Web Video / A Very Dramatic Series

In 2012, a trio of preteens made an intentionally silly and over-the-top four and a half minute short film starring themselves and posted it to YouTube under the title A Very Dramatic Movie. It had no real plot, its three protagonists were essentially interchangeable, and its production quality was comparable to that of a typical home video. As such, one might have expected its creators to just forget about it, as often happens with such childhood projects.

Instead, they produced a series of sequels over the next five years, which began as absurdist comedies similar to the original but gradually grew into a genuinely compelling story with distinct characterization and backstories for each of the main cast and a continuous narrative between installments. Later entries in the series have much longer runtimes as well, with the very longest, A Very Dramatic Movie: The Musical reaching over 53 minutes.

So far, the entries in A Very Dramatic Series are, in chronological order:

1. A Very Dramatic Movie
2. A Very Dramatic Sequel
3. A Very Dramatic Threequel
4. A Very Dramatic Vaction
5. A Very Dramatic Whatever You Call A Fifth Movie
6. A Very Dramatic New Year
7. A Very Dramatic Movie: The Movie
8. A Very Dramatic Sequel: The Movie
9. A Very Dramatic Threequel: The Movie
10. A Very Dramatic Movie: The Musical
11. A Very Dramatic Test Pilot

On top of this, the YouTube channel features a couple of short in-universe Character Vlogs, Blooper Reels for all series entries, and video commentaries by the creators on some of the early ones. The most recent video was posted in 2018; it is not confirmed whether the series has concluded or will eventually be continued.

Watch it all here.

Tropes Pertaining to the Entire Series

• Bad "Bad Acting" / Stylistic Suck: Ruby's video résumé, video dating profile, and attempts at acting in the test pilot.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall / Lampshade Hanging: Both happen quite often.
• Comical Overreacting: Almost every scene in the first few films centers around a character doing this. Usually involves screaming.
• The Couch: A couple of them. Seen most often in scenes where characters are Breaking the Fourth Wall or hanging lampshades and when they remember running up the stairs.
• Credits Gag: All the credits contain jokes, most notably "In Memory of Milk".
• The Ditz: Ruby begins to be characterized as such in the later films. By A Very Dramatic Test Pilot, it's in full force.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The first six entries in the series are essentially plotless and rely entirely on deliberate overacting for their comedy (which is often nonetheless amusing in its own way). The later entries are Sitcoms with actual narrative arcs, complex characterization and witty dialogue, not to mention being many times longer than their predecessors.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: A Very Dramatic Movie is a short film consisting of almost nothing but anguished screaming and Comical Overreacting. Actually subverted by the feature-length installments which tone down the hamminess considerably in favor of a subtler style of comedy.
• Friendless Background: Jennette.
• Minimalist Cast: There are only three characters for the first six films. The feature-length films introduce two more, one of whom appears for only one installment. No extras or bit characters ever appear.
• No Indoor Voice: Everyone in the first six films. Disappears in later installments.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Everyone is a human played by a human actor....except for Robinson, who is a dummy made of stuffed clothes with a basketball for a head and a face taped on. The other characters don't seem to realize this.
• Random Events Plot: The first few films are essentially just strings of unrelated scenes separated by the series' Signature Transition. At times it approaches Surrealism.
• Running Gag: A long list of them. Many jokes that appear to be one-offs at first later become Once per Episode gags.
  • In the first film, the characters sit on a couch and remember "the time when we were all running up those stairs". In every subsequent film, they remember the time in the previous film when they were remembering that, or remembering their remembrance of it, etc. The corresponding scene from the previous episode then appears in black and white.
  • Ruby's nut allergy.
  • Characters saying they don't speak Spanish or French, sometimes IN that language.
  • Ruby telling Jennette something incomprehensible or obviously wrong about adult life, then saying "you'll understand when you're older", to which the other replies that she is older than Ruby.
• Signature Transition: Both for the series as a whole and for each individual film. All the entries separate scenes with a cut to TV static, then one or more headshots of a main character. What the characters are doing in the headshots differs from film to film.
  • In A Very Dramatic Movie, they're screaming.
  • In A Very Dramatic Sequel, they're gasping.
  • In A Very Dramatic Threequel, they're fainting.
  • In A Very Dramatic Vacation, they're looking up gravely.
  • In A Very Dramatic Whatever You Call A Fifth Movie, they're snorting in disgust.
  • In A Very Dramatic New Year, they're walking through a doorway.
  • In A Very Dramatic Movie: The Movie, they're just looking around impassively.
  • In A Very Dramatic Sequel: The Movie, they're falling out of frame.
  • In A Very Dramatic Threequel: The Movie, they're doing completely different things.
  • A Very Dramatic Movie: The Musical uses only the static, without any headshots.
• Sitcom: A Very Dramatic Movie: The Movie and following installments.
• Surreal Humor: The first six installments.
• World of Ham: It's called "A Very Dramatic Movie" for a reason.

A Very Dramatic Movie, Bloopers, and Commentary

• Agony of the Feet: Amanda stubs a toe and screams in pain (though given the characters' usual reactions to things in this series, the pain may in fact have been mild).
• Friend to Bugs: Ruby is devastated when Jennette squishes an ant. Possibly subverted in that she describes it as "my ant", which depending on your interpretation may mean that she would not be concerned for the life of any ant besides that one.
• Good News, Bad News: The good news is that Ruby is okay, the bad news is that they're still out of milk.
• The Hilarity of Hats: Jennette is inexplicably wearing a giant sombrero in the stairs flashback.
  • In one of the bloopers, Amanda's actor comes into the room wearing one hat stacked on top of another hat, at the sight of which the others burst into laughter.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Amanda tells the other two "I am your cousin" with the same inflection Darth Vader uses with Luke. They are shocked. (The actors really are cousins.)
• Skyward Scream: Amanda's response to the lack of milk.

A Very Dramatic Sequel, Bloopers, and Commentary

• Face Fault: Amanda when Ruby confesses "I'm in love with your worst enemy."
• Serial Escalation: The characters' varying degrees of not having done/known about their homework.
• Worth It: The characters proclaim this in unison while clapping their hands in delight. This is an isolated scene with no explanation of what they're reacting to.

A Very Dramatic Threequel, Bloopers, and Commentary

• Breaking the Fourth Wall: The characters make several comments on the script. Amanda then hangs a lampshade on it in typically over-the-top style:
  Jennette: You know this script is dumber than usual?
  Amanda: THE FOURTH WALL, AAAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGGHHHH!!!
• Lampshade Hanging: Amanda makes the following oblique comment on the (then) trilogy of AVDM films:
  Amanda: Hey, have you ever seen one of those, like, trilogy movies where the first one was just like, "Wow, this is a great movie" and by the time you get to the second one you're like "Yeah, it's a movie..." and then the third one, you're just like "Oh my gosh, kill me now."
• Paste Eater: Ruby begins to eat a bar of soap.

A Very Dramatic Vacation, Bloopers, and Commentary

• Adrenaline Time: Used to show Jennette's ability to crawl really fast.
• Animate Inanimate Object: A trash can opens spontaneously when characters approach. Or maybe they're just accidentally stepping on the pedal to open it.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Ruby has posted a sign declaring that "All Residents of the Basement Must Ship Jayssica On Penalty of Death". Amanda takes the threat seriously. Later Jennette points a gun at Amanda because they "didn't shuffle in the shuffle zone".
• Never Trust a Title: Played with. The characters never say they're on vacation nor engage in any activities typical of a Vacation Episode. The video description, however, confirms that they are in fact on vacation and that fact just has no relevance to the plot.

A Very Dramatic Whatever You Call a Fifth Movie and Bloopers

• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Amanda asks Ruby and Jennette if they ever feel like someone's watching them.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: The other characters don't recognize Jennette at all when she appears wearing glasses for the first time, though she isn't trying to fool them.

A Very Dramatic New Year and Bloopers

• Obvious Stunt Double: The "Amanda" who falls down the stairs is clearly a makeshift dummy of stuffed clothes. No attempt is made to disguise this.
• Overly Long Gag: The characters exchanging shocked gasps in response to the grocery store's limited product range.
• Parody Commercial: After the credits, the creators address the audience directly and beg them to share the series on social media, especially if they're celebrities. The segment is framed as a parody of charity commercials, complete with emotional Sarah McLachlan music.
• Severely Specialized Store: According to Amanda, the store she visited in order to buy an apple sells nothing but cream cheese.

A Very Dramatic Movie: The Movie and Bloopers

• Genre Shift: This is the first installment to feature a coherent plot, develop the characters' personalities, and rely on a wider variety of joke types while almost entirely dropping the Comical Overreacting around which the preceding shorts centered. Following installments carry on these trends.
• New Year's Resolution: The plot of the movie is kicked off by the characters making spiteful resolutions for each other, which they then spend the rest of the plot trying to follow through on. Each one is a Call-Back to a moment from an earlier movie.
  • Amanda orders Ruby to call off her engagement to Amanda's worst enemy, referenced in A Very Dramatic Whatever You Call A Fifth Movie.
  • Ruby orders Amanda to get into shape, after her failed attempt to go jogging in the first installment.
  • Jennette resolves to make new friends, after being asked by Ruby whether she has any other friends to hang out with.

A Very Dramatic Sequel: The Movie and Bloopers

• Lampshade Hanging: Jennette comments that "some movies are completely random and make no sense."
• Love Triangle: Robinson and Ruby are engaged, then break up in the previous movie, but Ruby seems to regret it and Robinson definitely still has feelings for her. Meanwhile Robinson becomes Jennette's first friend, and there seems to be a hint of romantic tension between them, but Robinson is only using Jennette to get to Ruby. In the last few seconds of the film Amanda reveals that she hates Robinson because he broke her heart, making it a Love Quadrangle.
• Wingding Eyes: Robinson's eyes turn into Xes/crosses to show that he's dead.

A Very Dramatic Threequel: The Movie and Bloopers

• Bait-and-Switch: The audience and Ruby and Jennette are at first lead to believe that Amanda was making a valentine for Robinson. It was for Carol.
• The "Fun" in "Funeral": Robinson's funeral was this, almost word for word. Amanda even hired a DJ.
• Medium Awareness: The characters are aware that Amanda is doing a flashback and even "act" for people whose appearances she doesn't remember well anymore.

A Very Dramatic Movie: The Musical and Bloopers

• Art Evolution / Costume Evolution: Robinson is now played by a human actor rather than a dummy.
• Back from the Dead: Robinson.
• Didn't Think This Through: Amanda admits she was just hoping that Carol would never find out that she killed Robinson.
  • Later she says she wasn't thinking about what would happen next when she drove over Robinson.
• Michael Jackson's Thriller Parody: Performed by Robinson, naturally.
• Musical Episode: Though actually, only a handful of the songs are sung or lip-synced by the characters. Most are just playing in the background, though there are far more of those than usual.
• Love Interest: Amanda gets one in the form of Carol.
• Only Sane Man: Carol is a pretty normal, down-to-earth person and is bewildered by many of the regular cast's antics.
• Stalker with a Crush: Amanda to Carol.
• Sudden Soundtrack Stop: Amanda's workout montage music stops when she sees Carol.

A Very Dramatic Test Pilot and Bloopers

• Deconstructed Trope: Ruby's Bad "Bad Acting", previously a gag restricted to her in-universe video compositions, becomes a plot point and begins to affect both her and her friends negatively.
• Did Not Get the Girl: Amanda, despite all her efforts in the previous installment, has only succeeded in alienating Carol.
• Genre Shift: The show becomes a Mockumentary with talking heads like The Office, filmed by Amanda. The characters are aware of having been in previous movies but state clearly that there was no camera present at the time, even though there is now.
• Only Sane Man: 'Amanda'' of all characters takes on this role in relation to the other two, though she hasn't stopped being a Comedic Sociopath.
• Psycho Lesbian: Amanda discusses the Unfortunate Implications of this trope and resolves to stop acting this way toward Carol in a moment that seems almost like an Author's Saving Throw. She then immediately reveals in a talking head that she only stopped stalking Carol because the latter filed a restraining order against her.
• Psycho Supporter: Amanda poisons the actor playing Cat #8 and orchestrates a car accident that incapacitates the understudy so that Jennette, the understudy's understudy, can get the part, without telling Jennette about it.
• Put on a Bus: Carol, the in-universe reason being that she found out about Amanda's stalking and filed a restraining order in between installments.

Character Vlogs

• Cloudcuckoolander: Amanda in Why I Hate Radio Shows.
  Amanda: It's dark right now because it's night....and the sun isn't out at night....which I'm grateful for, cuz you know what, the sun and I? We're not that great of friends.
• Never Trust a Title: Amanda's video Why I Hate Radio Shows is just her talking about random about subjects unrelated to radio shows.