At what a pleasant surprise it was. A great and very unusual¹ story with strong pacing, perfect structure and great dialog.

And it contained a Story Trick that I’ve seen many times before, but here it was very clear and concise.

And now is the time for a warning before you read any further; there are major spoilers in this article, so if you haven’t seen the film, please do not read any further. Consider yourself warned.

Okay, you’ve seen it? Great! Let’s continue.

Today’s Story Trick² is all about the Foreshadowing and Payoff trick³.

And that line “Nope. Not today”, or versions of it, is repeated throughout the movie. And at first it just seems like Borden is the kind of man whom is only capable of loving one thing at a time. One day it is wife and other days it is his work, the magic, that he loves. This makes perfect sense because of the way he is portrayed in the movie.

But the Nolan brothers up the ante later in the script with this scene⁵ :

Again it seems perfectly normal because they live in a very unsanitary time in London. A cut or wound could very well keep bleeding or catch infection.

The next scene that uses the trick is this one⁶:

See, again Bordon is portrayed as a man with a temper: “I’m allowed to change my mind, aren’t I?”. This is about halfway through the movie and we’ve seen him numerous times loose his temper. Nothing out of the ordinary here.

Later, the relationship between Bordon and Sarah is, to say it mildly, not very good⁷ :

That just a relationship gone south fast. And we have already seen that Bordon is having an affair with the young Olivia (played by Scarlett Johansson), so it, again, makes perfect sense. The scene is even followed up by this one right after⁸ :

Is he having second thoughts? We don’t know yet, but it would make sense, since he just declared his true love for his wife. By now the Nolans start to hand out the clues about the underlying plot of the whole movie, we just don’t know it yet.

The next thing that happens is that Sarah hangs herself in desperation.
Later Bordon is sitting with Olivia at a restaurant and having this conversation⁹ :

Again, we think we’re witnessing the confessions of a man torn between his passion for his art and his love for his wife, but little do we really know.

And then, and then ladies and gentlemen, comes the Payoff, behold¹⁰ :

Et volá. The payoff. “We were both Fallon. And we were both Borden”. Bordon even says it in his voice-over, the very first line in the movie:

He’s changeling us, as the viewer, but it isn’t until the end we realize this. Even though Cutter’s voice-over that accompanies the start of the entire movie clearly states what is going to happen¹¹ :

That’s Foreshadowing and Payoff. And as simple as it looks, as simple it is. All the piece fall into place. That little line of dialog (”We were both Fallon. And we were both Borden”) explains why he can’t remember what knot he tied. Why his fingers keep bleeding. Why his wife sometimes could see if his love for her was real or not. Why he changed his mind about buying the house. And how the Transported Man really worked (he used a double). Bordon and Fallon were twin brothers¹².

The Nolan brothers have with this written a superbly structure screenplay and perfectly illustrates the Foreshadowing and Payoff trick in absolute clarity. They are truly masters of this technique. Watch also Memento and their two Batman films.

If you want to know more about Foreshadowing and Payoff, I would highly recommend Linda Seger’s classic book “Making a Good Script Great“.

>>> Read the entire screenplay here. (direct link to PDF file).

+——+——+——+——+——+——+——+——+——+

1. stories about magicians don’t come along that often
2. For the rest of the Story Trick articles see #1 on Eastern Promises, #2 on Michael Clayton, #3 about the basic structure beatsand #4 on Refusing the Call technique
3. aka the “Luke I am your Father”-trick or “Verbal Kint is Keyser Söze”-trick. Read on, you’ll understand. Often this trick is referred to as Setup and Payoff.
4. to read the full scene go to page 22 in the script
5. in the script it’s on page 38
6. starts on page 57
7. see page 92 for the entire scene
8. starts on page 94
9. this scene starts on page 104, and also see the scene on page 99 were Sarah warns Bordon that she will tell Olivia who Bordon really is
10. starts on page 122
11. here greatly condensed just to show the dialog
12. don’t think too much about the validity of this. Anyone who knows identical twins knows that even if they are as identical as they can be you can easily tell them apart. I would at least feel that the wife would be able to. But leave that be, this is fiction and anything goes

For some time I’ve been reading up on Joseph Campell and his Monomyth theory and how it could be applied to modern storytelling. Christopher Vogler² has written an excellent introduction on how to apply it to screenwriting.

Now David Anaxagoras has written a really good article about one of the stages of the monomyth, Refusing the Call.

>>> Read David’s article here

There is no need for me to write about this when David has already written such a good and explanatory article. Be sure to check out some his other articles on his newly launched website. It’s all great stuff.

1. For the rest of the Story Trick articles see #1 on Eastern Promises, #2 on Michael Clayton and #3 about the basic structure beats
2. His book The Writer’s Journey have just been released in it’s 3rd edition

So, that was 30 days of script writing, and what did I learn from that (apart from being able to write a first draft feature length screenplay in less than 30 days while holding down a full time job and being a caring family man)?

One thing: Outline. Outline. Outline…. and… outline.

I know that many big time screenwriter and directors don’t outline at all. The Coen brothers have said in numerous interviews that they never outline, but for the rest of us, I truly believe that outlining is the way to go.

When I sat down the work out the storyline for my script Downfall I looked at what the “masters” of screenwriting said about structuring the story.

I read about what Syd Field, Michael Hauge and Trine Breum (Danish) said about the topic, and scoured the internet for more references.

Listed below are the fundamental structure I’ve complied from all of these and for me at least it worked really well and always kept my writing on track and moving forward.

(Please note: The beats below are structured after a 100 pages script. If you plan to write a short script just take the page number and divided by 100, e.g. point of no return on page 50 is 50% of the script lenght).

The beats:

1. Page 1: Opening Scene: Setting up the main character. Hard to do, but just think of what you want to viewer to see first when sitting down to watch your film.
2. From page 1-10: Setting up the story: All the main characters (protagonist, antagonist, supporting characters etc.) are introduced here. The audience must know or at least have some basic idea of what kind of people they are.
3. Page 10: The 1st Turning Point: Something happens here that give the story a completely new direction. Someone dies, wins the lottery, the aliens attack, the long lost father returns home… you get the idea. This is the thing that sets the entire story in motion. Up until now we where just getting to know the characters, now the real story starts.
4. Page 10-25: The new situation: Okay, so something happened on page 10 and now everything is up in the air. What should the protagonist do? What is it all about? Should our hero embark on a journey to solve this new situation or should he/she just do nothing? Try to write down reasons to go and reasons to stay, and work with this conflict.
5. Page 25: The 2nd Turning Point (sometimes also called the Plot Point 1, but it’s the same thing): The start of Act 2 is all about going into the great unknown. The situation that started on page 10 is now going to be dealt with. The plans that the hero had for his/her situation in page 1-10 is now being changed completely. Some talk about going from the Ordinary World to the Special World.
6. Page 30: If you have a subplot (you don’t always need one) now is the time to introduce it. Be it a love story or something.
7. Page 25-50: First half of Act 2: The situation develops and the hero is slowly but surely moving forward in a positive way toward solving the situation.
8. Page 37: The symbolic scene: This is where the main character really commits to the journey. The audience might have known for a long time that this was the case, but this is where the main character expresses it clearly in some way, like taking charge of the search & rescue team. Can be very dramatic or almost unnoticeable.
9. Page 50: The 3rd Turning Point: The Point of No Return: This is where things can’t get any worse or any better depending on your story. The journey is almost over and the end is clearly in sight. Maybe the hardest part of the screenplay to nail completely, and also one of (if not the) most important points in the structure of the story.
10. Page 50-75: The 2nd half of Act 2: The plot thickens: The antagonist return. The antagonist has already been very much present in the story, but now the “attacks” becomes more frequent and clear. The complications and the stakes involved in the journey increases very much. Before the life of the protagonist maybe wasn’t at stake but not it most certainly is.
11. Page 65: The moment of regret: Maybe taking on this journey was a bad idea after all. Maybe we should just all go back. It’s not working out anyway. The hero of some of the supporting characters clearly states that they feel bad about doing what they are doing. Maybe we should just do what the antagonist wants us to do?
12. Page 75: The 4th Turning Point (also called Plot Point 2): All is lost. Major setback. One of the dear supporting characters dies, or the lovers are separated for good (it would seem), etc. The main characters are ready to give up. This is rock bottom it can’t get any worse than this so why even continue.
13. Page 75-100: Act 3: The race against time to finish the journey. The part where the protagonist solve the main conflict.
14. Page 85: The aha moment: “So this is how it works!” Aha. This one is not always used but good to get the third act some momentum. Could also be used to introduces a time-lock: They must get out of the building before the bomb explodes in 5 minutes, etc.
15. Page 85-100: The final push. All or nothing. Part of the third act where the main characters give all they have to complete the journey. Often the hero must face three tests that becomes more and more difficult in order to continue.
16. Page 9x: The 5th Turning Point: The Climax: Somewhere between page 90 and 99 the conflict is resolved. The antagonist is neutralized. The protagonist made it. The lovers reunite. The maniacl killer is captured
17. Page 9x-100: The aftermath: Use these pages to show the protagonist riding out into the sunset or whatever suits the story. Tie up any loose ends.

There you have it, 17 beats that make up more or less a typical movie. Use them at will; many really good movies (and Oscar winners) did not use them, not even close. But when you’re, like me, still new at this game, they help a lot more than hinders your story.

Gilroy both wrote and directed this film, which marks his debut as a director, but certainly not as screenwriter. Some of his other credits include the Bourne Trilogy, as well as Armageddon, and Dolores Claiborne.

In short, Tilda Swinton plays Karen Crowder, the top legal adviser to U/North a gigantic chemical fertilizing company.

Just before act two starts she’s about the give an interview on camera to be used in some internal marketing.

We start of by seeing her sitting in front of the camera crew and the interviewer with one of the senior partners at her side. She delivers a very thoughtful and serious answer to the interviewer’s first question and seems extremely confident and on top of the situation.

But after the first question is answered, we start to cut back and forth between the ongoing interview and her rehearsing in her room 30 minutes or so before. In the comfort of her private space she just the opposite; she’s nervous and fumbles with the words while she’s trying to find the right answers to the prepared questions.

The trick is that not only do we get a lot of exposition details about Karen Crowder, about her being a work alcoholic and very much theyoung rising star as the in-house legal adviser, but we also see her as a fragile and somewhat emotional unstable woman that is working very hard to keep her facade intact.

It’s a superb trick by Gilroy. In just over two pages, Gilroy manages not only to introduce Karen and sketch out her background, but also to show both her personalities; her calm collected professional one and her fragile and unstable personal one. Something that proves to be a vital clue for events later in the story.

You can read Tony Gilroy’s excellent script in its entirety here. The sequence mentioned herein starts at page 27.

The idea came to me after I watched David Cronenberg’s excellent “Eastern Promises” last night. The script is written by Steven Knight and he utilizes a very simple and very subtle trick that, for me at least, was brilliant in keeping the suspense going in the first part of the film.

The protagonist, Anna (Naomi Watts) is a midwife at a hospital in London and one day a young girl dies in her ward while giving birth to a baby girl. The young woman is unknown but she did carry a diary with her. The problem is that the diary is written in Russian.

Although Anna herself is Russian she can’t read the language and therefore she asks her uncle Stepan to translate it for her. He abruptly refuses as he finds it highly immoral and utters “Do you always rob the bodies of the dead?”.

So Anna must find another way to translate the diary in order to find the relatives of the unknown young girl and hand over the baby to them. Inserted into the diary is a card of the restaurant owned by Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl). Going there she meets Kirill and Nikolai and becomes clear that this restaurant is a meeting place for Russian gangsters in London.

Anna don’t know exactly why, but Semyon seems like a bad man. There is just something about him that’s off, maybe it’s because he’s too direct in offering to help Annie. On the other hand he seems like a very likable grandpa-kind-of-person and is very polite and forthcoming toward Anna and her request for a translation.

And here comes the trick. We as the viewer know that Semyon is bad and that the diary very likely contains information that he normally would have people killed for. The issue is then if Anna can trust Semyon to do a real translation or if he’s going to lie to her.

Parallel to this Anna keeps pushing her uncle to do the translation and he keeps refusing.

This subtle trick creates an enormous tension and suspense in the story, and we sit watching this part of the film on the edge of our seats hoping that uncle Stepan will come to his senses and help Anna so that she can get far away from Semyon. Even though this conflict is resolved in another way it moves the story forward in a very effective way.

I could easily imagine an entire movie centered on this; someone finds a book or scripture and has to get it translated. Unfortunately the person(s) he approaches with this task is someone whom stands to lose a lot if the knowledge in this book is to become publicly known. It’s simple trick and used many times before but it works very well.

I also highly recommend reading Steven Knight’s entire screenplay that Focus Features have so kindly made available online in this award season.