Videographer Vs Content Creator - what is the difference?

Content Creators are increasingly on a couples’ wish-list of wedding suppliers. What is a content creator, and how is it different from a videographer?

It’s a great question. Both seem to capture the day with video, but how are they different? This is best explained by talking about what you receive at the end…

Wedding Film for a videographer

A good wedding film will be a cinematic product, with professional audio and production quality cameras and lenses. Shot by a dedicated film-maker, it will have multiple camera angles and for a highlights wedding film, with interesting camera movements that draw you into the film. It will typically be 5-10 minutes long.

It should tell the story of your wedding day, by weaving in narrative and emotion - there will usually be key moments of the speeches or your ceremony, with full, professional audio and will be coloured to the film-maker’s particular style. It takes a long time to do all this in post-production, but with professional lighting and colouring, the result will look good, even years from now, and on a large screen.

You can see an example of a recent wedding film we shot here: Nick Church Photography Wedding Film

Content from a content Creator

Content creation is all about getting clips that can be put online quickly. It will not look great on a TV, but looks fine on social media. The post-production is minimal, and generally no audio (from microphones) hence the lower price and quick turnaround. It's filmed on an iPhone or similarly small device and the only work after the wedding day is to cut the clips, join them together into a dynamic film. Due to the nature of the equipment used, they tend to be kept short and snappy.

They are less ‘polished’ and feel more raw, which can be a good thing. Think of the quality when you watch reels on Instagram or Facebook, and you’ll be in the right ball-park. If it’s going to be watched once or twice by lots of people, then you don’t need the best camera and lighting. Better to get it out online as soon as possible.

Which should you choose?

Both are very different - and both have value, they are just doing different things. If you have the budget, then get both, as your content creator may capture more ‘behind the scenes’ clips, which go nicely with your wedding films. But many couples could not justify this.

If you chose to just have a wedding film from a videographer, then they will sometimes create you a short ‘teaser’ which will be perfect for a reel or social media post. But it will take longer to produce than a content creator can achieve.

If you choose to just have a content creator, then you’ll get some footage to share very quickly, but over the course of time you won’t have something cinematic to look back on in the future.

What’s better - a wedding film or content?

There is no ‘better’ as they are different. In terms of quality, a wedding film from a good supplier will be much better quality in all technical ways. A good way to see the difference is to take a photo from an iPhone and compare it to the best wedding photography, as the difference is going to be equivalent.

The iPhone picture can be posted immediately, the wedding photographer is going to put retouch the images to get professional quality, but will take longer to deliver as a result.