Practising writing and filming a shortish sketch.

For some reason I found myself wanting to improve y filming techniques, script writing techniques, narrative and how good I can portray a certain genre. So, I thought what better way of learning all of this than by writing a script, planning it and then filming it?

Planning: 
In the end I decided to go for a comedic murder mystery. I have seen many short sketches all over the internet where the comedy genre has quick, confusing scenes that make no sense but still turn out funny. At first I struggled to write a script. It's hard to think of something that is funny to you but would also be funny to others and knowing me, I doubt I would completely stick to the script. In the end I threw a few cheesy lines, actions and shots into the script hoping it would work out later. Then the idea to spontaneously film the sketch today came to me while I was sat in a Tesco trolly being pushed around by a friend. After a hour of buying snacks, complaining how uncomfortable the trolly was and slowly persuading my friend, she gave in an agreed to help me film. I already had a costume prepared for myself but sadly in the moment of excitement I forgot to inform the cast that they would be in my sketch. So, when they turned up to my friends house expecting a party all they got was a camera to the face. (Lucky I have great friends so they were more than happy to act without preparation.)

Filming: 
When we started filming we got off to a shaky start. I had forgotten to write down the types of shots I wanted to take of people while they were acting. But, thanks to quick thinking and lots of camera re-angleing, I was able to get some good shots. However, as I predicted I didn't fully stick to the script. This caused a few complications because some things I wrote down didn't work with the shot or I forgot to add detail (karma for not taking my time while planning.) Despite this, we were able to film using the power of improvisation.

The final product: 

Shown below is the final version of my sketch. Well, one of the final versions. I have two final versions. One being 3 minutes and the other being 1 minute 30 seconds. I decided to upload the shorter one because I believe that the narrative can be shown and understood in half the time. However, by doing this there are a few complications with the footage but I'll comment on that later. 

Birthday Bash from Charlotte Bancroft on Vimeo.

My thoughts: 
So, after editing and watching this many times I have noticed some good things and some not so great things.

• What went well? 
• I believe the narrative was pretty funny. The story line was pretty obvious too. 
• some of the shots were well done. There is also a variety of shots. 
• The acting is slightly believable. 
• Video quality and sound are very good. 
• What didn't go well? 
• Editing. Due to the fact that I tried to shorten the footage to 1 minute 30 seconds, the cut from one shot to a next is a bit shabby. Some cuts don't match, sound is abruptly cut in some places. 
• Some shots weren't great. The shot where I announce that the "blood" is ketchup is filmed really poorly. Firstly, it is unfocused, secondly it is not the correct shot. However, we did have a medium shot of me announcing it was ketchup. Unfortunately, I accidentally deleted that footage when sorting though it on my camera. 
• Due to lots of footage missing, the whole thing is confusing and doesn't seem to link up correctly. 

The whole sketch: 

I'm also going to upload the 3 minute version so it can be compared to the shorter version. I believe the longer version is a lot better because the narrative is better, editing is better, more media techniques are used and in general I think its better.

Birthday Bash from Charlotte Bancroft on Vimeo.