The Ashes You Leave Behind

If there were two key things to sum up this drama, they would be “4:3 aspect ratio” and “black and white”. Those were not words I was expecting to hear in my early career as a production designer. This proved to be something I could use as a challenge - to push myself to be extremely particular with my design choices for props and positioning. These two constraints, or rather, criteria, played a major role in how I planned the visuals of this short drama. How did patterned or textured fabric look on screen? When is it too much detail? Where do I allow for negative space to happen? How can I enforce contrast without colour? How can the absence of words and colour still tell a story through the set design? These were all questions I had to ask myself when asked to be the production designer for The Ashes.

The story was a powerful message shared through the female gaze. A story of grief and loss from a couple, thethering at the end of their marriage. A nod to nostalgia and heartfelt memory of the dying relationship. And gutwrenching heartbreak as the couple went their separate ways. As I worked on this and watched it back, there wasn’t a moment where I couldn’t feel the same pain, hurt and loss as the wife in the drama, against the husband’s determination to let the relationship die and move on. It paid homage to Hollywood and all the women in the director’s life who have had similar stories to share with absent partners.

This particular short drama means a lot to me as it was one of the first films that I had worked on as a production designer. Being so fresh in my career, I was understandably concerned about missing a detail or not achieving the intended vision. Luckily, the cast and crew were supportive, and in fact, I was able to surprise myself with the outcome.