We use this technique many times throughout the film, but for the opening shot we had to wait for it to rain outside to get the night exterior – this took a couple of weeks. We then waited, with the camera still in position, until the following day to replicate the shot during daytime when the rain subsided. After we finished filming, I could tell that there would be a lot of post-production work needed in order to make the film really come together. I went ahead and started editing the film dailies together (even during the first day of shooting). The post-production process in of itself was the biggest challenge of creating Echoes.

Immediately what I found was that the makeup didn’t fully come through on the footage, so I had to improvise in the edit with lens distortion techniques, fast cutting, and re-framing shots. I started by editing the last scene of the film first and worked my way back from there. Once I finished the first draft, I watched it with a close friend of mine and we both agreed there was a lot more work to do. One of the biggest challenges was making the edit bridge the gaps between scenes, given that it’s a non-linear narrative, cuts seemed very jarring. I incorporated what I call the “Easy Rider” technique where you hop back and forth between shots to communicate a transition, but it still keeps you in the previous scene for just long enough – it also adds to the distorted timeline feel. We also realized that our initial dialogue and voice-over work wasn’t enough. I went back to the script-writing phase and drafted at least 10 pages of additional voice over lines to try out. I met with our lead actor, Dane Oliver, after the shoot and we recorded hours of these new lines and found a way to work them into the film. Overall, it took six months for the film to transform into the final product, in addition to a month to color correct and sound mix. Without that time commitment, the film would not be nearly as functional as it is today.