Lone Scherfig's Speakeasy Post

In the Wall Street Journal culture blog, Speakeasy, ONE DAY director Lone Scherfig talks with Michelle Kung about getting the tone and tempo of  her sweeping romance with Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess just right. While the talk covers a lot, from Elvis Costello to Danish drama, one of the more fascinating topics is Scherfig's explanation of how they managed time passage in the film.

I didn't want the time jumps to overshadow the story, so the art department had a room that showed the progression of time on the wall, from [the era of Prime Minister Margaret] Thatcher to 2011. In the room, we could see the aesthetic changes through the years and make decisions about what to focus on. We also looked at the music from the various eras and specifically looked up charts from the UK to really hear how the sound of music changed over those years, such as the introduction of synthesizers. I wanted the film to be almost like a train ride, where all of this is happening out the window, but the story is between you and the other passengers. You get the pleasure out of the detail and the different ways the time jumps are made, but it doesn't overshadow the story.