Flashback Effects - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Flashback Effect

"Diddly-doot! Diddly-doot! Diddly-doot!"

— Wayne's World

The use of Camera Tricks and other paratextual elements to distinguish flashbacks, flash forwards, and Imagine Spots from normal, in-the-present action.

These are very helpful on those occasions when there's nothing in the event itself to specify when it takes place.

Common ways of doing this include:

Explicitly setting the date of the scene through narration or subtitles (or text boxes in comicbooks). "Seven years ago..."
Using an Idiosyncratic Wipe or Dissolve to mark the transition from Present to Past. May or may not be accompanied by a unique sound effect.
- One particularly common (and frequently parodied) version of this is to have the screen go wavy during the Dissolve, accompanied by the sound of harpist plucking up the musical scale.
- Repeating the last sound effect over the dissolve is also common enough to have its own article.
Make the scene in the flashback look or sound different from the present in some way. Common ways of doing this include:
- Blurring it.
- Showing it Deliberately Monochrome.
- Add a misty border around the edge of the screen.
- Apply an echo or other sound effect to everyone's voice.
- In animation, apply an Art Shift.
- For books, changing the typeface.
- In comic books, changing the frame border style.

Flash Back Back Back is a subtrope. Not to be confused with Flashback Cut.

Examples:

Live Action TV

Without A Trace. The screen flashes white with every transition from the present to the past (and vice versa). Often these are Match Cuts as well, establishing that the flashback occurring in the same location as the present.
Highlander usually had black and white or sepia-toned flashbacks.
Lost has a distinctive sound effect to mark the transition to and from each flashback.
Monty Python.
- At least two episodes parodied this:
  - This sketch in episode 21 Lampshaded it:
    <picture begins to waver and dreamy harp music plays>
    Pepperpot 1: Ooh! What's happening?
    Pepperpot 2: It's all right. It's only a flashback.
  - The "Puss in Boots" sketch in episode 28:
    Captain: We are from the SS Mother Goose. We were twelve days out from Port of Spain, and one night I was doing my usual rounds, when I had occasion to pass the forward storage lockers...
    <Eerie music, screen goes out of focus, wavy lines appear. The music stops and screen returns to normal>
    Captain: <looks confused, as he expected the flashback scene to appear>
    Police Chief: Go on!
- And one episode played it straight:
  Mr Bones: Oh, once upon a time there lived in Wiltshire a young chap called Dennis Moore. Now Dennis was a highwayman by profession
  <Wavy lines, cut to Dennis Moore riding along with a big bag of swag>
  Mr Bones: ...and for several months he had been stealing from the rich to give to the poor.
Also lampshaded in The Young Ones episode "Nasty" where the characters begin swaying in time with the rippling picture effect.
Cold Case often has flash backs to events decades ago, and goes to the trouble for imitating the production styles and techniques of video footage of that time period (low quality resolution, over bleaching, scratches on the film, etc.).
The flashbacks in the Heroes episode "Company Man" are shown in black and white, along with subtitles indicating that it is "fourteen years ago" or whenever.
- HRG's season 3 flashback episode is also in black and white, and Sylar's are in black and white and red.
Parodied on the Sketch Comedy show Roundhouse, where the flashback effects were provided by cast members waving their fingers in front of the camera lens and making sound effects.
Bablyon 5 used monochrome effects for flashbacks, memories, and telepathy-induced visions.

Webcomics

Gunnerkrigg Court. Flashback Cuts are represented by a sepia-toned panel inside the present-day panel. Longer, full-panel flashbacks are in color and are distinguished either by textured backgrounds, rounded panel corners, or both.
- When some fans thought these weren't clear enough, Tom responded with this parody.◊
- The most recent flashback chapter has slightly desaturated/sepia-ish colors throughout.
In Queen Of Wands, when Kestrel is recounting how she and Shannon met and how everyone became roommates, the flashback strips are sepia-toned. When, during the flashback, Kestrel recounts her backstory with Felix to Sharon, it's portrayed in black-and-white, without the sepia cast.
In Count Your Sheep, the present day comics have a blue coloration, while past scenes (from when the mother was a child) are shown in magenta.

Anime / Manga

Every time someone has a flashback in Ghost In The Shell, it's covered by a monologue, because there is always someone there to listen to the flashback. The exception would be Togusa, who is venting, directing all his thoughts toward an established character who might not be present.
The entirety of Boogiepop Phantom is filmed with a vignette effect and more often than not with dull colors. Correspondingly, the entire series is a huge flashback.
Mnemosyne's flashbacks are seen from the perspective of the person having the flashback, with the audio and video given a sort of watery distortion.
Lampshaded in Excel Saga episode 11: after a short discussion about an impending flashback, the ripple effect begins, and Hyatt chants softly "ripple, ripple, ripple..."
No G Gundam mention yet? This might be one of the very few cases where an anime dub suffered from being TOO faithful to the original. Somehow, "You're the same as you were back then. Back then. Back then. Back then. Back then. Back then. Back then." sounds more absurd in English than in Japanese.

Film

Wayne's World parodied the use of Idiosyncratic Wipes.
In Big Fish, all of the flashbacks have shots with more brightly-colored objects in them and a slight glowing effect on the characters' faces.
Boggy Creek 2 The Legend Continues, every single flashback was slightly blurred.
- The Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew did not let this pass without comment. They then parodied it in one sketch, where Crow, Tom Servo, and Mike each narrate a flashback to an event that occurred seconds ago, and each flashback is blurrier than the last.
Johnny Dangerously explained this trope's effect in scene to a would-be child thief that he was lecturing about his own childhood choices. The screen blurs and the child responds "What the hell's goin' on?!" Johnny explains that it always happens when he "talks about the past."
In G.O.R.A., as the alien villain Logar explains why he hates humans, the movie flashes back to his grandfather landing his spaceship in 18th-century Turkey. The flashback is shot in grainy, black-and-white film reminiscent of the most primitive motion picture technology.

Videogames

In the later Ace Attorney games, the Flashbacks are done Deliberately Monochrome.
- Whereas they're in sepia tone in the original.

Western Animation

Lampshade Hanging in Rockos Modern Life, "Future Schlock." Twenty Minutes Into The Future, an aged Filburt attempts to enlighten his kids via Flash Back, and forgets which button to press to "make things go all squiggly."

Newspaper Comics

In the comic strip Funky Winkerbean and its spinoff Crankshaft, artist Tom Batiuk indicates a flashback sequence by shading the panels in sepia tones and adding a little decoration to each corner to make it look as though the panel is an old photograph in an album.

Web Original

STELLA's "Birthday" sketch has David Wain's character David Wain start his flashback to the time he met Michael Showalter's character Mi-well, you know what comes next. Wain says he "must've met [Michael] twenty years ago!" Then the flashback starts. The color balance is slightly different, and the establishing shot is of a giant calendar with squares reading "REM", "The Cure", "Synth-Pop", and "Ronald Reagan", plus a Terminator poster visible on a nearby wall.

Flashback Echo

« Flashbacks And Chronology »

Flashback Nightmare

Main Tropes Index

Troperville

Editing

Tools

Toys