Framing

Love & Videography

The Admiral Kidd Catering and Conference Center stands right on San Diego Bay, overlooking the downtown skyline. Huge airplanes scream into San Diego International about every fifteen minutes, and helicopters chug to and from the Naval Base. A group of nearby seals bark after every aircraft, and then bark at each other for barking, and then bark just to spite me specifically. It makes recording audio a nightmare.

The sound issue is only outside, lucky, and we’re not there for very long anyways — just the ceremony, usually twenty minutes. Catholic weddings are long, but never outside. Outside weddings are always to the point.

Inside, the fluorescents stay on while multi-colored strobes cover a linoleum dance floor built into this red-and-gold movie-theater carpeting. Maybe a dozen people are dancing. Everyone else is sitting at their table, or in line at the bar. The groom snuck me and the lead photographer two drink tickets each, which was very nice of him. We both got a beer, some draft IPA thing. It’s good, not too hoppy. We drink them and people watch.

The DJ comes over the mic, and announces a couples dance. “It’s a couples dance,” he says over the PA. “If you’re in a couple, grab your partner, and head to the dance floor.” Without saying anything, the photographer and I down our beers, and grab our cameras.

The DJ puts on a slow song, something recognizable. The dance floor fills up with couples, young and old and drunk. They all hold each other close, hands on hips and forearms on shoulders.

I stay on the rim of the linoleum floor at first, but eventually motion to the photographer that I’m going to walk in the middle. It’s a great shot for video; a sea of couples parting as we walk through towards the bride and groom. She nods. She knows what’s up.

By this point in the night, people have learned my role, and don’t acknowledge me. So, like a ghost, I walk through a drunk, slow-dancing goo of love completely unnoticed. People kiss, people giggle with foreheads touching, people put dance lessons to use. I heel-toe through the crowd, and try to focus on what I’m doing.

I spend most of my time editing. I sit on a computer in my boss’s basement and string together clips of people kissing over Ed Sheeran songs. Lens flares when the drums come in, pan out with the the strings. We have a very cinematic style, which I like. It makes everything very romantic.

Upstairs, my boss’s two little boys run around and throw legos at each other. His wife comes home upset about work, and they talk it out in the kitchen. Their big black lab walks down the stairs, and lays at my feet. Pan up, I sip coffee, cut to close-up, song breaks down, segment four clips to be two beats each instead of two clips for four. Lens flare? No, I just used one. I don’t like over using those.

I check my phone for the hundredth time in five minutes. I’ve been talking to some people on Tinder, but I’m eh about the whole thing. I open it and close it. I just need a break from Ed. I like him, but now he gives me anxiety. A Thousand Years by Christina Perry makes my ears bleed.

I’m realizing we didn’t get much of the couple on the dance floor together. How did we miss that? I don’t think he really got on the floor that much. I need to keep that in mind for next time, make them casually dance if they’re not already. Alright, well, here’s a wide of the dance floor filled up, cut to a crazy close up of the first dance, back to the wide with the bride somewhere in there. That actually looks pretty good.

I check Instagram. Nothing.

I’m on a Tinder date. Second one, actually. I haven’t been on a second date in months.

We’re at Balboa Park, this sort of corridor of museums. It’s night, and white Christmas lights hang between buildings, making a sort of roof. We sit at this large fountain at the end, and are just talking. I’m having a good time. She’s cool. That’s about it.

This college student walks up to us with a camera around her neck. “Hi,” she says. “I know this is weird, but I’m doing a project for my photography final. I’m doing pictures of couples, do you guys mind if I take your picture? Just keep doing what you’re doing, I just wanted to ask.”

We shrug, why not. She walks off. We keep talking.

She’s back almost immediately. “Um, could you…get a little closer? Like, you can kiss and stuff, don’t be embarrassed.”

We look at each other. It’s a second date. We’re here. We scoot in closer and jokingly start to pet each other. She puts her leg over mine. I call her “darling.” We joke kiss (still a kiss).

The photographer comes back. “That was great,” she says. She hands us her phone, and we put our emails in, and she promises to send the shots.

She shows us the display screen on her camera. The lights from the fountain left us completely backlit, and our silhouettes show no sign of sarcasm. I know I’m laughing in that picture. I know she’s making a dumb face. But from where the photographer stands, there’s only romance. It’s a great shot.