Okay, so I need to vent. This year I used someone that everyone else uses to video their recital (since last year I got screwed) He does good work and professional. So recital day a differnt guy walks in filling in for the guy I hired. Its recital day nothing, I can really do about it seemed like he knew what he was doing. So recital was May 31 and it is July 23 now and I have yet to recieve my dvd. (which I was suppose to get a copy at the end of recital) One of my dance moms just contacted me and told me she recieved her dvd and it looks like the are little purple aliens. You can't see their faces it looks like he recoreded with his iphone. She and her husband feel like they were ripped off... So another thing I have to deal with. No clue what I will do next year since he is really the only person that videos recital down here.

Thanks for listening.... Have a good day!

Ugh...videographers are ALWAYS an issue.

Luckily, my fiance is involved in directing/dping/modeling, so he knows alot of people who do music videos that I get to hire for recital times (yay!!). I wish I could say that there was an easy solution to this, but unfortunately, there isnt.


I've heard of it sometimes becoming a court issue. I hope things don't escalate that far for you....those are not fun to deal with. I hope it looks up for you somehow!

after 26 years of crappy "videographers" we now have a parent that videotapes both the final dress rehearsal and the performance. She then puts both on a dvd for the parents. This really has made all the difference (though you have to make sure that it is a trusted parent who will not zoom in on their child for the entirety of the performance). Even better, she does it for free! Don't you love parents like these

When I was teaching in Ireland thats what I used to do, that mum would come along to the dress rehearsal as well and that way she would see any nice shots that she wanted to do close ups on and we ended up with a pro looking video that everyone was happy with because it cost them a lot less.

Im sorry for your troubles! Contact him asap and tell him you need to see the DVD. That's just ridiculous that you don't even have anything to say to the mom because you haven't seen it yet!

We had a crappy videographer and didn't know what to do. We were at our wits end and contemplating trying to do it ourselves. We posted an ad on cragislist (I know that sounds like a terrible idea). It was the best thing we ever did! Basically a retired older man found our post. He videos because it is his passion...not because he needs the money. He does great work because he really takes pride in it. We went to his house to pick up the DVD's and he lives in a multi-million dollar mansion on the beach...no joke! He doesn't need the money so he charges us $15 per DVD and we sell them for $30.

We LOVE him and he found our post on craigslist. I know it's a shot in the dark but it can't hurt to see what turns up. He also videos for the local high schools. Have you contacted a local high school to see who they use for productions?

Good luck!

I was fed up too, so I bought a half-price used but refurbished HD video camera on Ebay, and one of the fathers tapes for us. He then gives me two DVD's that I mass copy, and everyone gets one as part of their recital fee. This discourages parents from taking their own video, and ours come out great too. Stage lights come out like daylight, and he periodically zooms in on everyone's face.

I bought a simple high speed DVD copy machine on Ebay for $135 and I can crank them out in minutes instead of hours. Now I don't have to worry about copyright issues from a professional photographer.