Infidelity is rarely black and white but there are certain lines which should never be crossed. Matt René’s What We Did Yesterday finds a woman returning home early from a trip to a flat in disarray and as she wanders through her home, strewn with the evidence of her partner’s betrayal, she is hit by a sickening truth. When deciding on the fresh tack a portrayal of this well trodden subject matter could take for his directorial debut, René decided not to focus on the hurt, the pain and the cacophony of heartbreak that inevitably erupts from such a life shattering discovery but instead, the immediate blisteringly dreadful moments of realisation as to what this particular deception means. What We Did Yesterday cloisters us in a small flat with nowhere apparent to hide, leaning into a voyeuristic approach as it captures the inconceivable emotions echoing through its protagonist’s very being. To accompany What We Did Yesterday’s premiere on Directors Notes today, we spoke to René about the precise blocking which allowed him to shoot the entire film in a single day, why he wanted to focus on performance rather than fancy camera setups and the film’s shattering moment of revelation.
As this was your first time directing a short film, how did you approach the process?
I suppose I’ve gone about this back to front because I’ve worked as a director in TV for a while, mainly on dramas in the kids and family genre, a highlight was working on the BAFTA winning Apple TV drama series Lovely Little Farm. However, I wanted to move away from kids and family and felt the best way to do this was to write and direct a short. I approached this film with a set of restrictions. I was self-funding, so I knew I could only afford one day of filming, with minimal location moves and a small cast. I knew it couldn’t be a family film and I knew I wanted it to be performance led, rather than shots/camera led.
I wanted to explore the moment of discovery. Those silent, sickening minutes of seconds of realisation.
I have been interested in this particular subject matter for a while. It seems everyone knows someone, who has had an affair with their teacher or even knows a teacher who has had an affair with their pupil, it’s in the media all the time and nothing changes, it just keeps on happening and the stories are so often similar too! With those restrictions still in mind, I got to thinking about the moment in between finding out and actually doing something about it (something I’ve experienced not quite in the same way) and I wanted to explore that. After writing the initial draft I then spent a few evenings talking it through with four or five women of a similar age to Rhiannon – as I wanted to hear how they would react in similar situations – I used some of their reactions in this film.
How did you decide on Dominique Moore as your producer and the film’s protagonist?
I wrote this script with Dominique in mind. I’d worked with her on Lovely Little Farm (she voiced a pony!) I also know that she’s sharp and incredibly talented beyond acting so I asked if she would also come on board to produce. Dominique and I spent a morning blocking everything and talking through each part, working on the emotions and each beat before inviting Simon Reay, the DP, in to watch where we’d got the performance to. Simon and I then planned each shot so that the next day we could hit the ground running and maximise our one day shoot. In the end we were able to shoot eight pages.
Dominique’s acting is brilliant, so restrained and truthful, but her input in pre and post production was equally vital. I will never forget her brilliantly simple edit note summary of the first cut: “I don’t care about Rhiannon enough.” It was exactly what we needed to hear and led us to the recut that we ended up with.
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Why did you want to distract us and divert our expectations from what is ultimately the heart of the story?
I wasn’t interested in exploring the fallout from this type of affair, that information is readily available if you read news stories online. Instead I wanted to explore the moment of discovery. Those silent, sickening minutes of seconds of realisation and then the thought process of doing something about it. I wanted to place an actor into those moments post discovery.
What prompted the decision when writing the script to divide the film into three parts?
I didn’t particularly approach it in that way. I knew what the film’s heart was and early on, it became clear what the punch should be at the end. The process from there was writing it from a personal perspective using lived experience of other impactful events.
I love your way of showing us the young girl through screens until the final reveal, was that always the plan?
The plan was not to reveal the girl until the very last frame and only hear her voice but stay on Rhiannon’s face. In the end, that choice felt like it was doing Rhiannon’s character a disservice, and seeing the video that she was watching gave more weight to her reaction.
This film felt it should be an observed perspective and static, very much led by performance and not the other way round.
How did you map out all of the movement and setups in the small flat to prime the audience for a reveal even though we are unsure what it is?
The day I spent blocking with Dominique was invaluable to ensuring we could shoot the film in a day but also helped us develop Rhiannon’s character, giving her a few new beats – like throwing away the hair grip but then immediately regretting this and retrieving it for the expected confrontation later.
As a director what draws you to more performance led pieces and how do you make sure to keep the focus on those performances?
I’m deaf/hoh and don’t always hear everything that’s said. I lip read and also take a lot of cues from people’s faces and body language. When I’m directing I look for these exact same devices to help tell the story and generally find it a more truthful method of storytelling. In terms of camera position and shot choices, this film felt it should be an observed perspective and static, very much led by performance and not the other way round.
The plan was not to reveal the girl until the very last frame and only hear her voice but stay on Rhiannon’s face.
What were you missing in that first cut you mentioned which diving deeper into Rhiannon’s character then gave us?
The gut punch of the footage she was viewing. We needed to be with her seeing the girl on the iPad. We also re-recorded her first line on the phone as she came in – she needed to be more upbeat at the start of the film – a small spike, putting her in a more positive position for her fall!
Was it a challenge in the edit to weave together that fluidity with seeing the school girl at the doorway calling her mum and Rhiannon’s phone call?
Yes, the original script was just Rhiannon’s side but this didn’t provide the spike needed at this stage, intercutting them was immediately much more tense and definitely helped convey our two characters’ mirrored journeys better!
What’s next for you?
Short term, I want to move into drama for adults. I’ve had a few interesting meetings, so fingers crossed! Longer term, I have optioned a book which I’m in the process of developing into a feature film script. It’s an old, long forgotten book that deserves a new audience!