This is the second episode that I chose to shoot from the  Esme & Her Friends script that our Designing Drama studio leader, Robin, wrote for us. In the episode, Esme’s housemate Irma has invited Steve, an old flame of Esme’s, to dinner during the covid lockdown. Esme is irked by the pairing and their exclusion of her and attempts to read a book on her bed. But she struggles to focus and as she checks her phone and lies down to sleep, she gets more agitated by the noises of enjoyment in the kitchen.

The process of making this work began with a test shoot that I performed in order to wrap my head around the scene and to use for my progress presentation in week 9. The final shoot proved to be pretty similar in nature, but I think that the process of test shooting and the re-shooting the real deal really helped me to critically think through and advance my own work within the space of one assignment. This process definitely taught me a lot about planning in filmmaking as well as the practice of critically thinking how to ‘design the drama’ of a scene, which are both valuable lessons that I will be taking with me into my future career.