Wedding videographer gone AWOL

moneyman4u

The other option of course if its digital which it probably is these days is that he put it on his computer and didnt make a back up copy and his computer got mucked up by a virus or something ot it got deleted by mistake, so many things can go wrong with digital compared to film especially as many photographers had not even touched a computer when they used film.

RenStar

moneyman4u you're beginning to really scare me! If he has lost the footage then we're screwed because it's not like we can have the day back can we? No amount of money or compensation is going to fix that.

He is still not answering his phone and hasn't replied to my e-mail or messages and tomorrow's the deadline. Do you or does anyone else have any experience of the IOV and whether they have any clout?

I checked his website yesterday and he seems to have updated it recently so he must still be around. Wonder if any of you fancy trying to get hold of him for me to see if he responsd because he won't or doesn't to me. The site address is: http://www.angels-films.com/

Welshlassie

The other way of trying to get him to speak to you is call up and leave a message saying you are interested in using him next year some time (specific a date) and ask him to call you. Leave a name and number he is not familar with, he should then call you back if he thinks you are new work, at least then you have him on the phone you can ask him where your video is.

I really hope you get this sorted. Did any of your guests take a camera that you coud get some footage from as a last resort??

moneyman4u

No answer.

There is another possibility, and no offence is meant, it does say on the website that it takes 3 months to send you your disks, there is a chance that he will have percieved you as being a pain in the **** by phoning and emailing alot before the 3 months is up and is just ignoring you because he can, after all has the money and he knows that you wont/cant get a refund because you want the dvd, I've been in this position and once you have the cash paid in full there is very little motivation to do the job in any hurry.

If after Saturday and he still ignores you and you have no disk you could email him and tell him you are going to contact "world pay" (his internet payment provider) to report him for not providing goods after payment, the threat of losing his online payment system may spur him into action. I know that this works with neteller (a different payment company) so it may be worth a shot.

RenStar

Ok, would give the World Pay thing a shot. The three months thing was added to the site after we booked him, he told us it would be two months when we booked and he said as much in subsequent e-mails to me. The contract I signed said supply would be made within 3 months of the wedding, but that if we're not happy with it, it can take more than this to resolve. 3 months was last week Saturday. Since we haven't even seen any footage, would he not be in breach of contract now? I wouldn't mind so much if he hadn't told us the video was near complete in his last e-mail (dated 21/11, see below) and then disappear with nothing. If I hadn't heard anything, then fair enough I would have assumed he hadn't finished. I just don't get why someone will take the time to write a pretty long email apologising and then no contact.

Hi ********,

Your wedding video is finished now. I'm so sorry about this delay. I had hoped to get your DVDs to you a long time ago now. The editing process has been finished for a few weeks now, but there was a problem that needed to be fixed regarding the format of the video - basically there was a difference in the type of "timecode" used on the master tapes to the timecode I use on the editing suite, so when I went to produce the DVDs there were quite a few problems with audio sync and bits of video in the wrong place. Anyway, this is all fixed. It's as if my computer and my camera were talking to eachother but in different languages...


Over the next day or so, I am going to do my final checks to make sure that we have covered everything you wrote down in your Wedding Video Planner. Everything is in colour, and there is plenty of footage of your guests. There will be two DVDs in each DVD case as the videos turned out to be quite long. This is a good thing because I can encode the video to the highest quality and you also get the most out of your DVDs.

At the moment I'm mostly filming during the day and editing through the night (just finishing an editing shift now actually.) So if you need to get hold of me, please can you write me an email. I check my email every night and will be able to get back to you before the next morning.

If there are any last minute requests regarding how your DVDs should be made up, please let me know as soon as possible because they are going to be copied soon. I estimate that they should be delivered to you by Monday nex week, however I hope to push ahead to get the to you before the weekend.

I hope everything is alright. I am sorry for the delay and I hope this hasn't caused any upset.

Many thanks,

Stevi.

I am hoping that maybe he's gone away and hasn't receieved any of the messages. If it is a case of ignoring me just because he can, how long can he do this for? I mean it's not somthing I'm just going to turn around and say - ah forget it, am I? At the end of the day I paid for a service I haven't received. Where do I stand?

moneyman4u

Sounds like somethings up, I wonder if he burnt the disk after writing that email, and when he tested the disk in the DVD player the audio was out of sync or it wouldnt play right or something, that would explain why he wrote the long email and then has not been in touch, also he said he was quite busy at the moment, I expect he does other film work in the week maybe and perhaps he has a deadline on a job that he has not been paid for yet and has proritised that.

If the editing was done and there was no problem with your disk I assume he would have posted it out to you by know, so it does look like perhaps he has some technical problem.

RenStar

Hmm, maybe. I just wished he'd let me know what was going on, that's all. If he was honest and said to me we won't get the video till next year, at least I will know and would stop worrying. It's just getting harder and harder to remain positive when I don't hear anything.

Thanks for all your input however, and to everyone else who took the time to read and respond to my post, I appreciate it.

Ren-xx

RenStar

Hi,
just thought I'd update anyone who cares to know - he sent our DVDS :T!! My husband just picked them up from the sorting office this afternoon, yipee!! There was a card when we got in Friday to say a package was being held for us but we couldn't collect it on Saturday because they hadn't taken it back to the depot yet so spent all weekend wondering whether he'd come through or not and started pulling together bits and bobs for the complaint to the IOV if needed today. Thankfully, I won't have to do that now, and although he still :rolleyes: never responded to any of my messages it looks like he definitely got them. I'm so relieved and can finally rest easy tonight. Hopefully the footage would be good so I won't have to go back to him or ever have to deal with him again.
Thanks to everyone who tried to help me.
Ren-xx

Penny_Watcher

Well thank flip for that!!! :T

Let us know what the footage is like when you've seen it. Aw, I'm really pleased for you after all that trouble.

RenStar

Thanks Penny Watcher. I can't wait to finish work and go home to watch! Will definately let you know what the footage is like.