Pairing the right music with your films changes everything—which is why we use Musicbed, a premium music licensing platform, which has proven to be the perfect tool for wedding filmmakers and content creators and the obvious choice for where we source wedding film songs.
Musicbed reached out to interview us about our wedding films and experience using their platform, and here’s what we had to say:
What sparked your passion for filmmaking/storytelling?
Christian, the founder of Fire & Ice, initially picked up a camera and shot his first wedding in 2013, not yet with an insight of the future of the company—just a fiercely creative mind, a keen eye for detail, and the drive that got our team to where we are today.
Chris started out as a wedding photographer, developing a moody, cinematic style of portraiture. Fire & Ice was founded in 2017, and the team rapidly began to expand, naturally delving into cinematography in 2018. With a team of five creative minds, we started executing wild and ambitious ideas that soon got us recognised in the industry and blew up on social media.
Fast forward and we’re now a team of ten, including photographers, videographers, editors, lighting specialists, social media managers and sales executives. We see our team as more than just a business; we’re a family of artists, adventurers, and visionaries who have had the pleasure of documenting over 400 love stories, travelling all around the world together.
Our team often throw about two slogans when getting set up for a shoot—both of which explain the very philosophy of Fire & Ice; Maximum Effort and Don’t just say it, do it!
What keeps you motivated and creatively inspired?
Being such a large team is a huge part of our company’s dynamic, as everyone has a unique skillset that compliments and makes up Fire & Ice. We constantly bounce ideas off each other, in a way that wouldn’t be possible as a solo shooter or just two people. It’s the team meetings, challenging and building upon each others’ ideas until the concept has become as genius as it possibly can.
Also, travelling the world together, sharing the long journeys, experiencing ups and downs, solving problems, seeing awe-inspiring sights and places, making memories side by side… That’s definitely a key part of what motivates and inspires us to keep giving our maximum effort.
Shooting so many different cultures means that every wedding is so unique, and requires us to set a different mood with our cinematography, colours and music choices, to best reflect the couple, their culture, and their vision for their wedding films.
One of our first viral videos was an African wedding in Chateau De Jalesnes in South France—the couple, Rachelle & Christopher, had energy and vibes for days, so naturally we wanted to meet their level of energy, and in doing so, created a style of wedding film that was completely new to us; hype, dramatic, celebrity-status energy, blended with moments of slower, romantic cinema. Their wedding film felt like a music video, and it went viral on Facebook overnight! We started getting floods of requests for this style of video, and it became our new signature.
What makes a story visually appealing? What role does music play in storytelling?
Music and sound design is one of the primary components that sets the tone of a film. It can bring you to tears, swells of joy, evoke laughter, or have you on the edge of your seat with anticipation. Music can tell a story alone—cinematography, colours and editing can then add another layer of dimension and emotion to your story, when expertly woven together, they can yield a storytelling masterpiece.
If we were to shoot a high-energy wedding such as Doria & Alie, with all the fast-paced direction, dancing and quick camera movements, and try to edit it to a slow, cinematic choice of music, it wouldn’t align with the energy of the visuals we’d created, or convey the story of the wedding day. It’s key to consider the tone of your visuals, whether they be energetic, dramatic, epic, moody, uplifting, powerful, peaceful, happy, playful, fun, serious… Then use those keywords and attributes to find the best fitting music.
What elements do you think are essential for crafting a compelling story?
We think it’s key to get to the root of our clients’ love story before trying to communicate it on camera. We have consultations with our couples on the run-up to their wedding day, and ask those key questions like:
How did you meet?
What did you do for your first date?
How did you get engaged?
What do you enjoy doing together?
Quite often, we discuss a point of interest or a part of their story that sparks an idea for their film, and it being so unique to them, they love the idea and completely trust in us to execute our vision by whatever means necessary. To give you an example, Hannah & Ollie booked us to shoot their save the date and wedding films, and when we asked them about their engagement, Ollie told us he took Hannah up in his plane and flew her over the wedding venue they had always planned to book.
Fast forward a few weeks, and we rocked up to Ollie’s plane hangar in York with our camera gear, and filmed a beautiful and cinematic retelling of their engagement, with a swell of emotional music blended with Ollie’s voice narration of how he proposed.
If it weren’t for that consultation to discuss their love story, we never would’ve thought to weave a narrative so unique to Hannah & Ollie into their film. Watch the BTS below.
So a key element for crafting a compelling story is emotional research!
How important is music in your work?
More often than not, music is the very core of a project, the kindling of flame to an idea. A song can completely inspire and direct the visuals, the narrative, before anything has even been storyboarded or shot. Knowing the music we’re going to use in a film allows us to plan the footage we shoot, the camera angles, placement, the speed of movement, whether we shoot handheld, gimbal or drone shots…
What advice would you give other filmmakers/creators who are just starting their careers?
Every single member of our team is unique, but we all share a common trait—we give everything our maximum effort, always. If you have a passion for filmmaking or creating content, even if you’re at square one with little to no experience, go into it with a fiery passion to create and know that a passion to learn and drive to succeed will take you further than talent.
How do you find the balance between pushing boundaries creatively and delivering what your client wants or audience wants to see?
Going back to what we said previously; we schedule consultations with our clients both before and after shooting their films, so that we can extensively discuss their vision and anticipate how much creative freedom we have. Most clients tend to book us for the ideas they’ve seen us execute that push boundaries and stand out from other wedding films—posted on Instagram and Facebook—and the behind the scenes we share on YouTube, which lets them experience into what it’s like to work with us. If clients book us for our ambitious ideas, they more often than not will grant us complete creative freedom to come up with something incredible for their wedding too.
If a client already has a specific idea for their film, we’ll happily go along with that to create their ideal result—if they already have a vision, it helps steer us in the right direction.
What is the most challenging aspect of being a filmmaker/creative?
Complete creative freedom isn’t always a blessing! Everyone experiences burnout and creative block, and we shoot over 100 weddings a year, so every now and again we hit a hurdle. It’s easy to fall into safe routines when you shoot so many weddings, so our biggest challenge is staying away from the comfort of safe ideas and safe shots, and instead striving to execute our wildest ideas—that’s what sets us apart.
What’s your favourite project that you’ve worked on? or What are some of your favourite projects you’ve worked on?
One of our all-time favourites is a wedding we shot back in 2020—the first one after the Covid-19 lockdown was lifted. Natasha & Donald originally booked us for one day of photography, to shoot their adventurous elopement on the mountaintops of Isle of Skye, Scotland. We managed to convince them to let us shoot their film too, and it ended up being an unforgettable 5-day hike to Old Man of Storr and Quiraing, where laughs, fights & epic bangers ensued, and the results were phenomenal; as Chris exclaims in the Behind the Scenes, ‘That’s probably the best first kiss shot I’ve taken in my life. We’ll never ever shoot anything like that again.”
How do you search for music on Musicbed? What are some tips that you’d give other filmmakers to search on Musicbed?
We always start with an emotion, with the goal of matching the energy to the wedding day. Whether the bridal party are dancing and hyping up the bride and groom, or if the couple choreographed a slow, romantic first dance that we filmed in multiple scenes to use match cut throughout the film, then we’ll use the mood category on Musicbed to narrow the search to the most relevant results. A really useful tools is the ability to search by BPM. So if we want to mix several songs together for a film, we can narrow the results to find songs of the right mood that also match beats.
Musicbed offers such a diverse range of music, which is incredibly useful for us shooting so many different cultures. You can search by attributes, such as African, Caribbean, East Asian, and many more. Another one of our favourite features is search by instrument. Say there’s a string quartet, church choir or saxophonist playing at the wedding, and we captured lots of footage we want to feature, we can look for a song that incorporates that instrument and really match the visual to the audio.
Why do you utilise Musicbed in your work?
Musicbed has allowed us to take our films to a new level when it comes to creating emotionally evoking, powerful and cinematic wedding films. The range of artists and audio available is unmatched anywhere else, and with the new unique AI search feature, Musicbed is an irreplaceable asset as one of our filmmaking resources.
Take your films to the next level with music from Musicbed. Sign up for a free account to listen for yourself, or subscribe to start licensing with a free 14 day trial.
You can also check out our curated Musicbed playlist for inspiration and songs that have had a massive impact in our films.
