Flashback Research

In our film we have two scenes which are flashbacks and are vital to our story so we need to make sure that it is clear to the audience that they are flashbacks otherwise the film will make no sense to them. Therefore I have done some research to find out how to make flashbacks clear to an audience without it being cheesy and common. 

What is a flashback?

A flashback is a scene that is inserted into a narrative to take the audience back to another point in time. This can be at the beginning, middle or the end of the narrative. A narrative with flashbacks included becomes a non-linear narrative. 

The purpose of a flashback is to give the audience information that is needed to help the audience understand the actions or situation the characters are in. They are usually important events from the characters past which has changed the future of the character. For example, in our film the main flashback is of Sally cheating on James which made them break up, putting them in the situation they are in now. 

A flashback can be subjective or objective. If it is subjective this will show memories of the characters or their thoughts and if it is objective, it will show past events in relation to the present day. 
In our film we use objective flashbacks to describe to the audience why Sally has gone to confide in her friend Lizzy. 

Flashbacks can be established in multiple ways: 

Text: Showing the date or time of the scene through narration (speech) or written subtitles.
Dissolve/Cross dissolve
Fade to Black
Sound may be edited in a way which makes voices echoed or added sound effects to suggest to the audience the change in time. 

We feared that the audience may get confused between a passage of time and a flashback. Therefore, we used cross dissolves to demonstrate flashbacks and a fade to black and text to show a passage of time going forwards in the film. 





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