Yeah, I guess it could break cinematic down in the way that kind of shallow depth of field, I kind of lend itself to cinematic, doesn't it? Well, iPhone, for example, their cinematic mode is literally just shallow depth of field, isn't it? Fake shallow depth of field. So in that respect, yeah, I guess so. And I am kind of, I like to, even though I'm handheld, I like my films to feel

Steve Vaughan (20:02)
Exactly.

Mm-hmm.

Nick Church (20:17)
Hmm. Yep.

Steve Vaughan (20:18)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Roo Stain (20:26)
relatively still, rather than chaotic and moving around. I guess that kind of, yeah, I guess people's definitions of cinematic can vary, can't they? But I want it to look pretty.

Steve Vaughan (20:36)
Yeah.

Nick Church (20:36)
I think it means a variety of things, doesn't it? It's definitely, it seems to be shallow depth of field, a certain sort of grade, I would say, you know, if it is very real colors, just completely out of camera colors, I think you would struggle to call it cinematic. The cut, the sequencing, the cutting, the story, I don't know, it is a mix of everything, probably like you say, really, you can always apply it to whatever we do, because we all do say the same thing, but...

having looked at some of your films today, I said, you know, if there is a definition of cinematic, then I think your films do have that in spades. And I think it really comes through. Do you find that, sorry Steve, when you, because I just want, before you went on from Rue's sort of education, so you always had filmmaking in your, you know, wheelhouse, as it were, that was something that you wanted to do.

Steve Vaughan (21:15)
completely. Just on the... go on, go on, sorry.

Roo Stain (21:15)
thank you. thank you.

Nick Church (21:35)
When you decided to make that change, was it a very strategic, right, this year I'm gonna start promoting myself as filmmaker, or was it that couples that who you were shooting photos for started asking about wedding films as well, and that was something that you moved into? How did that transition work?

Roo Stain (21:53)
Yeah. So it was, I guess I, it's probably worth me telling the steps I took to kind of make a little bit move into it. So I was in a wonderful space in terms of, had lots of photography friends that I'd met. so when it came to wanting to start to do videography, I had these friends that I could ask, was like, do any of your couples want a wedding film for free? I'll come along. You know, I won't be in your way. I can even help you as a second shoot for photo if you need, but I'll basically give them a wedding film for free. And,

I get to you know, some portfolio stuff for me. So I did that for a few weddings. A friend Darren Gaye let me come along to a couple of his weddings and I just like because I want to test it out first to see if I actually did like it. Because the problem if you're going to change if you're to transition I was doing quite well on my photo side I was earning I was charging a decent amount of money. So then to suddenly become a videographer I was it meant to start and again completely. Which is, you know,

Nick Church (22:44)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Roo Stain (22:51)
You can't just do that, can you? just can't suddenly start going back to the beginning. Yeah.

Nick Church (22:55)
Well, it's really hard. that's one of the jobs I've got this winter is to, have to redo the website. I've had this other, this other space site design that I need to transition to. I'm just terrified of doing it because I don't want to have to lose all my SEO and start everything again. So I can imagine starting a whole new stream of products to be pretty stressful like that, especially when, you know, your livelihood does, does depend on it. So you were able to get some content and get some portfolio pieces together.

Roo Stain (23:08)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And it was a case of then I was considering basically I had it in my mind right from the start that I wanted to fully transition over to video that was in my head. And that was kind of like the end goal because I was just all the things that I liked photography, but I didn't love it. And there was all the parts of a wedding day that I didn't love were eradicated with video. So it was all the things I did like, like the creativity and kind of, you know, the

get compositions and working with light and, and creating a story. But I didn't like the fact that as a photographer, I felt like 90 % wedding planner. And I was having just coordinating timings of the day. You know what it's like. I felt like my creativity was being stunted by the fact I was always worrying about when am I going to do group shots and coordinating times and working with people as a videographer that is completely gone. That is, that is no, I used to drive as a photographer, drive to a venue and the whole time I'd be preoccupied with where am going to do portraits? Where am going to do group shots?

Steve Vaughan (23:58)
Yeah. Yeah, completely.

Roo Stain (24:20)
thinking that over and over and over the video. I'm just chilling. Like as I drive to that wedding day, I'm like, whatever happens, it doesn't matter because I can work with anything. And when you're working with sound as well, as well as visuals, you can build a story with whatever's there. If the weather, if the weather's horrendous on a day, that can become part of the story. That can become an intriguing part. Whereas photo, if the weather's terrible, it's brutal, isn't it? So it almost, lots of my brain space was emptied with worry and it left.

Nick Church (24:23)
You

Roo Stain (24:48)
and more creativity could come spilling in. So I ended up just loving the day. So I absolutely love a wedding day now. It's the edit now that's the brutal bit where it used to be the opposite before.

Nick Church (24:57)
But that's, but that's quite, I think with, I do a few wedding films. I've shot, you know, I shoot a few, my client, you know, I do provide quite a few more where other people shoot for me. So I do the editing side. What I do love about that process is you mentioned earlier, Ru, that, that emotion, the emotional story coming to life in front of you. And it's interesting that you, would you say you're shooting for that story at the time? You mentioned a story, you know, this storyline a few times.

Is that something you're kind of deciding on shot by shot? Or is it something that just emerges once you look at the footage you've got?

Roo Stain (25:34)
Bit, a bit of both. basically I like to, I always tell my couples this. I want to immerse myself in their day and learn who they are as people from what's being said and kind of, there's certain things I'm always going to capture on a wedding day. They're like default in your brain. Like you just kind of, capture, they're groomed most likely I'm going to put by window to put on his, you know, his tie thing. That just happens. But then it's kind of, then I'm looking for what makes the couple unique and what's going to make an interesting part of the story.

And years down the line, what will their kids want to see from there about their mom and dad, that kind of thing. Those kind of are going to my head, but I'm not really going in there with a preconceived idea. It's a case I want to experience that day and then create a film that really showcases that day. yeah, but yeah.

Steve Vaughan (26:04)
Yeah.

Nick Church (26:16)
which keeps things nice and fresh, I suppose, as well. you're never risking going into that rut of, you know, this shot's gonna work, that sequence is gonna work, because it works for every couple and they don't see each other's films, they'll never know you're doing the same thing for each film. So I think that is useful.

Roo Stain (26:24)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (26:28)
Absolutely. It's probably a good time to point out to the listener that Roo's got a fantastic YouTube channel, Roo Films, and I think you've got a couple or even three behind the scenes videos on there where you've got a videographer following you around videoing a wedding. what you described really comes across so well really in those videos, the fact that you're

Roo Stain (26:48)
Yeah, inception.

Steve Vaughan (26:56)
you're not trying to control the day, you're just taking key moments from the day. I guess like we try and do as photographers, but you're quite right about all the must take stuff we have to do as well. I think there's a bit where you're saying, what time are you to get in the dress? So, okay, I'll make sure I'm there for that kind of time. But no, at no time are you sort of saying, I've got to do this shot or you've to come out here. You're just...

capturing what's going on in a beautiful way really and it's fascinating to watch. I've loved watching your behind the scenes videos. I really recommend them to anybody listening to the pod who's even remotely curious about me making wedding videos. It's fantastic to watch.

Roo Stain (27:31)
Thank you. I mean, it's interesting doing the behind the scenes because I learned a lot about myself that I didn't know. And, and I did realize that even I'm saying that, you know, I don't want, I like that I don't control the day as much as a videographer. I did notice that I do control it a lot more than I realized, but almost subconsciously by making sure certain things happen at a certain time, but I'll just planting the idea in people's minds throughout the day. feel like I'm doing Jedi mind tricks on people throughout and almost plant because I'm knowing where there's going to, we all know there's those bottlenecks throughout the day. Don't we wear?

Steve Vaughan (27:36)
I bet you did.

Hahaha!

Hold on.

Roo Stain (28:01)
And the big one for video is kind of bride's dress going on that reveal at that exact same time. I really need to be setting up for the ceremony and getting my, my multiple count on my tripod. So that kind of thing. So I'm always doing things throughout the day to mitigate that kind of collision, helping the day speed along.

Nick Church (28:01)
You

But you're always getting these broadsided things that happen, they like that suddenly they'll say, we're going to do a room reveal for the couple. It's like, right, that's just when I need time to do, I need to be either setting up cameras or doing some couple sequences and stuff. But yeah, I think that approach of just you go into the day and you end up with where I've got to the photography is yes, you have to get those group shots and stuff, but that almost happens on autopilot.

Roo Stain (28:27)
Yeah. Great.

Steve Vaughan (28:29)
Yeah, absolutely.

Roo Stain (28:34)
Yeah.

Nick Church (28:46)
You kind of, you kind of just get that, which means you do, know photographers when, when they often, you know, some photographers always like this, but most of us, we start out, are just panicking all day long about what's going to happen at what time are we missing that shot? Once you kind of just get used to sort of doing that with a chunk of your brain, you can just come compartmentalize and let it do it. Then you can focus on stuff. But yeah, totally. But going into a day, I did a wedding with a videographer that was working with me, a few weeks ago and we went.

Steve Vaughan (29:07)
But that's experience, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Church (29:15)
this is exactly what you're saying Rue, but you can't have a fixed plan. Got to the venue where she was getting ready and she said, I'm just about to be on the radio. And she was on local radio Wales as the bride of the day. And so we just chucked a TX 650 down by the radio. It's like the perfect intro to the film, her on the radio, you know, just brilliant. You could never, never have planned it.

Steve Vaughan (29:25)
yeah.

Roo Stain (29:26)
Bye.

Steve Vaughan (29:33)
Fantastic, yeah, I love it. Brilliant.

Roo Stain (29:35)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I'm all about that. I'm all about like letting the day unfold before my eyes and then trying to find a creative way of telling that story of how that occurred. And it's kind of, and that's been liberating because even when I first started out as a, my videos, I felt like I I haven't got enough bridal prep. I haven't got much of this. I haven't got much of that, but for photo, I feel that's still a thing. Like they expect certain things to be captured for photo and that you, there's lot more accountability with video. You, that you can.

Steve Vaughan (29:58)
Yeah, they do.

Roo Stain (30:04)
is you can miss entire chunks out there and not show it because it was, and I do sometimes if it does, if it's not relevant to the story, doesn't help drive the story along or put the right emotions in place. And I'll just miss big chunks out. But with photo you're like, no, you can't just delete random sections of the day just cause they don't look pretty. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Church (30:06)
Yeah, I agree. I think that's right.

Yeah.

Yeah

Steve Vaughan (30:19)
Where's all the bridal prep photos? Yeah, I didn't want to do those today.

Nick Church (30:24)
Well, think, especially if you get a couple, like some couples don't like loads of photos of themselves to those. And if you haven't got, you know, so, so they're the ones that quite, you think we'll do a bit later. Then you think, wow. It's like getting towards the end of the day. I haven't got any couple shots yet. I'm going to have to do so. And that's the only time I start to think, I really need to get some couple shots. It's raining. You know, we're to have to go outside whatever, because they're going to expect it. Although I have noticed that whenever there's any feedback about the set of photos I deliver, it's always.

Steve Vaughan (30:29)
No, that's true.

Yeah, no, completely.

Roo Stain (30:43)
Yeah.

Nick Church (30:52)
We love all the photos of us as really more of our friends. So that's the ones they want to see really. They want a few, they want a few kind of bangers of themselves, but it's their friends. that's, that's where video, think is just a really great way just to pick and choose little bits of moments through the day where you can showcase the guests. Did you find, you went from, mean, presumably there was a time when you were still doing photos some weeks and film others. Did you ever do hybrid shooting where you were delivering both at the same time?

Roo Stain (30:58)
Yeah.

Yeah.

yeah, well, yes and no. So the way I'd do that is I'd, that was my plan. I did consider, and I did do a couple, I did a couple of hybrid, but without a couple of knowing, so they'd bought me for photo and I started to try and add in a bit of video at the same time to see if I, if I could do it. And the truth with hybrid is it's impossible to do a really good job of both. You end up kind of doing a possibly a mediocre job of both.

Steve Vaughan (31:48)
that's fair.

Roo Stain (31:48)
Like that, and that's what I was finding. And I, when I'm doing something, I really need to be, I need my full focus on that one thing and the disciplines of video and photo. I know there's lots of similarities. They were completely, I found for me, they're completely different part of my brain I'm using. And it was hard. was basically compromising on both by trying to do both together. So the way around that was, so then I'd hire a videographer to work with me. And I got one at the weekend, actually was still a combo. I call it my combo package.

Nick Church (32:08)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (32:13)
Okay.

Roo Stain (32:19)
I'm shooting the photo. I've got a videographer shooting video for me. And, it's great being in control of both teams because I can make sure, you know, I know what to prioritize for certain bits. Like for example, for speeches, I won't be going mad. I won't be getting in my own cameras. I'll be catching a few kind of reactions for photo, but then letting the video speak for that kind of thing. But, but even then with those combo packages, I've pretty much photography business is, it's pretty much gone now.

Steve Vaughan (32:37)
Mm-hmm.

Roo Stain (32:45)
the jobs I am getting through a very few and far between. and I don't market it at all because I knew that video was where my kind of heart was, I guess. It's really why I wanted to focus my energies. And, that was a difficult thing was trying to transition over my business over because with photo, I was booking up like two years in advance and I wanted to bring in a whole new business. So I ended up for a couple of years, almost doing double, cause I was

Nick Church (32:54)
Yeah.

Roo Stain (33:10)
trying to bring, I was saying, no, I'd already booked up for photo for the year. I had like my 30 photo bookings. Then I just started adding in the video as well. and I, and I was thinking, this is going to take, this is going to be like, take me like, it's going to take me like two, three years to get to a point where I can transition over. But then COVID happened. It really accelerated it all. Cause then there was all these cancellations and when we rebooked, just, didn't rebook the photo. I rebooked the video.

Steve Vaughan (33:11)
Wow.

Nick Church (33:27)
You

Steve Vaughan (33:27)
Hahaha!

Nick Church (33:34)
Do you find the video is still booked a little bit further down the line from photography with most wedding couples? No, used to be. feel the same. Normally they're asking at the time of inquiry if they want both, they're asking about both.

Roo Stain (33:40)
No, I don't think it is anymore. No, no.

Yeah. I think it Yeah, I think now that has changed. I think COVID did that because there was incredible wedding filmmakers out there in the UK, but a they weren't a lot of people weren't booking it. weren't they weren't they weren't the percentage of bookings, percentage of weddings that had videographers was quite low compared to photo I'd say. But with COVID when we had these small numbers, people were then hiring videographers to be able to show the film or the day to the friends that couldn't come.

Steve Vaughan (33:52)
Hmm.

That's right, yeah, yeah.

Roo Stain (34:14)
And it got the kind of awareness of what filmmaking is like now. And it, just skyrocketed and I was quite lucky to be, I've got my foot in the door just before that to kind of, so my trajectory in terms of my career for video was, if it was on a graph, it'd be completely different to what my photo was. My photo was like slow and steady with video, kind of, cause I won, to hear the national award in two, like this year, the start of this year, January.

Nick Church (34:22)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (34:40)
Well done, fantastic.

Roo Stain (34:40)
And that would, that would have been completely unachievable for me. In fact, I know it would have been like completely unachievable, but I did that to do that within six years of video. was, I was stunned. was stunned to be fair, thank you. Thank you so much.

Steve Vaughan (34:52)
Well, well deserved to be fair. yeah, yeah, yeah, no, well deserved here.

Nick Church (34:53)
Absolutely. What is your plan? So you talk about your trajectory. Are you planning to grow the business in terms of headcount? What's your ideal?

Roo Stain (35:04)
Yeah. So, so, so at the start of the, well, this year I started Coda, which is a, it's well, it started off as a conference for wedding filmmakers. We had our first conference in October and my plan was always to move into the education space and my behind the scenes on YouTube was the start of that. And then we'll put together Coda to create this conference for wedding filmmakers to get together for for the day. that we sold out within 72 hours of that. And then we had the first event in October.

Steve Vaughan (35:32)
Wow. Amazing.

Roo Stain (35:35)
And that it was, went so well. was, it was really, really, really well received. And I'll put the tickets on sale for next year's one at the event. And we sold out within 43 minutes for next year. so that's my, my, lot of my energy is going to get, going into Coder at the minute. And I've got some plans to kind of expand on that kind of educational supplement to my business, I guess. so yeah, my, awesome. My wife has joined.

Steve Vaughan (35:47)
You're a creep.

Roo Stain (36:04)
she joined a couple of years ago to Rue Films as, editing and she's taken her kind of responsibilities in terms of editing or increasing. So the plan is to kind of, she'll take on a bulk of the editing. I've trained her up. and then, so I'll be then dancing between the education side and also the filming. I'll be doing all the filming still, but then kind of the hard, the hard work is going to be my wife, Jade.

Steve Vaughan (36:22)
Yeah, great plan.

Nick Church (36:23)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (36:29)
podcast with that now as well I think you're doing a podcast on the yeah

Roo Stain (36:32)
Yes, that's right. Yeah. there's a, it's well, it was kind of weekly by weekly podcasts where I interview other wedding filmmakers and basically quiz them because we're videographers, we're all quite nerdy and gear driven. And the podcast is very much technical, very technical and very like kind of squeezing as much knowledge out of these incredible filmmakers as possible really.

Steve Vaughan (36:43)
You

where we're a bit gilly and geary on this as well. So let's just do a bit of that stuff. So you're a Sony shooter as well, think like Nick and I. Okay.

Roo Stain (36:59)
Yeah, love it.

Yeah. Yeah. A7S3. I call it my Boris camera because, I keep bringing up COVID, don't I? But like, cause the town, the town I'm, the town I'm from, they did this thing where if your business has been affected by, COVID where you couldn't work, but if you could come up with a plan to diversify, you could put a loan in to get, put an application to get a grant for some gear.

Steve Vaughan (37:10)
Yeah.

Nick Church (37:11)
obsessed with it.

Roo Stain (37:26)
And I diversified into live streaming funerals and I put a grant into it for some gear and it included an A7S III. yeah, so they, paid for my A7S III, which I'm still rocking now. Like it's an incredible camera for video.

Steve Vaughan (37:33)
yeah, good plan.

Absolutely. did a couple of those, but I just used that little Mimo thing, Mivo, whatever it was, like a GoPro was built in. Yeah, God, it was a stressful way of making three or four hundred quid. It was just cash flow at the time. yeah, I blame you. I think I'm right in saying for watching one of your behind the scenes. So I know what puts a lot of photographers off video, particularly with Sony's is all the picture profiles and

Roo Stain (37:44)
Yeah, that's what I using. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I soon sold all that stuff off.

Mm-hmm.

Steve Vaughan (38:06)
you know, S log three and all this stuff. But I think I'm right in saying you just shoot in the standard profile. Is that right? Have I got mixed with some of this? Okay.

Roo Stain (38:13)
I've changed that now, I do shoot in log now, but if you are moving over to video, ignore log. So log, for people that don't know, it's our version of raw. It's not quite as flexible as raw, but you still have a bit of recovery in it. But also when you're shooting raw, have to shoot at certain ISOs, do not introduce noise, and it can get a bit complicated. But I always say to people when you're first starting out,

Don't worry about that. Just I've shot in the standard profile, up until March this year, March this year. So, so I won that national award on work where I hadn't, I hadn't used log at all. yeah. So, but I think with video, you're a bit more patient and you're taking your time. You're not having to run around and snap in. You get time to get your exposure right and things like that. So shooting standard is absolutely fine. There's enough flex. It's got the same amount of flexibility as a JPEG with,

Steve Vaughan (38:47)
Wow.

Amazing. Amazing.

Roo Stain (39:09)
But if you're getting it right in camera to which most of us are these days with EVFs, right? With mirrorless cameras. So yeah, it's not a problem.

Steve Vaughan (39:13)
Yeah.

Yeah, amazing.

Nick Church (39:17)
So are you using a, what are you using to grade? you manually grading that or using a of plugin system or platform for log?

Roo Stain (39:24)
Yeah. So what for the log or for the standard profile for log, I'm using a, so gamut.io website, they've got a base look for Sony, which I throw it. So I just throw it, that gets thrown on all my clips. So that turns it to rec 709. So basically it makes it look like, cause when you look at log footage, it's just all gray and washed out. but I put that base look on and that sets it to makes it look like how it would have done in shot on a standard profile. And then I just put my lot over the top of that as well.

So I'm using film convert to grade.

Steve Vaughan (39:54)
Just get the website for that again so I can link into that gamma dot A or was it? Gamut dot sorry, of course, yeah, Gamut, yeah, okay.

Roo Stain (39:58)
gamut.io I think it is, gamut.io, yeah. And they do a load of LUTs and conversion LUTs for...

Nick Church (40:01)
I use, have you ever come across film convert, like film nitrate and those sorts of things? Yeah, I love it. Really good, yeah.

Steve Vaughan (40:07)
Yeah, that's what I use as well. Yeah.

Roo Stain (40:07)
Yeah, that's what I'm using as well. That's that much. So my lot is film night. Yeah. So, yeah. So I'm not you. So I'm not using, so I'm using that, but I'm not using it in a proper way. Cause basically if I was using film nitrate the proper way, I'd just set my, cause you choose what profile you're shooting in on it, don't you? And then it's got a load of film emulations for the right camera. So I put my base lot on to turn it to rec seven nine. And then I put film convert over the top and I'm just

Nick Church (40:24)
Yes, yeah, Yep.

Steve Vaughan (40:25)
Yeah.

Roo Stain (40:34)
using that as a main lot over the top. I'm not even using it set to log. But yeah, but I feel like my real trend in wedding filmmaking for like gray and washed out films. I still, I wanted to bring a lot of my color from my photos into my film. That's why mine are quite vibrant. So I'm doing like a double layer grade where most filmmakers probably wouldn't, which is not as complicated as it sounds. Final cut pro I use.

Nick Church (40:35)
Fine, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Steve Vaughan (40:47)
That's what love about your videos. Yeah, absolutely.

Nick Church (40:54)
Mm.

Steve Vaughan (40:55)
And what are you editing in? What software? Okay.

Roo Stain (41:01)
Yeah, but if I was starting out now, I'd probably go with DaVinci Resolve because it's free and it's amazing. And yeah.

Steve Vaughan (41:06)
Yeah, that's what I use, yeah.

Nick Church (41:07)
seems to be a pretty common, yeah, think a lot of people are saying the same thing that that just seems to be like the best of both worlds. I use a bit of both, but I think both Premiere and Final Cut have got their, like, but Final Cut just looks fantastic and it's just really slick. Premiere is more fully featured in the sort of coloring areas, but it just looks terrible. It looks like a sixth form was written, you know, in terms of the layer. Yeah.

Roo Stain (41:22)
Yeah.

Yeah. And it crashes all the time and, and, with wedding, wedding filmmaking, isn't that complicated in the edit. It really isn't. It's for the most part, straight cuts. and if it isn't straight cuts, ends up looking cheesy and weird. And yeah, you just don't need to have complicated. And if you're using a Mac final quarter Mac, they just didn't attune, aren't they? So it's just a beautiful piece of software. Cause all my uni days, everything, I was always premier. And then in one of my graphic design jobs, I was a graphic design just before I moved into photography.

Steve Vaughan (41:32)
It crashes all the time, yeah.

Nick Church (41:39)
Yeah.

Mm.

Yes, yeah.

Steve Vaughan (41:48)
Mm.

Roo Stain (41:58)
They had Final Cut, which I used and I was like, my God, this is beautiful. It feels like just a slight step up from my movie Final Cut, to be fair, but it's so intuitive and beautiful and it works so well.

Nick Church (42:03)
Well, yeah, yeah.

Steve Vaughan (42:04)
Well, it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. So, and, Nick's asked the question about what you see happening in the future, but where would you want to be with your business? Say in 10 years time, where do you see the business going? Then what would you be doing if we interviewed you in 10 years time? It wouldn't be, cause I'll be retired, but what would you be doing?

Roo Stain (42:23)
Yeah. So I'd be, I'd be 50, 51, nearly 52 by then. So, cause I love shooting the weddings. absolutely love, love it. So I'd love to still be involved, but realistically, realistically, can I be? don't know. so I'd like to still be involved in the industry. And I feel with Kodo, it's creating a brilliant community for wedding filmmakers. Cause for photographers there's been, there's lots of communities out there. And there's like nine darts. got snap, you got.

Steve Vaughan (42:36)
Bueno.

Roo Stain (42:53)
photography, there's all these different things. For wedding filmmakers, was nothing. So with Koda, that was like the first steps. And this year, even for next year, we've seen a lot of other conferences that are popping up. So that wedding filmmaking community is growing and I'd still like to be part of that. so perhaps kind of in the education sphere, I am looking at expanding the business out further than myself. So having people shoot for me and then having an editing hub, that is definitely something I'd look into.

probably have the considerate of considered like a volume brand. So I work in, so my price is at the minute at kind of 3000, three and half and which I feel is kind of like the middle market area. but there's a lot of work to be had kind of rounded kind of 1500 to 2000, which I could have teams shooting for me in that I imagine. and it's basically kind of get like

Steve Vaughan (43:40)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Church (43:42)
Mm.

Roo Stain (43:48)
I did some, have one of my friend Daniel Yates, he's a wedding editor and I've had him about, yeah, he's fantastic videographer and now he does quite a lot of editing. I've outsourced work to him. And that was so liberating because I've always, the edit is like, you know, that's the key thing for video. But with it, the way my edits are structured, I do like a longer film, which is like a 10 to 15 minute film that they get speeches in the ceremony for. And then I give them a shorter, like three to five minute film.

Steve Vaughan (43:52)
I know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Roo Stain (44:17)
I would say that three to five minute film is my masterpiece. Cause that's where I get to be creative. don't have to, there's no accountability. I can put whatever I want in that. Cause, cause I'm delivering the longer film with pretty much everything in. It means I can be creative with a shorter film, but then outsourcing those longer films means that by the time I come to do my masterpiece, I'm not physically drained by the wedding from doing this longer film. So it almost, by outsourcing, thought outsourcing, was losing control. By outsourcing, actually felt like I gained more control and more love of the edit.

Steve Vaughan (44:44)
Yeah, I can see that.

Roo Stain (44:46)
so going through that process has really opened my mind to, I should probably look at expanding the business beyond myself. So that's the kind of avenues I'm looking into. Like I'm at that point in my life where I'm the sole trader with no pension and I'm 41. I'm thinking I need to start more money.

Nick Church (45:01)
you

Steve Vaughan (45:03)
Believe me, when you get to 61, mate, you're very focused on your pension, believe me. And one final question from me, Nick, and I'll shut up. What's your view on the rise of the content creator and have you had to work with one?

Roo Stain (45:06)
Yeah.

Yeah, I've not worked with one, but I did interview Mal from, and be wedding and events on my podcast. And she, she has had a stratospheric rise as a content creator. They've, they've risen because there's a need and there's a requirement requirement for them. That's why it's, it's not like this random thing, like a chocolate fountain. That's just a trend for a year. basically, and I've seen the change and you guys would have as well in, the brides I'm shooting now, when I started out as a photographer,

Steve Vaughan (45:26)
Mm.

Absolutely.

Roo Stain (45:45)
I was a documentary photographer and I was documentary photographer because couples didn't like having their picture taken, but they wanted nice pictures without feeling like they were having a picture taken. Whereas the brides I'm shooting now very much do like having their picture taken and know how they want to have their picture taken. And they almost want to be in control of that away. So the photographers I'm working with as a videographer now, like everything is posed. It's almost like we're stepping back in time in terms of how it is. very, it's very like we're going back to the film, like the

Steve Vaughan (46:10)
Interesting.

Roo Stain (46:14)
photo on film days. It's, yeah, it's a complete, complete transition. content create and they also like putting their own video clips out themselves as well. So what content creators are giving them is, well, it's content that they can create their own little films themselves and drip rather than have like one film that three minute film that they're probably no one's going to watch because no one's got attention span. They can drip feed on their socials little bits of the day. So

Steve Vaughan (46:28)
Yeah.

You

Roo Stain (46:44)
I I think the kind of market I'm in at the minute, I don't think they'll affect it too much because if they're investing the amount of money they are in what I'm doing, they want a longer film. They want something put together in inverted, like cinematic, if that's what I am. But I think the kind of lower level, like the kind of, will we, won't we get a videographer? I think they're going to get battered. I think the fact that they'll get all these great video clips given to them the next day.

Steve Vaughan (46:55)
course.

Nick Church (46:56)
Mm.

Steve Vaughan (46:59)
You

Nick Church (47:08)
Yeah, I think so.

Roo Stain (47:14)
which they can do whatever they want with them. And most brides now know how to put like a get cap cut out and put together a little video and things like that. So it's, it's, they prefer to have it that way and they're cheaper. Like what about foreign and queer content creators? but what I think, so even, even if, say for example, social media, people just suddenly start hating it and they, don't want things for their social media and they want more, you know, better thing. think

Steve Vaughan (47:27)
Something like that. Yeah.

Roo Stain (47:42)
We're at, we're going to have to compete with the content creators in terms of delivery times. And I think the only way, well, I couldn't deliver my films the next day. It's just impossible with what I have to do in terms of syncing audio and stuff. But what I could do is, during the, during the break or the wedding day, I could start calling my B-roll and make it select my favorites. And I could definitely by the next day put together an Instagram reel to music of some nice clips of the day. And I think that's the kind of stuff as wedding filmmakers, we're to have to start doing to compete. And.

Steve Vaughan (48:00)
That's what I do. Yeah.

Roo Stain (48:11)
whether content creators day or not, that kind of expectation of quick turnaround will be expected from all of us. Because when I started doing photo, the idea of delivering photo previews the next day was unheard of, right? Now, if you don't, you're going to struggle, right? Pretty much everyone has to deliver that. It's always an expectation that you're going to get some photos the next day. And I think that same transition is now happening to videographers.

Steve Vaughan (48:23)
Yeah.

Interesting. Yeah, interesting. Great stuff.

Nick Church (48:36)
Yeah, I think that that is actually I think the as you say, think what people need to be aware is it a content creator isn't creating the same stuff is a different thing. It's not a curated film. So they are they are different. And there's no threat to video for us on that front. However, couples can still decide if they want one or the other. And and that lower end, I think where the price is more similar or, you know, they can hunt like and they can

Steve Vaughan (48:58)
Hmm.

Nick Church (49:04)
save half the money and go for content creator, especially with the greatest respect, those lower end videographers are going to be creating stuff that isn't work like you've got. It's not the sort of nicely creative thoughts about cinematic stuff. It is more similar to just, you know, having some content on my phone. So, yeah, I think it's been interesting. That's very interesting about, whether it will completely change, you know, change everything again and whether, whether people will, will, will start. I don't know how we can, how we can turn around films quickly.

Steve Vaughan (49:17)
Yeah, great thought.

Roo Stain (49:18)
Yeah. Yeah.

Hmm.

Nick Church (49:34)
while still creating that creative nature without, I did work with somebody that used to do that and he would go for those same shots often, all the same shots. And then during the wedding meal, they're pretty, they stick it together in final cut pro by the of the meal, it's pretty much apart from some few clips of dancing, pretty much done. You know, so, but to do that, you have to be very surgically kind of, yeah, formulaic to get the shots you want.

Roo Stain (49:42)
Yeah, cookie cutter.

Steve Vaughan (49:51)
Wow. Wow.

Roo Stain (49:52)
Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (49:56)
formulaic, think the word is. Yeah, yeah.

Roo Stain (49:59)
Yeah. There's no artistry in that at all, is there? it would like, I just couldn't, I wouldn't be in this job if it was that kind of like approach. It's just, yeah. I like doing that.

Nick Church (50:02)
No.

Steve Vaughan (50:05)
No, well, you're a million miles away from that room with the work you do, Mate, it's been great having you on. Now, we just do a little bit of stuff towards the end of the pod, so please hang around and chip in as you see fit, but it's been fascinating to find out more about the world of what you do and the background. So thank you so much for coming on, but please hang around for the remainder of the show. So Nick, you've been thinking a little bit on the technical side of things about low-light photography, I think, today.

Nick Church (50:08)
Yeah.

Roo Stain (50:22)
Thank you.

Nick Church (50:33)
Yeah, it was just, yeah, it was an area that, cause I, through the sort of workshops that I do and sort of looking at Facebook groups, it is an area, there's two things that seem to come up frequently, but there's loads of things that come up frequently, like raw versus JPEG and all the rest of it. What seems to confuse people is low light, shooting a low light and focusing properly, not in low light, but just focusing properly. So don't need to cover both of those. Certainly with focusing, and I see this with a lot of.

Steve Vaughan (50:58)
Okay.

Nick Church (51:03)
you know, established photographers as well. This idea of, need to take your landscape knowledge of landscape photography using hyper focal distance. can't get your charts out and start calculating things, but you still need to be, if you're, if you're shooting a group of people, don't, you shouldn't focus on the far person or the front one needs to be going somewhere between the two, to, to spread that, that focal plane to balance it. And.

Steve Vaughan (51:24)
You just think?

Nick Church (51:30)
There's loads of techniques of doing that and it's probably too late in the evening to go through details.

Steve Vaughan (51:34)
So is it people are just confused by what focus is? And because obviously you're training people who've got a variety of backgrounds of photography.

Nick Church (51:37)
Bye.

Yeah, well, there's yeah, I mean, yeah, exactly. So the people that are say studio photographers are often unaware that if there is a, if everyone, if people are not stood in a direct plane of focus from the camera, they need to be thinking about not focusing on that closest person or the furthest person, unless they're to stack it. They need to be sort of focusing sort somewhere between the two to make sure both are equally and acceptably sharp. People that are in the

Steve Vaughan (51:57)
Mm.

Hmm.

Nick Church (52:07)
earlier stages of their photography journey, are often just still using the automatic focus mode, sort of not, not selecting a thing. And this, this is the funny thing with the future revisions of cameras, adding more more AI to focusing when in fact, most of us, I don't know about what, what room I use. Certainly I've never used anything other than I auto focus and a spot focus.

Steve Vaughan (52:23)
Absolutely, yeah.

That's a question.

Nick Church (52:32)
Don't use any of the object tracking. So I could still be using my R3, my A7R3, I still have and still do use for some things. Because everything else is just stuff that I don't ever use because I'm never going to, I'm never going to rely on a bit of AI deciding that bride's moving. I want to be tracking her, either her eye and face, or just be routinely refocusing.

Steve Vaughan (52:37)
Mm. Mm.

You

No, for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

What do you do then Rukes? lot of video offers do manual focus. Are you able to focus, manual focus a bit of both?

Roo Stain (52:59)
Yeah, I'm kind of a hybrid. It's autofocus predominantly, but then I've got the thumbstick customizer. Once I hold it in, it locks off as manual because the worst thing is if you locked on autofocus and someone walks in your frame, which happens a lot with video and you kind of want it sometimes, you don't want the focus to then flick off. it's kind of... But purists, that videographers hate that. They want most of them to do manual, but I'm a photographer that moved over. a lot of my habits from photography came over with it.

Steve Vaughan (53:15)
Mm.

And you shoot Sony as well, of course.

Roo Stain (53:26)
Exactly, yeah. And why would you not use that while you're focused? Yeah. But my static cameras are always set to manual, like the ones that are on tripods.

Steve Vaughan (53:32)
No, sure. makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. I guess you only got to shoot a group photo once at F1.8 and then realize after people aren't in focus and you'll learn that lesson quite quickly from then on. are you really having done that when I first started? Yeah. Yeah.

Roo Stain (53:43)
Yeah. AI now though, they can sort that out, can't it?

Nick Church (53:44)
Yeah, well, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (53:48)
Well that's right, yeah, yeah, completely. yeah, yeah, no, interesting, so yeah.

Nick Church (53:51)
That's not that's not the attitude. Come on. Yeah, just take a handful of random shots and we'll sort out later.

Roo Stain (53:53)
Fix it in post, mate.

Steve Vaughan (54:00)
From an industry news point of view, not a lot of stuff I don't think seen particularly. think all the new camera brands of announcements are all pretty much out there. We talked about the new Sony and the Sony lens last time really. So I'm not aware of anything particularly new from a gear perspective. What I have noticed, cause I'm a native YouTube addict, hence me discovering Roo's brilliant channel. Why are so many YouTubers, particularly the street photographers, moving away from Fujifilm? It seems like all of them have got a...

this big announcement, I'm moving from Fujifilm, whereas like three or four years ago, Fujifilm was cool. Everybody was out shooting Fuji, all the street photographers, all the hipster guys. They all seem to be moving away now, I'm perhaps imagining that, but Roman Fox, well, Roman Fox is a guy I follow a lot. He's moved to Sony. A lot of them have gone over to Leica, which I guess is cool and hip as well.

Nick Church (54:45)
What are they moving to?

Steve Vaughan (54:57)
So I don't know, have I imagined that or have you seen that as well?

Nick Church (55:01)
I have an, although, mean, as we've said before, when I've done street photography, sort of tours and things, I have had people rock up with likers that have gotten, you know, no, it really, photography experience, but they've got this, this eight grand piece of kit in their hands. so can see that that is a, that is something that I can imagine people that can afford it would want to go to, but is it just not, like a fad, you know, cause it, people are getting trends, don't they? So, you know,

Steve Vaughan (55:18)
do.

Nick Church (55:30)
it's popular to hate on Canon or whatever it might be and it just moves around and it goes from from brand to brand. Presumably if it

Steve Vaughan (55:36)
Any videographers shooting like her?

Roo Stain (55:36)
Those Fugees are dogs though, ain't they? Like, they're absolutely... Have you ever owned a Fugees?

Steve Vaughan (55:40)
Well, I used to use Fuji. I started with Fuji. We were Fuji until 2020. So you don't like them, no? No.

Roo Stain (55:46)
But once you've had a Sony autofocus, you can't be going to Fuji, can you? Like, I've bought and sold so many versions of the X100, and each time I get it, I have to get rid of it, because that autofocus is just disgusting.

Steve Vaughan (55:53)
Hahaha

Yeah, yeah, it's a different beast. Yeah, yeah. I guess you don't many videos for using like or other probably.

Nick Church (56:00)
Yeah, you...

Roo Stain (56:03)
Phil White does now, funny enough. Yeah, yeah, he uses Likers, yeah. Yeah. But I think he's just doing it to be cool, because the functionality is nowhere near as good as the Sony's, don't think.

Steve Vaughan (56:04)
Do you see? cool.

Well, that's the thing. Yeah.

Nick Church (56:12)
Yeah. I've having looked at Leica stills cameras. It's quite, you know, that they really have all, it's almost like they have intentionally not looked at other brands, how they do it. So they've, you know, so that like, can't set up back button focus, for example, you can't, you can't, you just can't set up. There's no way to do that. and a lot of people tend to go straight to Leica. they don't often know there's any different way of doing it, but yeah, it's, it feels, it reminded me of using a,

Steve Vaughan (56:24)
now completely.

Nick Church (56:42)
Mac OS for the first time ever. know, you, you just can, or you're probably something even more sort of hampered like Linux, something where you just don't know how to do anything. It's not insuritant at all. Yeah. So it felt like that. Anyway,

Steve Vaughan (56:51)
A ZX Spectrum, yeah. So.

Roo Stain (56:57)
Talking of Macs, are you guys on Mac, Apple Silicon? Yeah, because...

Steve Vaughan (57:01)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nick Church (57:01)
On my laptop, yeah, on my iMac here, it's Intel still.

Steve Vaughan (57:04)
bit. This is an M2 I'm talking to you on now.

Roo Stain (57:06)
I've just bought a second hand M1, M1 Max, and it is blowing my mind because every other Mac, it's the same as when I first got my first ever Mac, like the difference in quality compared to my PC was mind blowing. But then everyone's been incremental from then, just like not much change. Having this, it just felt like miles had gone from an Intel to the Apple silicon. Phenomenal.

Steve Vaughan (57:22)
Yeah, yeah.

Nick Church (57:26)
Yeah, it's rapid, really fast. It's crazy that my day-to-day setup is still this iMac because my laptop's got to twice the speed of it.

Steve Vaughan (57:36)
Yeah, I have to use both suddenly, but yeah.

Roo Stain (57:36)
Yeah. And the battery. It's a three year old second hand laptop and the battery barely twitches and I've not heard the fan once. It's bizarre.

Steve Vaughan (57:44)
No, that's the beauty of them. run so cool and you know, the newer ones, I'm on an M2 here, but the M3 and M4 are even better apparently. So yeah, super cool. I have to have a PC as well for my training business because sometimes I have to be in the world of Microsoft for some of my customers suddenly. So I have a PC as well, which overheats straight away. As soon as I put it on, it's like crawling with thermal throttling. anyway, another beast, another beast. Roo, I'm going to make your day now, mate, because we do a book of the week when I can...

Roo Stain (57:52)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (58:14)
to get myself sorted and find one. And I found one you got to love. And it's called Every Week We Follow. And it's a story of Aston Villa last season. It's a brilliant, brilliant book. And it's by a guy called, if I just find his name, the page is closed, Pete Hickman. And I think he used a Fuji actually, but it's not of the players and the action. It's behind the scenes. So it's basically match day, people on the terraces.

Roo Stain (58:18)
Right.

Yes! my gosh!

Yok.

No way.

Steve Vaughan (58:43)
people selling burgers outside the ground. People at the airport going to Bosnia for the most star game. It's a cracking book. It was 25 quid. I watch a podcast with the guys from the evening mail, Clarita blog podcast. And the guy was on there a few weeks ago. It is. Yeah. And it was 25 quid and the proceeds go towards Birmingham children's hospital. So it's a cracking book. I don't think you have to be an Astor Villa supporter to like it, but it does help.

Roo Stain (58:59)
Love that. Great podcast.

Nick Church (59:09)
great.

Steve Vaughan (59:13)
But strongly recommend it. Every week we follow the story of Aston Villa, the season, actually were quite good last year. Get on your Santa list, yeah?

Nick Church (59:20)
You

Roo Stain (59:20)
I'm absolutely going to get that. Great memories. Yeah.

Nick Church (59:25)
Talk about Santa list next on our next episode, Steve, we're going to do a Christmas wish list, aren't we? We're going to do our what we would like Santa to bring us kit wise.

Steve Vaughan (59:35)
Do I have to dress up as a Virgin Mary?

Nick Church (59:37)
But you are anyway underneath what we can see. know that. But yes, yeah, ideally that or just give a Santa if you want to, it's less contentious. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (59:41)
You

I can do a Santa hat, yeah. Yeah, 12 days of Christmas. So yeah, we're gonna work out what it's gonna be, things that we want or things that we suggest, but we'll work on it. But this is gonna be a Christmas special in two weeks time, dear listeners.

Nick Church (59:55)
I think we will have, I think we'll divide that. We'll talk about how to do it, but I think we'll have lens stuff, know, lens category, cameras, computing kits. So I think, I think there's various, it's all very expensive. And I don't suppose we've got budget to buy these things. Have we? No, just checking.

Steve Vaughan (1:00:04)
Well, it sounds a complicated.

No, no, unless any sponsors listening want to donate a few of those things here, which is highly unlikely. So really again, thanks so much for being with us. Brilliant to have you on the show. Really looking forward to seeing what develops for you in the next few years. Really looking forward to seeing where Cody goes, because that sounds like a fantastic initiative. Yeah, really, really great to have you on again, mate. Appreciate you being here. And thank you also dear listener for being with us for another episode. Don't forget to subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast app.

Nick Church (1:00:29)
It does.

Roo Stain (1:00:32)
Thank so much, thanks guys.

Steve Vaughan (1:00:40)
So you'll get the show coming immediately into your inbox. And also do leave us a review on Apple or Spotify. does help us in lots of mysterious ways. Nick and I will be back again in a couple of weeks time. Until then, happy shooting out there.

Nick Church (1:00:52)
Goodbye.

Steve Vaughan (1:00:54)
Goodbye.