More often than not, indie films are dubbed “B-Films” and are portrayed as being far less cinematically appealing than their Hollywood blockbuster counterparts. Within the last half-decade or so, however, these films have seen quite the upward swing. Why the sudden attraction to the films that walk the path less traveled?
Independent films, while obviously not allotted the same kinds of budgets as some of the more popular films, often come across as more raw and honest. They tell messages that sometimes get lost in all of the computer graphics and 3-D imagery that muck up far too many films these days.
For Sarah Megan Thomas, it was important to effectively deliver an invaluably sincere and empowering message to the viewers of her most recent film, Backwards. Thomas wrote, produced and starred in the film, which illustrates the life of a post-collegiate rowing athlete who is well into her late twenties and wants nothing more than to succeed in securing a spot on the Olympic team.
Abigail Brooks, played by Thomas, comes close for the second time, to making her dream a reality but is once again let down. It is through this letdown that she is capsized into the waters of life and is forced to reevaluate why everything she believes in really matters.
Through this relatable struggle, Thomas reaches out and touches on moments in the lives of each and every person who has, at one time or another, lost something they cared about—or thought they cared about. Just as Abigail reevaluates her life and herself, she challenges us to do the same.
Thomas said in an interview that she felt the film really conveys a message to people —“sometimes in life, your big dream doesn’t work out.” She said that she hopes her message will reach “young adults everywhere,” a worthy and likely target audience.
For a film that went from script to theaters in just two years, it would seem that Thomas, a collegiate athlete herself, has quite a feat under her belt aside from her numerous athletic achievements.
Thomas hails from the Shipley School in Bryn Mawr, Penn. close to where filming took place.
“The city of Philadelphia really played a character in this film,” Thomas said. “The rowing culture in Philly is just great.”
All of the race scenes, in fact, were filmed right on the Schuylkill River—scenes that Thomas said she felt were just “so logistically complicated” and overall “so complex.”
There were scenes that Thomas said she had hoped to include in the film—an Olympic race scene in particular, but with an independent budget, the crew “simply could not afford it.”
Such challenges occur with the filming of independent movies, but if Thomas had filmed with a more mainstream direction, she said that directors would have wanted to push the project to a “dark and edgy” theme.
In the end, it seems a fair assumption that all worked out for the best, since the film looks fantastic—something she said chalks up to “hours of fabulous editing.”
There was certainly fun to be had on set though. When asked about her favorite scene, Sarah said the scene where they shot the prom.
“You know, I had to wear spandex everyday and put my hair up in a bun the whole time,” she said. “It was nice just to put on a dress.”
In concluding the interview with Thomas, the possibility of a Backwards sequel, perhaps one a little more mainstream, came up in the conversation.
She replied, “We’ll see how the box office performs!”
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