Spotlight on San Ramon: Filmmaker Puts Creative Spin on 'I Do's'

Creating wedding memories that look like professional music videos didn't come naturally to San Ramon resident Andrew Hsu.

In 2003, he made the leap from designing graphics for one of the top video game companies around—Electronic Arts—to filming nuptials. Or rather, the dot-com crash gave Hsu, 35, the push.

After his studio got shut down, Hsu bounced around for a bit. Then he took a couple of wedding videos he shot for friends and turned them into demos, showing them off at a bridal fair. Not long after, Studio MSV was born and word began to spread about Hsu's talents.

"It was something that I grew to love," Hsu said of the career shift. "I was excited. It was a new venture, but I felt like my heart was in illustration. Now I'm very passionate about it. It was a gradual change."

Hsu works roughly 25 weddings a year (his self-imposed limit), working with the couples to pick a theme for the video. Sometimes, the bride and groom have music they want in the background or a specific direction, but often, he's given the opportunity to just get inspiration from the day's events.

"We watch the video all the time," said Jessie Chen, who hired Hsu to film her 2008 wedding. "Every time I watch the video, I just want to send him another note to thank him."

Hsu, whose own wedding was unrecorded, said he tries to tell a story, instead of a chronological documentary. Studio MSV is a small company. Hsu shoots film, along with a few contracted workers, and his wife, Annie, helps behind the scenes. Molding a wedding film into a finished product usually takes about nine months, Hsu said. A long wait, but couples have found out that it's worth it.

"It's a little more whimsical and kind of emotional," he said of his filmmaking style. "Weddings are generally like that, so it works pretty well."

April Dagdagan and her husband, Joemar, hired Hsu for her wedding, held a week before Halloween last year. The couple said their vows in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, offering some challenges and opportunities for Hsu, who is used to filming weddings in San Francisco and other Bay Area locales.

Though Dagdagan hasn't seen the finished product yet, she said that Hsu showed her a sample of what he's working on. She praised Hsu for his ability to interact with family members and get a true sense of the special ceremony.

"We were transported back to the church," Dagdagan said. "To me, that's a mark of a wonderful videographer. To show not only the wedding, but the emotion."

Hsu, who was born in Taipei and moved to the Bay Area when he was three, said his most memorable wedding wasn't a perfect one. It was one of the first weddings he shot after starting Studio MSV. The caterer didn't have enough food for everyone, prompting a bit of a meltdown from the bride.

Hsu had a choice. He could ignore the setback and film a romanticized version of the wedding, or talk to the bride about what she was feeling. Hsu chose the latter, and everyone involved was happy about his decision. He said the bride appreciated how he filmed her pouring her heart out and how it made the video that much more personal.

"Each time we go into it, it feels new and exciting," Hsu said. "I get a bit of butterflies and I'm nervous and I want to do something that's amazing."