Year zero (M6): how were the flashbacks made?

Tuesday January 10, M6 broadcasts the last two episodes ofYear zero, Surprising thriller. A fantastic fiction that skilfully played on two temporalities since Anna, Juliette, Cédric and Simon are brought back a year in the past. A delicate genre to carry out but a challenge taken up hands down, in particular by Olivier Barma, the director. The opportunity to discover how the flashback scenes were made. Because it’s not just about rewinding! The actors, put to contribution, testify to it.

For the flashbacks, the actors shot while walking backwards

Difficult to signify the flashbacks of the characters. In addition to the blurred aspect of the image, so that the public does not lose the thread, the director has imagined a process which, on the screen, could make one think of a rewound film. While some sequences were edited upside down, more often than not, actors and extras performed… backwards. “Walking backwards is not too complicated, begins Emilie Dequenne. Olivier [Barma] made everyone walk in the normal direction, and us, he made us walk backwards. And he inverted the image so that in the end, we were walking right side up and the others upside down. We do it like that to have this kind of weird effect.”

An exercise which Marc Ruchmann also rubbed shoulders with from the start of filming. “I started with a flashback scene. Scenes that sometimes had to be turned upside down to understand that we are returning to the year that has already passed, he explains. As we were walking backwards, some steps are sometimes weird. Especially when I go to the elevator”, says the actor.

Elisa Erka did not turn upside down but nevertheless tasted the game. “We turned underwater in the pool and we had to reverse the gestures to give the impression that we were rewinding”, specifies she. Claire Keim was spared, as was Marc Riso. “I didn’t turn upside down, admits the interpreter of Cédric, who gives news of McFly, but my partners have done it, in particular Eric Caravaca. It was impressive because he was walking forward when all the extras were going backwards.”

“It’s difficult and very weird to kiss upside down”: the astonishing anecdote of Emilie Dequenne

Met at the launch of the series, Emilie Dequenne told a funny anecdote about this way of shooting flashbacks. “The funniest scene is that of the flashback which recounts my adventure with the character of Loup-Denis Elionin the year that has already passed, locate the actress. I thought we were going to turn our kiss right side up and they were going to edit it upside down. But no, we did it backwards”, she explains to Claire Keim, amazed. “We start shooting the scene kissing, then I put his shirt back on, then we peel off and look at each other showing that we’re about to kisscontinues Emilie Dequenne. We turned everything upside down. It was very particular. Afterwards, they set up the stage right side up. It’s hard and very weird to kiss upside down, she assures. I’m not a fan of love and kiss scenes but there was something playful about doing it upside down. It was different, it relaxed me. Especially since it was at the start of filming.”