"If you are getting married and have been to a fair, you know who Jason Magbanua is - if simply because he is the Holy Grail of videographers, whose videos are posted all over the YouTube, personal blogs and websites. You may have also heard the urban legend about the bride who moved her wedding date to make sure that Jason would be her videographer. You might be thinking that, what with the overwhelming demand for his services and his many inernational awards, wedding videographer Jason Magbanua might be completely inaccessible. Not exactly. Those who have had the privilege of his services think he is a genius. Others think he is a magician. Still more know him as someone committed to working wonders with every wedding he shoots, no matter what. But as far as Jason is concerned, he is simply a visual storyteller, someone who draws on his life-changing experiences and surprising personal stories when he wants to tell a story." -- Excerpted from Manila Bulletin, March 21. 2011 __________________________________________________ Jason Magbanua is a wedding videographer. He is also a father to three beautiful children. Jakob, Lukas and Elise. If you get to meet him , he does not really refer to himself in the third person. And in case you want to read on, here is something in the first person (written some 5 years ago yet surprisingly rings true to this day): "My shooting style is highly unobtrusive and candid. I don't get in the way. I do not direct events but rather, wait for them to unfold. A wedding day has enough drama, humor and romance by itself. I wouldn't want to tamper your experience of it by asking you to 'act out' something which never really happened in the first place. The magic begins anew when we proceed to edit your video. We thresh out the raw footage and artistically weave the story of your wedding day and come up with something exciting and enjoyable to watch - every time. The videos are a collaboration between you and me. My best videos are the ones in which you had a hand in creating. Just like the wedding day, the video is fun, dynamic yet moving and romantic. What sets us apart is the evolution of the styles we employ. We immerse ourselves in other media to gather inspiration. We keep abreast with the latest technology so the newest tools are available at the clients disposal. But technology is never a crutch, the creative mind is our primary tool. It has been eleven years and the vision has remained - deliver the best wedding films clients (and their children) will rave about for years to come." Jason Magbanua's Humble Beginnings: From Teacher to Videographer Magbanua first discovered his fondness for video in college in the early '90s. "Even though I was initially an economics major," he says, "I shifted course my second year and took mostly production classes from then on." Magbanua's first job out of school was as a college instructor, teaching a bit of English but mostly taking charge of the curriculum for the communication arts degree. 'There I taught video production while learning the intricacies of the Videonics MX2000," he says. Shortly thereafter, he began receiving inquiries from people to have him shoot their weddings. His first customers were primarily older sisters of his students, and then it was friends of friends as his circle gradually grew. In 2000, Magbanua decided to become a full-time wedding videographer. All in a Day's Work: Today, Magbanua and his staff are producing more than 100 weddings per year. He has drawn the most attention for his Same-Day Edit (SDE) work, winning WEVA's CEA Gold for SDEs in August 2006 and the 4EVER Group's Diamond award for SDEs in January 2007 (along with 'Best in Show' for the SDE and seven other AAAs). Magbanua first introduced SDEs (which he brands "Onsite MTV") into his product offerings two years ago. "Ever since we started doing SDEs, presenting to 200 guests on a weekly basis has done wonders for marketing. Our referral base has widened and word of mouth has spread like wildfire," he says. "When they see the SDEs at the reception it's gotten easier to say, 'So that's why he's expensive.'" Achieving success through SDEs has been hard work, though. "It's very stressful to edit an SDE," he says. "I used to use a direct-to-disk recorder but the weight held me down and cramped my shooting style, so I've retired it and gone back to tape. At set points during a wedding - like after the veil has been placed on the bride or right after the kiss at the church - an assistant captures the footage. When there's enough footage to work with, I start editing. Faster laptops have enabled me to play around with curves and filters. The key is to streamline the capturing so there's more time for creative editing." A Widescreen View Another way Magbanua has worked to differentiate his services is his "Widescreen Wedding" product. "I wanted to raise my prices but I didn't want to go the usual route of adding stuff to the package," he says. "I had just purchased an FX1 and wanted to exploit its capabilities. HD was out of the question, as delivery methods were still unclear. I studied what competitors had to offer, which was all 4:3, and decided that 16:9 was the way to go." Magbanua launched the concept with brochures and full-page ads in two nationally circulated magazines as well as at bridal shows. "It was a tough sell at first," he says, but gradually clients warmed to it. "I realized then that 'if we offer it, they will come.'" Another focal point of Magbanua's marketing efforts has been his willingness to distribute demos. "We were the first to do this locally," he says. "We handed out discs to everybody in sight. Not just prospects, but passers-by, fellow videographers, and photographers." Showing demos made raising prices much easier. "At the time, the prevailing mindset was 'I'm afraid my style will get copied by others.' We decided this was baseless paranoia. All art and style is derivative of other work. The key is keeping one step ahead of the competition and continually learning, adapting, and evolving to suit the market," he says. "I don't care if people are copying what we did yesterday because I'm doing something else today. Besides, it was flattering that competitors emulated our work. We even took extra time to answer any inquiries about the videos and the process involved in creating them. Later on, we formalized the help we gave into seminars and workshops, and our colleagues became open to the idea of pushing the creative envelope. Better videos across the board means better market acceptance of high-quality, higher-priced products." Jason Magbanua also spearheaded pinoyvideomaker.com, an online resource for Filipino videographers, as the first step toward establishing a videographers' association in the Philippines.

2011 Wedding Video:

Elton Yap - Roxanne Guinoo Wedding