Edit Flashes: How SUNSHINE Uses Split Second Insert Shots to Great Effect
About the halfway point in Danny Boyle’s Sunshine (2007), four crewmembers board a spaceship which had disappeared years before.
In the next two minutes are several ‘flash edits’ of faces; usually a few frames cut into the swipe of a flashlight beam, sometimes bridging a cut into a different shot. It’s a repeated effect the film hasn’t much indulged in previously, and an unusual technique overall, so: why does he do it?
Watch below, then we’ll dig into the effect and meanings, one which won’t become obvious til much later in the film.
Disconcerting
Brief flashes of bright, still photos completely at odds with the dark ship interior is jarring, but even when they’re not onscreen the whole scene feels different. Once the effect has happened a few times, you almost tense up expecting it every time a beam sweeps across the camera lens . . . but often nothing happens. The irregularity is part of what makes it so unsettling.
Suddenly experiencing these flashes feels confronting and offputting, which echoes how the four astronauts feel uneasy, but the subject of the photos is also important, giving some insight into also meant to reflect what the four are thinking about.
Reflecting
Though they joke (in the ha-ha-but-really way) about aliens waiting for them on the spaceship, the astronauts don’t voice much about the former crew of the spaceship they’re searching. Everything from sunglasses to masks to darkness obscures their faces, but by showing these flashes, Boyle tells us on no uncertain terms the crew members — who they may be breathing in as dust — are on their minds.
The unspoken lies heavy between them, but the visuals make it clear to the viewer.
Foreshadowing
Spoilers!
Speaking of aliens awaiting them . . . after two of the four astronauts return to their craft Icarus II, they discover actually a crew member on the abandoned ship had survived the intervening years. This man Pinbacker had gone mad, seen the four board his ship, then managed to get back onto their ship the Icarus II, where he begins to hunt them down.
In hindsight, the disconcerting flashes work as almost a POV, someone hiding in the shadows, mourning and driven insane by thoughts of his dead co-workers, blinded by flashlight beams after years in the darkness.
Takeaway
While overuse of a technique like this can blunt its effectiveness (and give the audience a headache), using it sparingly can have great impact. If you can use it in places where it works on multiple levels, so much the better!
IMDB
Sunshine (2007) dir. Danny Boyle, DP Alwin Küchler, editor Chris Gill