It’s a sad fact of life that sometimes love isn’t enough. The idiosyncrasies which seem so charming when in the blush of a new romance can quickly turn into irksome annoyances once a relationship moves into the practical reality of day to day life. Inspired by the music of a favourite band and a gap between projects, David Yorke’s multi-perspective short WE tracks the disintegrating lifecycle of love. DN caught up with David to find out how it all came together.
What was the impetus for WE and how did the project progress?
Making WE was an interesting process, it was born out of the need and desire to shoot something. It had been about 6 months since I directed my last project and my DoP and I were keen to just make something, which I found out later to be a great exercise. We had a deadline, which was Easter bank holiday 2016, but we still needed a concept.
Fast Forward a few days and about a month before shooting I was listening to a favourite band of mine called Explosions in the Sky, the track in question was Losing Light and I don’t know what happened but I started to think of the rhythm of a relationship, the heartbeat if you will, and how on one hand it can be amazing and on the other it can have its problems. I thought there was something in that idea and that it might make a great short, but what really excited me was the idea of doing it without dialogue and in the style of a poem.
I met two great actors with amazing chemistry, which made my job very easy. We shot on a Sony F55 over 3 separate days with a very small cast and crew and I self-funded it, which I believe came to less than a £1000. I’m very proud of this small film and I thank an amazing cast and crew for going on this journey with me.
What was your process for devising the various relationship scenarios and then differentiating them across each perspective?
For me, it was very important that each scene reflects the overall narration/VO and how at the beginning of a relationship it can be exciting and wonderful but no matter how hard you try, sometimes it’s just not salvageable and the cracks begin to show. So over the course of the film we see the intimate moments slowly decline and the increase in arguments and ultimately separation.
No matter how hard they try, their relationship can’t saved.
You will also notice that the pace increases each time the narrative restarts, the reason is to show how problems and arguments are happening more frequently and no matter how hard they try, their relationship can’t be saved. They love each other but have fallen out of love.
There’s a stark vulnerability to the blank space which follows each rendition of the relationship. Could you tell us what your narrative intentions were for those scenes?
These scenes were very important to me and to the actors. The idea was to have a space where everything was stripped away, no distractions just the purity of one another. It was challenging but it was crucial that you have a moment of where the story slows down and is very separate from all the other moments in the film.
What will we see from you next?
I have a new film called Parting Gifts which is currently being entered into festivals. It’s another story about a relationship but very different to WE. I’m also in post production on a film called Clouds which is very personal to me and is a film I have been trying to make for close to 10 years.
I’m currently shooting a new film called Safekeeping which should wrap mid-August and I’m hoping to shoot my next film Eject in September, that’s also a film I’ve been trying to make for a while. It’s horror which is a genre I love.
