'Sorry' is a poem I wrote a couple of years ago at poetry club.
I liked how the simplicity of the words and lines conveyed a deep issue that expanded over a lifetime.
The initial plan was to use five female Asian actresses to recite two lines each. The idea was that they were the same character growing up throughout the video. However it was difficult obtaining a teenaged Asian actress and in the end, decided to just use a child. I felt this had a stronger impact by eliciting compassion from the audience and highlighting that a lot of things could be resolved if children are raised right from a young age. The poem was also a short piece and having too many characters would have distracted the audience from the words which were the most important thing. So the limitation I faced in not being able to obtain all the actresses I wanted actually worked in my favour and made the video more powerful.
I originally imagined the video as black and white, very sharp and clear with a high contrast to give it a serious tone. However, during the editing stage, I realised I preferred the soft, neutral colours more than the monotone palette. I felt it amplified the characters soft and innocent personality and image a lot more, helping to strengthen the video visually.
This was my first film working with a child actress. Sophia was a pleasure to work with and I was really happy to find that she added a lot more dimension to the video than I had anticipated. I liked the sound of Sophia's voice, it was crisp, clear and she had a nice accent; all of which really bought the character to life.
