Echoes of Silence - Flashback Scene (06/05/18)

Today we shot the flashback scene from Echoes of Silence. This scene is to be part of the first scene in Julians workshop, where we first fully meet the character of Emily. In that scene, Emily plays a song for Julian which takes him to his distant past. The song provokes a blissfully memory for Julian, which we are transported into. I wanted this to be an incredibly nostalgic sequence, one which we attach notions of our own nostalgia to. With nostalgia, I believe we remember the texture of a memory, the warmth of a moment and specific details. I wanted to capture this on film through a transcendent sequence of images including Julian, his daughter Grace, and his granddaughter. This would build the world of the character, and establish his loss as the characters in the flashback are no longer present in his life. I organised the shoot around the availability of our three actors who are to be in the scene, the actor who plays Julian, the actress who plays Grace, and the child actress who plays Graces daughter/Julians granddaughter. As with most of the shoots across Final Major Project, this was the most difficult aspect of the production. The availability of everyone is so wildly varied that everything must be meticulously planned in advance. This has been the least rewarding aspect for me being the main producer attached to the film. I have had to separate the producer from the director on numerous occasions. 

We arrived to shoot the scene at 6 o'clock where we were to meet our main actress, as we had already brought the actor along in the car with the crew. We got there on time at our location, which was Ward Jackson park in Hartlepool. I'll start off by saying, for a shoot that wasn't storyboarded or shot listed at all, I throughly enjoyed the shoot and got exactly what I wanted from it. This was as enjoyable as a shoot can get. There was a great atmosphere, everyone knew what they were doing - cast and crew, and having everyone on the same page always serves the film well. The fact that the scene wasn't storyboarded or pre-planned made the process a lot better for me. Contextually, the scene is non-linear and dreamlike, so having a rigid structure in place to tell a story through the standard 'this shot follows this shot' technique was in some way unnecessary. 

Our cast naturally had a great rapport. They all had a laugh with each other and that aided the performance. I was really looking to create a feeling of nostalgia, looking back to a happy time in the characters lives. To do this I needed warmth from the cast, and I certainly got that. I look at our casting decisions and I think they're as good as they could get. Graham being an obvious example as the main actor in the film, I'm incredibly happy and in some ways proud of his involvement in the film. From a very early stage I was committed to getting the most out of Graham, and elevating him from character actor to giving a full nuanced performance. The actress following the recast has also been great, and somewhat looks like the child actress who is playing her daughter. Despite discussing the acting capabilities of our cast it was equally as important getting the generational age gap right. This is another glaring issue I've witnessed in many a student production. Casting age ranges is usually way off, but for Graham who looks 45-50, it makes sense that his daughter would look 25, and her daughter would look 10. So far from the feedback I've received it looks like it is all making sense.