The Museum of Fine Arts is the St. Petersburg venue that gives a film height, and height is the hardest thing to buy in Florida. Labif Filmhouse has filmed there on the downtown waterfront.
The MFA sits along St. Petersburg's waterfront. Its Marly Room is a ballroom with 22-foot ceilings and four crystal chandeliers, one at each corner. Ceremonies also run in the courtyard, around a fountain and planting, and there is a two-storey glass Conservatory looking out at the bay with a terrace attached.
How it actually films
Twenty-two feet of ceiling changes what a wide frame does. In a standard ballroom a wide shot shows you the room's limits; in the Marly Room it shows scale, and a couple can occupy the lower third of frame without looking lost.
The Conservatory is the opposite instrument — two storeys of glass, so it is daylight-driven and changes character hour to hour. Late afternoon it is the best-lit room in the building. After sunset it turns into a mirror, and anything shot there at night is fighting reflections of the room behind the camera.
What to protect in the timeline
- Conservatory portraits before sunset. It is a glass box; the value is entirely in daylight.
- The courtyard fountain early. It reads well and it is the only setting on site with running water.
- One wide in the Marly Room with the chandeliers in frame. That is the shot the room exists for.
Madison + Jonathan
Filmed at the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg in July 2022. Their film is below.
Filmed at Museum Of Fine Arts. See more of our St. Petersburg wedding film work.