Preparation Pay Off

Preparation-pay off is a great tool that can HELP you in two ways.

Preparation-pay off ensures your story is coherent and also HELPs avoid your account ever seeming gratuitous or arbitrary. The principle is simple:

We have to know there is a weapon in the drawer before the hero uses it.

If your hero escapes on a motorbike, we need to have seen him/her riding a motorbike beforehand.

This preparation avoids your audience losing interest.

Secondly, this tool enables you to convey very strong emotions to your audience without explanation or dialog.

First, link a meaning or particular emotion to a piece of music, object, gesture or location. Later on, when we encounter this element again, it will bring us back to the emotion or meaning.

The most efficient rule to remember is “Surprise your viewers with something they expect”. If every element of your story has been previously established, the audience won’t be surprised once an element resurfaces later on in the story, but by how it appears.

When you re-read your screenplay, make sure each event or object used at a given time has been prepared. Also make sure when you have set something up that you use it later on in the script.

In a detective film for example, clues must be set up. Proof can’t materialize out of thin air.

Example Summertime. Pablo is on holiday at the seaside and he is in love with Suzy. Together, they listen to a hit song that plays all day long at the beach bar. It is their song (preparation).

Winter is back. Pablo hasn’t seen Suzy since the summer. He thinks about her less and less. Then one evening he is at home alone with the radio on… and he hears their song (pay off). He picks up the phone.

At this moment, the audience can identify with Pablo and knows what he is thinking or even feeling. There is no need to give any kind of explanation or to insert a flashback for the audience to understand. We know who he is calling.