Evaluation

Evaluation

After researching into several ideas including live talk shows and panel shows, I decided to create a live drama because I was fascinated by how multiple cameras can be used to focus on different elements of a scene such as characters and set and also, I aspire to create drama for my career as it is something I enjoy.

After deciding to create a live drama, choosing the genre of a relationship drama and deciding what content I would include in my drama, I conducted research into the subjects that I planned to portray within my drama, which was useful to me because it meant that when it came to writing the script, I was well-informed about each subject. Additionally, I looked into different forms of live drama including live theatre and televised live drama because I wanted to take inspiration from how live dramas are made, in both theatre and television format, with regards to how they are shot and what type of audience they receive so that when it came to creating my product, I knew what types of shots to use. Finally, I conducted a survey to a selection of people of different ages to receive an idea of what elements an audience for a relationship drama would expect to see, which would benefit me when it came to writing the script because I would know what I should include in my drama.

My research gave me a sense of direction because I was able to create a treatment for my live drama, including details of the plotline and characters and the visual elements such as lighting, set and audio. This gave me a clear structure for a storyline to write the script and also it gave me an idea of how to set up the studio when it came to production. In a lot of the multi-camera dramas I researched, in a scene with two characters, there would usually be one camera focusing on both characters and a camera focusing on each character so therefore, I followed a similar setup where I set up three cameras; two that focused on characters and one that remained static, focusing on the set. After completing my storyboard, risk assessments and location recces, I had a strong structure for my play and I was able to plan ahead for all of my shoots.

After completing all of my pre-production documents, I was ready to start filming. I knew that these shoots would be challenging because it would be the first time I have used multiple cameras to film one sequence so therefore, I learnt quite early on in the filming process that it was important for each camera to have the same time code so that when it came to editing, it would be easy to sync all of the footage. I filmed the entire film over the course of three weeks. The majority of scenes were shot in the first two weeks but I had to take an extra week to film the opening titles and to do various re-shoots because in earlier shoots, I wasn't happy with the framing. In early shoots, I faced issues with sound and making sure the time code was set to exactly the same time for each camera because I was unsure how to operate sound on the camera but these issues were resolved with my tutor's and peers' assistance. Therefore, during this project, I learnt how to operate sound on a camera and to set time codes. I split filming into four production shoots to reduce the amount of lines the cast had to learn at one time. At the end of each shoot, I put all the raw footage into the edit which allowed me to create a basic structure for my final product but also it would allow me to judge if I needed to re-shoot any scenes, which was the case with the final scene because the framing was incorrect.

After wrapping filming and placing all the raw footage on to the edit, I began reviewing all the footage and cutting together all of the best footage for each scene from each camera. Some footage from some of the cameras I was unable to use because it didn't sync up with what I already had on the edit so therefore, with some scenes, I was limited to what I could use. This would encourage me in the future to take extra time to make sure each camera is set up correctly with sound, white balance, framing, exposure and focus. Additionally, with most of the footage, the sound quality was poor but I rectified this issue by raising the volume to the highest level I could in the edit to make sure it was possible to hear the actors. The main effects I used in my film were "Scale", which allowed me to zoom in to focus on a particular character to convey their emotion to the audience and "Brightness and Contrast", which allowed me to make the footage appear darker to suit the dark tone of the story. Additionally, I used the "Ultra Key" effect to black out some green screen that leaked into some of the footage so that the background remained entirely black throughout the film.

In consolidation, I am very happy with my final product because I was able to produce a drama which was appropriate for the genre I chose. From this whole experience, I have learnt to take more time when filming to make sure that each technical element is correct.