A Big Fat Greek-Jewish Wedding

I don't usually do personal but it's a slow Saturday. Two weeks ago our best friends' daughter Dara married Chris at Battery Park Gardens on a beautiful Sunday with a wonderful view of the harbor. They met as freshman 7 years ago at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and with both working in arts related fields, designed their own wedding, beautifully thought out, and it went off practically without a hitch. It turned out to be Harbor Day, so there were lots of interesting distractions coming from outside. Like the 20 person Navy brass band during the ceremony. And the pirate ship with the Jolly Roger parking right in front of us.

Dara is Jewish and Chris is Greek, so there was a Greek orthodox priest and female rabbi, who turned out to be very funny and had the place rolling during the ceremony. When people began to dance, it started with the traditional hora, which morphed into a Greek circle dance.

Mark, the father of the groom, is my video partner in our mythical production company, NorMark Productions. Recently we both bought the new Kodak Z18 flip-type video camera (which can shoot hi-def video, has a mic output, and a pull out USB connector to plug right into your camera, which you don't even have to do because it shoots on SD cards which can be flipped into a computer). The cost was around $170 (sans cards).

Mark handed the camera to a few of us during the wedding to get whatever footage we could. He then created a wonderful montage and put it up on You-tube. People who saw it said they didn't even know someone was shooting video, that is how unobtrusive the camera is.

Dara and Chris, on their honeymoon in Greece, got to an internet cafe and were able to watch it, maybe a world record for the fastest turn around time in a couple seeing video of their wedding. Mark and I think this will be a new paradigm, where instead of putting those still cameras at each table, a few flips will be handed out to the guest to shoot their own footage.

I have it here for those who don't click the links, but it is much better when you watch it directly on you tube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YddDUXmIq8






Related:
David Bellel has been using a Flip camera for quite some time to shoot many of the political events here. Since there is so much power in video, activists should check out these cheap and effective cameras. The Kodak Z18 has the advantage of an external mic connection to improve the sound. Imagine going to a press conference at Tweed or City Hall and standing next to all the giant TV cameras with a little deck of cards sized camera on a tripod.