James Burkart
Filmmaker/DP/Owner

“A wedding video? Who wants a wedding video!? They’re long and boring! Who wants to sit there for 3 hours?”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this, or something similar. It saddens me to hear, but I understand why some people feel this way. Unfortunately there are a LOT of 3-hour marathon wedding videos out there and too many people have seen them. Well, I’d like to say that wedding videos, or wedding films, have come a long way in the past few years.

In my opinion a great wedding film is compelling to watch, and remains compelling throughout. It’s more than a simple documentation of the day but also a way to capture and convey the emotions that you felt, the tender moments shared with your new spouse, funny toasts from your maid of honor, and accomplishes all of this and more in an artistic or cinematic fashion.

I realized that producing wedding films, great wedding films, made me happy. More than that, when I deliver a wedding film and the bride and groom come back to me after watching it and go on about how much they laughed or cried while watching their film it lightens my heart, it justifies my efforts to produce the best wedding film I can.

I launched my company in the beginning of 2006 (then called Burkart Video Productions) and since then I’ve produced well over 100 wedding films. Many have wondered, what keeps me motivated and excited about weddings, why haven’t I moved on to other types of productions? Well I thought I knew the answer until a 2-yrs previous client of mine emailed me and explained to me something that rocked me. She told me that shortly after her wedding her marriage became strained because her husband, who was in the military, had to go overseas for 6 months. After he came back things never got back to normal and there soon was talk of splitting up. One evening after an all-too-regular fight she caught glimpse of her wedding film among her DVD library. She put it in and sat down with disbelief. Disbelief that she was the same person that she was seeing in her wedding film. Her husband came in to her crying on the couch and he sat and joined her in watching their wedding film. They watched it 3 more times that evening.

She went on to explain that things changed drastically after that evening. She believes that watching their wedding film together brought back a lot of feelings that had faded over the past stressful year. She ended the email thanking me for saving their marriage.

Wow!

Now I know it wasn’t me who saved their marriage. The love was there, it’s just that sometimes people need to be reminded. But I am thankful that I, in some small way, was able to touch their lives and make a change. That’s why I’m a wedding filmmaker.