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Film & Television vocabulary · Genres and Storytelling

Flashback

Meaning in film & television, with examples

/ˈflæʃbæk/nounCore term

In film & television, flashback means: A scene that interrupts the present action of a story to show events that happened earlier.

In Turkish: geriye dönüş, flashback

How it is used

Flashbacks explain a character's past or reveal a secret. They are often marked by a dissolve, a change in color grading or a caption such as Twenty years earlier. The opposite, showing future events, is a flash-forward.

Example sentences

  1. We learn about the accident through a flashback in the middle of the film.

  2. The series tells the mother's story entirely in flashbacks.

Common collocations

  • in flashback
  • flashback scene
  • flashback sequence
  • flash-forward
  • plotThe series of connected events that make up the story of a film or series, and the order in which they are shown.
  • transitionThe way one shot or scene changes into the next in editing, such as a straight cut, a fade or a dissolve.
  • color gradingThe post-production process of adjusting the colors, contrast and brightness of the images to give the film a consistent and expressive look.
  • plot twistA sudden, unexpected development in a story that changes how the audience understands what has happened.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Genres and Storytelling

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