2012 was a huge year. We fully booked our wedding season (and then some). We made films for awesome commercial brands, artists and entrepreneurs. We won awards. We got into film festivals. It was tempting to think “we can sit back and rest on our laurels now.”

Yeah, right.

When we talked about 2013 goals, a theme emerged. It was all about raising the game. We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished but we’re only planning to get better. To celebrate all that’s new with Long Haul, we’re also super-duper, skippedy-dippedy excited to announce a very special giveaway.

We’re giving away a free wedding film!

That’s right. This giveaway is open to anyone getting married after December 12, 2013. It doesn’t matter where you’re having your wedding. What matters is that you want to raise the game with us. The winner will be the couple having the most interesting, unique, trailblazing wedding and who want us to do something new, different and extraordinary for their wedding film. Want us to fly to Nepal and film a wedding on Mt. Everest? Want to see if we can shoot an underwater wedding? Planning to get married at a music festival with an up-and-coming hip-hop artist as your officiant?  Plotting to do something unusual at your wedding like going for a world record or skydiving into the reception? Let’s do something cool together, something that’s never been done before and could change the way people think about wedding films. We’ll work with you totally free of charge and we’ll pay our own travel fees if you don’t live nearby.

To enter, fill out this form.

Beyond giving out wildly generous gifts, here’s what else you have to look forward to from Long Haul Films this year…

A new website
Our website is our storefront. Like many small businesses, we put ours up in a rush without a lot of thought. It was doing a basic job of showing our work, but it felt kind of lame.

That’s why one of our biggest priorities for 2013 was a complete overhaul of our website and all our social media. We worked with the talented design team of Ty + Tess to create a whole new look that represents the real us. We cut out all the boring marketing speak, so the site now feels like having a chat with us. It reflects that our team has grown since we launched in 2010. It’s not just me and Tom no mo’. Head on over and check out the new longhaulfilms.com and watch our all-new About Us video below:

Renewed focus on translating our live event experience for commercial clients
To film weddings, you need to be nimble, flexible, full of energy and capable of making snap-second decisions. You only get one chance to nail your shots and you often have to do it in non-ideal conditions. These skills are exactly what commercial clients want, too. The companies hiring us value the fact that we move quickly and get the job done with less equipment, staff and complications than other companies.

Commercial clients appreciate that we’re willing to try new things, take risks and go the extra mile. They also like that we don’t see ourselves as a production company you hire to come in and point cameras at stuff. We’re a collaborator who wants to go deep with you to understand your most audacious goals and figure out how to create a film that fits in with the big picture. We’re thrilled to have added some new commercial clients to the roster already in 2013 and looking forward to making great films with interesting people and brands this year.

Raising the game for the wedding filmmaking industry and for clients
If you make wedding films, you’re used to people telling you stories about nightmare videographers who they saw at a wedding in the 1990s. You read the wedding blogs and see one wedding film for every 75,000 photos. Or you get hit with the stereotype that what you do isn’t real filmmaking.

We’re gonna change that.

The world of wedding and live event filmmaking is changing fast but there aren’t many reliable places where people who specialize in this area can get information or where brides and grooms can learn more about what makes a great wedding film. Except now there is, because we’ve created it. love24fps is our new website, dedicated to the art and science of live event filmmaking. We’re going to be talking a lot more about it but feel free to hop over and check it out.

We’ve also introduced a new educational event exclusively for Long Haul Films’ clients. It’s called Long Haul Films Guide to Amazing Wedding Films and it’s a night when we’ll share secrets to making the most of your investment in a wedding film. We’re excited that it will give our clients the chance to think about what they want from their wedding film and make sure they know about the little plans they can put in place to help us get incredible footage. We’re really looking forward to hanging out with our clients there and drop us an email if you haven’t RSVPed yet and want to sign up.

A new motto
Every team needs a rallying cry, and because we’re French electro nerds around Long Haul HQ, we got some inspiration from the good people at Daft Punk. For years, the song “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” has been what I played when I needed sonic inspiration. Late one night, we figured out the Latin translation, and lo and behold, a motto was born: Durius, Melius, Velocius, Fortius.

It’s perfect. Harder, better faster, stronger is how we approach everything at Long Haul Films and how we live our lives.  We want to be the best at everything we do, plain and simple.

We’d love to hear what you think about our new focus, our new look, our new motto and our new contest. Leave us your feedback in the comments and help us spread the word about the free wedding film giveaway by sharing this blog with all your engaged friends.

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