FRAMED-UP Production members (left to right)—Ben Gendrano Jr., Ralph Timothy Rasay, Peter Allen Allarey and Ferdinand Fernandez.
LUCENA CITY—Bonded by a common passion for digital video and photography, a group of young men turned their hobbies into a profitable enterprise focused on recording weddings.
It started in March 2010, when a friend asked Peter Allen Allarey to take the photos and video of a church wedding in Lucena City.
Allarey asked pal Ralph Timothy Rasay from Las Piñas City to assist him. The third man in the team was a high school chum, Ferdinand Fernandez, who took the video recording job. In turn, Fernandez took in local freelance video artist Ben Gendrano Jr.
Results of the photo and video coverage left a remarkable imprint on the satisfied newlywed client.
Fernandez, 29, says just a few months since the group’s initial “gig” they had a series of chats over the Internet and exchanged posts in their Facebook pages until they decided to form “Framed-Up Production” (FUP).
The four took the varied roles that go with completing a project: videographer-editor, concept director, photographer, 3D animator, graphics artist and video editor.
Even as they specialized in weddings, the FUP also accepted recordings of birthdays and other occasions, corporate events and documentation of government happenings.
Rasay and Fernandez dropped their respective high paying jobs in call centers so they could concentrate on the business venture.
FRAMED-UP Production coverage team.
“I gambled my P25,000 a month wage at the call center. And I never regretted my decision,” says Rasay, 27. He adds he is now earning double what he used to get.
One of his motivations for his wedding coverages is his anticipation of expressions of pure emotions and love, says Fernandez, a dropout of a hotel and restaurant management course in college.
He says he now now “owns” his time while pursuing personal growth and advancement in his trade of choice.
The group’s photo-video wedding coverage package rates range from P40,000 to P80,000 compared to the average P100,000 bill of photo coverage alone by some studios.
FUP already has schedules until 2013. Last December, they had a total of 15 weddings excluding private Christmas parties and company holiday gigs. Their 2012 calendar is slowly being filled up while other events are now in the negotiation stages.
Fernandez says their technique consists of doing a documentary of their subjects with a “music video” style of editing to enhance the storytelling aspect.
He says their concept does not focus on the “cinematic” element alone but captures the spontaneity of their subjects through live audio, in the belief that conversations during the recording make the video “more dramatic, candid and worthwhile to watch.”
FUP cites an instance when a girlfriend was overwhelmed with emotions when her boyfriend proposed marriage in a ritzy clubhouse whose floor had scattered rose petals.
As the boyfriend was delivering his self-prepared script his lady love was crying while in the background, a close friend of the couple was crooning a love song to the accompaniment of an organist and a lady violinist.
“We learned a lot of other people also cried with joy after watching the video,” says Fernandez.
Assignments
Last year, FUP’s work brought the individual members to Singapore and the US and the entire team to Iloilo and Vigan.
From the original four members, FUP now has a 12-man production team: four photographers, four videographers and four assistants, all of whom are adept with coverage tools.
The group members say they have a simple financial sharing arrangement. Any member who clinches a deal with a client handles the account. He pays the fixed rates of the group members and shoulders the production expenses. The account handler then keeps the rest of the payment.
“No one is above the other. Though we’re all part of the company, we’re still freelancers,” Fernandez says.
The group covers wedding occasions, from the preparation to the reception. They have an output of around 3,000 to 4,000 raw photos (unedited) and at least five hours of unedited video.
“All our shots are composed, angled and taken without the need for post editing,” he says. They edit the videos, though, he adds.
Clients could find them on the Internet, on their Facebook pages, where samples of their works could be viewed. Their Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/FUProduction.