Sarah Deakins beautiful new short film Yellow is the story of connections among strangers; we effect and ripple through each others’ lives whether we are aware of it or not. Ten characters each experience a crossroads in their lives on a seemingly ordinary afternoon in an art gallery. Yellow is the first in a series of seven films, one for each color of the rainbow, each with a recurring theme of human connection and expression through the arts.
See the New York City premiere of Yellow on February 21, 2019 @ 7:45 pm at Cinema Village (22 East 12th Street) as part of New York City’s 8th Annual Winter Film Awards International Film Festival. Winter Film Awards Olivia Butler recently spoke with Sarah about the film.
I’m a huge fan of the emphasis on colors in film. I was wondering what yellow means to you as a color? Why start your series of seven films with the middle color yellow?
We began with YELLOW simply because it was a simple story I loved that also took place in one location that we could build in studio and do very cheaply. The series of seven would all air in order, but this was the script that was most feasible to produce independently as a pilot presentation. It was also the first script I wrote in the series, and had a lot of elements that I wanted to explore as a director.
Are there any filmmakers and writers you admire? If so, who?
There are so many filmmakers and writers I admire: Sarah Polley, Greta Gerwig, Guillermo del Toro, Robert Altman, the list is long. I love filmmakers that write and direct stories about human beings struggling to connect, with themselves, and each other.
I feel that some filmmakers have a difficult time handling so many characters but I think you do this beautifully by keeping the scenes in one location. Was this the original idea? To have many characters intertwine
Thank you! And yes, the feeling of movement and of intertwining story lines and lives was important to me from the beginning. One of the things I wanted to illustrate with this script was how we are all connected, how we effect and ripple through each others’ lives whether we are aware of it or not. The script actually has a lot of connective tissue that we did not shoot, in order to be able to get this film done in three days. That connective tissue illustrated all the crossing over and interweaving of the characters as they wove through the gallery, passing each other and overlapping each other’s tops and tails of scenes. It’s the more cinematic stuff that I would love to get if we got to re-shoot this with a budget!
I liked that we didn’t see some of the paintings the characters were looking at. Was this choice intentional or could you not include the artwork you wanted to show onscreen?
It was always intended to be a piece that was meant to be felt somewhat as if from the perspective of the art, so as if we the audience are the art, gazing on the people as they stop and contemplate us, like creatures in a zoo. I always felt that the art they are looking at had to be filled in by our imaginations, and especially the large Yellow piece that everyone has a bit of an epiphany in front of. What we create in our minds that we think they are looking at is far more magical than what we could ever show you. We had actually commissioned a piece for the Yellow painting, but it became clear once we got into the set and began working the scenes without seeing most of what they were looking at, that this was the strongest choice for the Yellow scene as well.
Are there any lessons you’ll heed in the making of the next films in your series?
I think there are always lessons learned, and on this one I learned a lot of things, but I know I would love to have more time for rehearsals with actors moving forward. This was a character driven piece, and I chose actors who’s work I was familiar with and I had a good idea of what kind of performance they would give; I also wrote some of the parts with specific actors in mind, so I was writing for their strengths, but I would still love more time in the process to explore with them before going to camera.
I thought the ghost was handled was great care, but I couldn’t tell if the poet was still holding onto her or the woman he was in love with. It was haunting and I loved it. If he was at a crossroads between telling his friend he loves her or holding onto a dead woman, from my understanding, he held on and didn’t go on to tell the woman how he really felt. Was this your intent or did I just totally read into something I made up in my own head?
Haha! That is the beauty of coming at things from your own perspective. It’s so interesting that this is what you gleaned from what you saw. That is one of the questions I get the most: what happens next? Does he tell her he loves her? Does he tell her he’s sick? Do the married couple stay together? What happens NEXT?? I love that people are asking these questions, because it means you became engaged in the journey and invested in these characters. To answer your question, from MY perspective, the last time we see the poet and the writer woman, he makes the decision to read her some of his poetry, which is the doorway into him being more truthful with her ; the ghost shows up one last time and they have a last moment of gratitude and what I see as a goodbye, a letting go on both their parts, before they poet moves off with the writer woman. That’s what I meant to illustrate, but you are correct, it is open to interpretation!
My favorite arc was the student who wasn’t looking close enough at the art. As the writer, did you have a similar experience in an art gallery? Or perhaps simply reading a screenplay? A personal experience with not taking a closer look at art?
I think this is often my personal philosophy, to look a little longer, a little deeper, with people and art. I have definitely had this experience of dismissing something too quickly, and then seeing it years later, from a different perspective now, and connecting to something in it that I had not before. This is also true of poetry, and novels, and pretty much any art form.You’ll get different things out of them at different moments in your life, but yes, staying a moment or two longer than actually feels comfortable is an excellent exercise when looking at art!
Having a rotating crew can provide its challenges. Did you have any challenges that changed your direction of the film, and if so, how did you circumvent or deal with it?
The crew was incredibly dedicated and on top of things. We all knew we had to work quickly, we shot with a two camera set up most of the time and yes, it was challenging to have a rotating crew, but in a way I think it kept all of us even more on the ball. Mostly we were just always battling time, having to shoot about ten pages each day, and we often ended up throwing out the planned shot list for most scenes and finding a way to get the scene in one or two setups at most, so we could move more quickly from scene to scene.
From my take, I felt you used yellow as a way to say it’s the color of fleeting moments that exist forever. This is a lovely juxtaposition. What spurred your desire to write a line so contemplative?
I’m not sure which specific line you got that from, but that’s some of the feeling in the final poem, yes. I wanted to say, yes, life can be sad, but it’s also beautiful at the same time. There’s a temporary nature to life and to our connections and they are more beautiful and valuable because they are fleeting. Death is sad and dark, but there is beauty in the fragility of life and it’s all valuable, every part of it. There is comfort in seeing the beauty in the endings and the beginnings and the cyclical nature of it all, the eternity of it all. These cycles and beginnings and endings will echo on long after we leave this mortal coil, and there is comfort and beauty in that idea, in the knowing of that.
There is beauty in this life
it crackles between time and space
alighting on our fingertips when we touch
dancing between the hairs of our eyelashes as we gaze
and vibrating in the air between our lips when we hum
and it exists long after we stop
Olivia Butler
Olivia is a senior at SUNY Purchase and getting her undergraduate degree with the intention of getting an MFA in Screenwriting within the next five years. She is lover of filmmaking with a specific passion in screenwriting. She’s a jack of all trades but aspires to be a master of one.
About Winter Film Awards
New York City’s 8th Annual Winter Film Awards International Film Festival runs February 14-23-2019. Check out a jam-packed lineup of 89 fantastic films in all genres from 32 countries, including shorts, features, Animation, Drama, Comedy, Thriller, Horror, Documentary and Music Video. Hollywood might ignore women and people of color, but Winter Film Awards celebrates everyone!
Winter Film Awards is an all volunteer, minority- and women-owned registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization founded in 2011 in New York City by a group of filmmakers and enthusiasts. The program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the NY State Council on the Arts.
