Research into Flashbacks + Examples

What is a flashback?

Flashbacks are an alteration of story order in which the plot moves back to show events that have already taken place earlier than the one already shown. This way the scenes that interrupt the sequence can explain what the characters are talking about in the current scenes. They have multiple purposes within the film genre. It can help to illustrate a character's back story as it applies to the plot called character origin flashbacks. Flashbacks can occur before the film's narrative to fill in back story or to fill in another character on what happened while they were not around to witness the events for themselves.

How can you distinguish a flashback in a film?

There are many different techniques in order to distinguish a flashback from the rest of the film. One technique in order to make the flashback obvious is to blur the outer edges of the current scene leading to the first scene in the flashback. Another technique that allows the audience to understand that a flashback is happening is to have a departure from a normal colour format. This can be shown by having flashbacks in black and white, while having present day in colour. Another technique that shows that a flashback is about to occur is while the scene changes the sound from the previous scene follows into the next one, by using a sound bridge. An example of this is demonstrating a car crash flashback by the character hearing the sound of this in the present day and visualising the scene.

Examples of flashbacks within film and television

The first example of a flashback is from the film, The Help. The Help is a book to film adaptation, American period drama, about the story of a young, white woman, named Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, who aspires to be a journalist in the Deep South state of Jackson, Mississippi in the Civil Rights era of 1962. The film focuses around her relationship with two black maids, Aibileen and Minny. It also reflects her own relationship with her family's ex maid, Constantine, who raised her as a child.

There are a variety of different scenes within the film, many that give insight into Skeeter's life, and her relationship with her maid. There is one scene, where Skeeter gets into an argument with her parents about what happened to their maid, Constantine, and as she angrily leaves the house, she paces to a bench in the garden, where she re-calls her as a young teenager, as she hides from her mother, as she didn't get asked to the dance. Constantine gives her some advice and they leave together until the dance is over.

The scene starts as Skeeter is pacing out of the house, and going into the garden, where she comes to a halt, and she glances over to a bench in the garden, with a longing, sad expression.

The camera cuts back to Skeeter again, as she continues to look at the bench. When she looks back at the bench, there is a younger Skeeter who is sat on the bench, feeling sorry for herself, before her maid, Constantine finds her and asks what she is doing all the way out in the garden.

The scene continues as they have a conservation about why Skeeter is sad that she didn't get asked to the dance. The flashback comes to end, as Skeeter and Constantine go back to Constantine's house until the dance is over.

In order to show that the flashback is over, as the two characters walk away, they fade into the scene, until the audience can just see present day Skeeter walking through the garden.

Here is one way that we can distinguish that a flashback is happening in our film, by having a character in the present day, where something previously happened, in order to address a flashback and then completely fade out the flashback.

The second example of a flashback or flash-forwards are from the American mystery drama television show, LOST. LOST is a television show about a group of survivors, from Oceanic Airlines flight 815, who crash on a mysterious island, 1,000 miles off course. The survivors from the crash all have shocking secrets, about why they ended up on Flight 815. The island is very mysterious, with a strange monstrous security system, underground bunkers and a group of permanent residents on the island, who call themselves 'the Others'.

Flashbacks are a major part of how LOST tells its story. In particular, this is because within the show, in some way or another, all the characters are connected, as they were brought to the island for a reason, by Jacob, the Island's protector. Some of the characters had met each other before they had gotten onto the flight, for example, Sawyer and Jack had a conversation in a bar in Australia.

There is a general format that the show follows during episodes that have a series of flashbacks, which usually relate to a single character in each episode, in order to show their life before they had got on the plane, including why they were on the plane. In order for the show to convey that something is a flashback, and not in present day, the flashback will usually begin with a "whoosh" noise. This allows the audience to know that it was a flashback and not the present day.

                                

For some flashbacks in LOST, there sometimes will be music that plays over the flashback, which can be used in order to emphasise that a flashback is happening. The original musical soundtrack plays a big part into LOST, as the same soundtracks are often used in different scenes, to convey the mood for that particular scene, such as in character death scenes, where the song "There's No Place Like Home" will play throughout the scene. In certain scenes, where a flashback is present, a soundtrack will play over.

                               

Here is an example of the soundtrack that plays over flashback or flash-forward scenes in Season 3 of LOST.

Another film which uses flashbacks effectively and are very noticeable is Kill Bill. The centres on a female character known as the Bride or by her alias Black Mamba, who was a ruthless killer for the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. There are many flashbacks featured in the film and are easily recognisable, as the colour of film changes to black and white to signify that the scene is from the characters memory.


After researching into different forms of flashbacks used in films, we are considering to use the technique of making our flashback scenes be in black and white, or a colour that differs from the present day in our film. This is an effective method of easily conveying to the audience the shift in time and how it can be perceived as a dream or memory.

Another method we are considering is putting an echo effect on the shot to convey it's a different period of time. This may also distort the shot, which would convey the confusion of our character.