Once The Vampire Diaries reported that Nina Dobrev would be exiting the show taking after its 6th season, fans couldn’t endure to discover precisely how the show would send off its focal champion. Also, in May 2015, they got their answer in one of the show’s most grounded hours. EW talked with official maker Caroline Dries and choreographer Mimi Karsh about how precisely they made Elena’s goodbye.
How would you create an appropriate farewell for your primary character in just 44 minutes? That was the inquiry the Vampire Diaries writers’room needed to ask themselves when they sat down to compose the season 6 finale, also called Nina Dobrev’s last scene. They had the plot: Kai would send Elena into a mystical extreme lethargy and bond her life to Bonnie’s, implying that while Bonnie was alive, Elena couldn’t be. So they knew why she was leaving, yet despite everything they required the how.
At last, the writers chose that each of Elena’s chief relationships would get its own different farewell, which obviously, was a test as far as timing. This was not a 2-hour scene, but rather they needed to ensure they dealt with each relationship fairly. Especially, for executive producer Caroline Dries, the greatest battle came in making Elena and Stefan’s farewell. “Elena and Stefan were the love story on the show for so long and to not give that farewell the screen time and passionate weight that it merited was exceptionally worrisome to [showrunner] Julie [Plec] and me,” Dries told EW. “We needed to ensure that felt capable, and in the meantime, we realized that it couldn’t come after the Damon-Elena farewell. So it was similar to, how would we give this the weight without detracting from Caroline and Bonnie’s farewell or Matt’s farewell? It’s kind of like a riddle.”
It’s a riddle the group in the end sorted out, having characters enter Elena’s psyche — she’s in a state of extreme lethargy, recollect — and take her to an important area to say farewell. For Caroline and Bonnie, it was a sleepover in Elena’s room, which Dries said she believed was the “most delightful one.” For Tyler, Elena liberated him from his exacting chains to go be a werewolf at the end of the day. Somewhere else, Alaric took her preparation, which was typical of him continually being a guide and father-figure, as per Dries. And after that there was Matt, who took her to Wickery Bridge. “Their relationship to Wickery Bridge and her relationship to mankind isremarkably typical of their relationship and how she saved his life,” Dries stated.
As far as Jeremy was concerned, his farewell was initially more than what was broadcast. “Jeremy and Elena’s farewell at the pot smokers’ cave at the secondary school was exactly how their relationship began regarding how the audience met them. That scene was quite lengthy however we needed to cut here and there,” Dries said. “It’s truly about where he’s developed as a character and how she’s finished her occupation as a major sister from busting him in the washroom and hollering at him for having pot in his pocket to her being similar to, ‘Stunning, you are a man, you are a vampire seeker, you have a drive.’ It was her story of overcoming adversity.”
And afterward there was the area of Stefan and Elena’s farewell, for which the authors picked the waterfall that Stefan and Elena initially went to in season 2. “They had one of their most wonderful relationship minutes while they were strolling up that waterfall,” Dries said. “That is the place she conceded she never wanted to lose her humanity, she would not like to be a vampire, thus he thought that it was fitting for them to return to that environment,” Dries said.
Last, however positively not least, the authors then needed to make the huge farewell in the middle of Damon and Elena in the street where they initially met, which Dries said was the “conspicuous decision” as far as the area was concerned. “We knew it would have been the greatest scene of the season, perhaps one of the greatest scenes of the show, so we knew we needed it to be grand,” Dries said. “Julie and I were conversing with the writers, and I think an electrical jolt hit Julie. It’s one of those minutes where Julie goes into a full body fit and tosses her pen noticeable to all around and it’s similar to, obviously they need to groove!
“dancing on the show, among all the various character couplings, is kind of a theme,” Dries proceeded. “It’s our method for the characters having intercourse in like a lovely way, so it appeared well and good out and about, which is typical of Damon’s excursion as a vampire. Once Julie thought of the move, everything became alright in light of the fact that we could then intercut it with Stefan and Caroline.”
However, then the show really needed to craft the dance, for which they swung to choreographer Mimi Karsh. “They had a really clear thought of what they needed,” Karsh said. “They needed it to be similar to a fantasy grouping, sentimental and delightful.” As Caroline worded it, they needed it to be similar to Beauty and the Beast. Also, Karsh, a long-lasting devotee of the show — her spouse is previous TVD writer/ producer. He is currently the Originals executive producer. He is Michael Narducci — and he made it a point to work in a tribute to Damon and Elena’s very first dance in season one.
“They have that move where Stefan should arrive and he does not and Damon fills in for him and they had that first minute where they touched hands, and I needed to bring back that minute and attempt to join that quietly enough so that the fans would see it,” Karsh said. “It’s a little tribute to that very first meeting.”
With the music, Ross Copperman’s “Yearning,” picked by the show — for what Dries called as “delicate sentimental interest” and “great tune for the dancing peak” — Karsh centred the choreography on linking. Realizing this was Damon and Elena’s farewell, Karsh knew it should have been about their relationship most importantly. “Dancing with your partner is the loveliest type of dance, as I would like to think, as a result of that association,” she said. “As a result of this trust you have with your accomplice, [you] totally give in. When he lifts her up and she returns and her head backtracks, she totally gives in. It has a lot to do with bonding and trust.”
In any case, when the writers first approached Karsh, they didn’t need any lifts in the move. “They needed it to be somewhat inconspicuous,” Karsh said. “I attempted to give them that with a tad bit additional trusting that they might want it. I tossed in a couple lifts just to check whether they would keep it.”
Furthermore, they did keep it, something that Dries ascribes to the way that she couldn’t differentiate between Dobrev and the expert artist they had demonstrating her moves. “[Nina] was natural to the point that it pardoned her for being choreographed,” Dries stated.
It really is ideal; Dobrev was beautifully natural, on the grounds that her shooting plan just permitted her to practice the move in the middle of takes, which implies she’d take in the choreography five minutes on end. Karsh assessed that she had 15 minutes aggregate to take in the steps. In any case, on account of Dobrev’s artist foundation and her adoration for the dance — she nailed it on the first occasion when she saw it — Dobrev was willing to buckle down, alongside Somerhalder, who had a couple of hours to practice his portion.
Thankfully, because of downpour amid shooting, they additionally had time between takes to immaculate things. “The principal take that we did, everyone behind the camera was in tears,” Karsh said. “It was such an excellent minute.”
It additionally didn’t hurt that the dance was the final thing Dobrev shot on the show. “Once in a while does it happen where the last line of dialogue you say is the last line of the scene, so for the exact opposite thing for us to shoot in season 6 to be Elena’s last scene was extremely weird how it met up impeccably,” Dries stated. “The exact opposite thing was when we wound up shooting her final “goodbye” and ‘I love you’. Afterward when the cameras went off, that was the point at which the entire team thronged her with pies and just butchered her,” Dries included with a giggle.
And after that it was over. Elena’s send-off was finished in a way that Vampire Diaries fans will always remember. Dries says, “The fact was that Elena was saying farewell to everybody leaving them with a feeling of peace.” As for the scene, it too left fans with a feeling of amity. Adieu Elena.
