Singaporebrides | Videography

February 2015

Honest Moments, Heartwarming Memories

Beyond Pictures is a wedding cinematography crew that aims to capture the dynamism of a love story that often eludes photographs. They create wedding films that allow you to relive moments of joy and tenderness by simply pressing play. We meet up with the dynamic duo helming Beyond Pictures for a chat about how exactly they create poignant wedding videos.

Wenkai and Teresa started Beyond Pictures in late 2011, when they discovered their passion for capturing and editing moments of joy and love and weaving them into a narrative told through film. The two of them complement each other with their personalities and strengths. Teresa is bubbly and outgoing, and she connects easily with people. She admits that this connection sometimes causes her to tear up when she edits wedding footage during her job as Chief Editor. Wenkai is a sensitive soul, and the Chief Cinematographer brings a calming influence on flustered brides. Trained in the art of filming, Wenkai believes that wedding videos should capture the organic happenings of a wedding day, so that no special moments are lost through posturing. Wenkai and Teresa are supported by associate teams of other videographers and editors.

Beyond Pictures Wedding Videography 2

When asked about their particular style, the couple reply that what’s most important to them is capturing the moments that, together, create a couple’s unique story and showcase their personalities. Wenkai elaborates, “Our approach is to try to grab things that happen naturally. We believe that everything sums up to become the wedding itself.” For Beyond Pictures, each moment of a wedding day is very precious, because it happens only once in a lifetime. Instead of aiming for an ideal wedding video by getting couples to pose or attempt certain styles, the videographers try to let things unfold as naturally as possible on the wedding day. “We are looking more at the emotions, the candid moments,” Teresa tells me passionately. “The significant moments to us are things like a simple glance between a groom and a bride, or the little actions that tell their story.” The team loves capturing natural reactions between the ‘sisters,’ emotional outbursts by relatives, and couples simply being themselves.

Beyond Pictures Wedding Videography 1

Rather than having a particular style or formula for their videos, Beyond Pictures takes pains to understand each couple and showcase their personalities. They try their best to meet couples before shooting, and get to know them and their preferences, so that they can craft a film that reflects their characters. Wenkai shares, “We like to see the chemistry between every couple. Their personal moments, such as the exchange of vows, of even the feeding each other of the tang yuan.” To them, these are the moments that allow others a glimpse into the couple’s love story, and what sum up to create a meaningful wedding film.

So how do they achieve such natural and personal wedding videos? “We want everything that is true to the heart,” Teresa says. “Not so much of people’s input, but what you really feel. We try not to stop the momentum. That’s why we don’t like to pose them during parts of the wedding, such as the tea ceremony or the veiling. We don’t keep stopping them.” By letting the bridal couple and their loved ones be themselves, Beyond Pictures captures moments that are pure and real. “Certain moments, if you were to intrude, then they would be lost,” Wenkai explains. To allow couples to fully experience each poignant moment of their wedding day, the videographers try to be as unobtrusive as possible. Avoiding too much direction or intrusion, the videographers are constantly at the ready to capture precious moments as they unfold. They also have to be able to assess situations quickly, to know where to focus for the best coverage.

Beyond Pictures Wedding Videography 3

Behind the scenes, these moments are carefully selected by the video editors to create the wedding films. In Beyond Pictures, the videographers and editors maintain their separate roles to give the footage the advantage of two creative perspectives. Teresa explains that the editors watch all the footage taken during the wedding, and then pull out snippets and moments to craft the couple’s narrative. “Each video is different, because of the differences in each couple’s characters,” she shares. “It’s about creating the video that belongs only to the couple.” Employing their storytelling skills, the editors weave the captured moments into unique films that preserve memories for a lifetime.

Beyond Pictures Wedding Videography 4

Preserving such moments is what they love most about what they do. Teresa remembers one particular bride who was sure that her groom wouldn’t be able to pen more than half a page for their letter exchange, and when she received her letter, opened it to find two full pages of his thoughts and feelings. “I remember the moment when she opened it. That moment I teared, actually. When she was reading it, I could feel the emotion,” she says. “That is the kind of thing that we treasure a lot, and that is what pushes us on and why we are still so passionate about weddings.” Two years since Beyond Pictures began, the team says that their direction is still the same—capturing authentic moments and real personalities.

View more of Beyond Pictures’ wedding videography here, or contact them at +65 8233 7399 or [email protected].


Credits: Images are from Lightbox Weddings; feature image cropped from original.

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Honest Moments, Heartwarming Memories