Short Drama Evaluation: Forgive Me
Assistant Director: Keavy Devonish
Camera Operators: Daniel Noble, Billy Spires, Keavy Devonish, Aimee Hursey
Editors: Keavy Devonish, Aimee Hursey
Actors: Abi Rudge, Ben Tuner, Daniel Noble, Billy Spires, Keavy Devonish
I have really enjoyed working of this short drama project, I haven’t really worked on something before that has two ending before, it was really exiting to do and it was also a good experience into how I can change ideas for the same project but end it in different ways.
The pre-production was also enlightening as I have written a script before but not to the detail as to which I did this one to. I really liked that me and Aimee decided to work together again as we know what we both mean in terms of what we want in production and we also have the same ideas in the type of production we want to do.
I also found it great that we both got write a script as this saved us time when it came to the radio drama and also we got to compare which one would be best for what type of production the script would suit, we decided that Aimee’s script (Forgive Me) would be chosen for the short drama and that my script (Falling Friend) would be for the radio drama, they both were a perfect fit for the production type we chose for them.
In post-production we did hit a few snags in which were where we are going to film, how we will get there and also who is available for which days, this did effect things like who could act in it but we did get our good actor we have used before (Ben and Abi) and we also got Billy and Danny (Our Crew) to act in scene where me and Aimee could do their jobs and I also wanted Billy to do some camera operating so I was acting in one scene so Billy could take and try the camera. We did eventually chose that we were going to film in Marks Tey and also in college, this is because these placed suited the scenes we wanted so in college we used the projection room and it was used for a school scene and also a hospital scene. Marks Tey we used mainly Aimee’s house as we wanted a party scene and we also wanted other places on her estate to use for a grave scene and also a park scene.
The pre-production paper work was done in plenty of time for the shoot but during the process of doing the paper work Billy and Daniel where added to mine and Aimee’s team due to their project not going as planned and so led to it not making it to the production phase.
I feel this was really good for me and Aimee as we gained two more people who would then help us make the project and now we can do more for the project to try and make it to distinction level, but this change did make some small changes like making sure people can get to where they were going but everything did work out.
We did finally get date for when people are free and also what times they could do till, with timings it was a bit of a struggle as Ben needed to go to work on both filming days and so we only had him from 9:00-2:00PM but we did get everything done on the filming days and we also got him to work on time.
The production phase was fun and also a little hard as again we did come across a few snags but our footage did still turn out great.
On the first day of filming we were at college in the projection room which we were filming the school and hospital scene, as a group we chose the projection room because it’s a nice white room and you can make into mostly anything and we made use of it pretty well, what I mean by this is we made use of everything in there, so there is a white board and tables which we set up as a school class room and then for the camera we put it on a track and dolly so we could get a nice panning shot of the class so we could set the scene, I got this idea from my research I did on TimH’s YouTube video “Lights, Camera, Action”, we then changed the projection room into a hospital room where one of our main characters has been rushed in from a car crash, we did this by putting a table by the white board and putting a white sheet over the table to make it look like a bed and then we put my tablet next to the character and got a heart monitor off YouTube and it really made it feel like we were in a hospital room.
The camera set up we had for the hospital scene was in my opinion great because we had at least three cameras with us which where a Sony NEX, Nikon D7100 and Nikon D3100 and we positioned them in all different places, there was a camera at the front of the room where you could see most of the room, there was another camera to the left and another to the right.
From doing this I had more footage than I would have with just one camera and it this also made the edit I did more interesting because I had so many different angles of the same scene which made the drama more captivating and also I had a lot more to work with for my first proper edit.
We also for this filming day had a lighting kit which I really loved working with due to me only using it in the introduction I had and also the second years having priority on them, we used them and it made the footage we got great but the lights did shine on the white board a bit and I didn’t really notice until I had stopped filming and went into editing but the next time I use them I need to place them where they won’t reflect on anything if I am using them in a room with windows or anything else they can reflect off of.
The second Filming day we had the same camera set up mainly but I didn’t get the lighting kit out because I felt we didn’t really need it as we were outside during the day and it was scheduled to rain and I wanted to keep the kit list down so me and the team did have to leg it back to Aimee’s house with a load of expensive kit.
I found this part of the project hard because I was set to be the editor and at the time I wasn’t that confident with editing at all, I had edited small little adverts at the Sixth Form but I only knew the small basics but I did have a small idea as to what I was doing.
Editing was hard at first but I started to learn and Aimee’s was there as my editing guide as she is very skilled in editing and is self-taught and she did make a great teacher. For the edit I also again looked at the editing style for TimH’s YouTube video “Lights, Camera, Action” his edit starts off slow and peaceful but then as the action starts to come into the video it then gets faster, I was more looking at the slow side of things of how he done his video and I really like the way he panned around the victim that his character is trying to save and how slowed it done more so you could see the expression on the victims face. I tried to make the edit slow but well-paced and by this I mean not too fast otherwise the story would have not made so much sense as the audience would have thought it was too fast and not too good.
I did fall a little behind in editing as there where snow days and I couldn’t come into edit so Aimee had to take charge of the edit, so it was overall me and Aimee editing and that our second edit for the alternate ending was missing footage but I did find the footage and I also did change things a little like the car crash we can’t physically do as we have no money to do cool stuff like they do in big Hollywood blockbusters so for the crash I made the character talk over the phone to the other character and then put car crashing noises in and made it seem like he was in crash.
I am now more confident with Premiere Pro and editing overall as I have been making small videos at home with it and I now get the general idea but I think I still need to practise more as I feel that some of the footage I do in videos goes on too long and that if there’s music the cuts aren’t exactly on the beat and so I think just a bit more practise is needed.
Now I wasn’t present for the presentation but Aimee did tell me that everyone enjoyed and we got good feedback which was “the first ending was smooth and worked really well”, “great camera work” and “second alternative ending was a smooth edit and the story was great”
Thing we were told we could improve where that “We could make the first ending longer” that I agreed on as we did miss a scene out as we didn’t film it due to us forgetting.
Overall I feel the videos went really well and I really enjoyed this project.
