A few weeks ago, I was excited to learn several things involving one of my favorite TV series -- Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown. The first was that Season 1 had picked up two Emmys, one of which was awarded to its documentary-style cinematography. Soon after, I was fortunate enough to catch Parts Unknown DP Zach Zamboni speaking at a Rule Boston Camera Pub Night. In his presentation and the subsequent Q&A, Zach discussed things I've wondered about since the show was still called No Reservations: details of the crew's difficult (sometimes) improvisational shoots on the fly, far from home, with limited resources. And Emmy-winning footage as a result. To hear Zach's full thoughts on the technical -- and philosophical -- aspects of his Emmy-winning shooting, click through.
First, here's a few quick clips from one of my favorite episodes from the first season of Parts Unknown. This material doesn't necessarily represent how beautiful so much of the Libya episode is, so catch it on-demand if possible:
Something that is immediately apparent, in any excerpt of the show, is one of things I like most about it: these DPs simply have to make it happen. I can't help but think of Nike's slogan, "Just Do It." Years ago, before Bourdain's cameramen had the luxuries of greater sensitivity from the likes of the Sony F3, they still had to get the show done. These are shooters that are too busy shooting -- producing great-looking results, no matter the tools at their disposal -- to worry about these specs versus those specs or, what they only wish they had instead. The camera is their weapon, and they make their shots count.
Zach hits upon everything from the nuts and bolts of shooting (literally), improvising clever solutions for busted gear many miles away from the nearest rental house, not repeating yourself creatively, his appreciation of the smaller Sony F-family members, no re-takes, being shy about shooting people you don't know (and will never see again), his rigs, his crew, and eating a lot of really good food from all over the world. Here's Zach Zamboni on Just Doin' It:
Listening to Zach talk shop over free beer and pizza was sort of a dream come true for me, so cheers to Rule for putting on the event, and, as always, shooting/posting it for everyone else to check out. Just a few days before the Pub Night, an episode of Parts Unknown premiered that featured Zach both behind and in front of the camera, sometimes simultaneously. It was bizarre, Gonzo, meta, hilarious, awesome. It also gave some physical proof of the "walking-backwards-shooting-shitfaced" style Zach mentions in the Pub Night video. Said Bourdain on the episode:
My veteran cinematographer, EMMY award winning Zach Zamboni grew up in rural Maine and lived, until recently in New York City. But not too long ago, he met the woman of his dreams and relocated to Granada in Spain, marrying into a Spanish family, learning Spanish, and immersing himself in the daily life of his adopted new home.
We always like to be able to look at places through an individual's perspective. What makes this episode very special, is that with Zach, we are not only looking at a very old, very beautiful world through fresh eyes -- but that we are looking at it through the eyes of a particularly gifted cinematographer. Zach's visual poem to the mysterious Alhambra is a uniquely wonderful bit of filmmaking we are all very proud of.
New episodes of Parts Unknown premiere Sundays on CNN.
I read somewhere that there are only two best-case scenarios for a great screenplay—either it meets the expectations of the audience or it doesn’t. Either they sigh in relief or gasp out loud in shock.
Giving your audience what they want shouldn’t be difficult for a practiced writer. A character has a desire, and they achieve it at the end of the story. Boom! Expectations met!
But there’s something oddly satisfying about not meeting those expectations in a screenplay, leaving the audience shaken in disbelief.
Many compelling screenplays use something called misdirection—it's sneaky, it's intelligent, and it takes viewers somewhere unexpected. It's all about planting subtle clues that seem insignificant until a revelation forces us to reconsider everything.
Let’s examine how this narrative tool, when used thoughtfully, can transform straightforward storytelling into something more complex and satisfying.
What is Misdirection?
Misdirection is distracting the audience to mislead them, preventing them from getting on to your scheme of actions, until you finally reveal the truth. In essence, it is a style of storytelling, where the “audience proposes, filmmaker disposes.”
In misdirection, a filmmaker manipulates information, character(s), and their timing in the narrative while building the conflict, until everything falls into place to reveal an unexpected resolution that does not match the audience’s expectations.
Many times, the audience is also purposefully misdirected by exploiting their biases, prejudices, and gullibility.
Why Would Any Filmmaker Misdirect Their Audience?
A story is as interesting as its narration. Be it a bedtime story or Nolan’s Inception, if the narrative is linear and flat, it may be less engaging to your audience.
Misdirection is one of the finest tools that acts like a hook to your story. Misdirecting elements are thought-provoking, working with the audience’s psychology to throw them off guard.
Fiction gives you the freedom to alter realities, but even while misdirecting, it is important that the dots connect effectively by the end of the story. Information shouldn’t be irrelevant and without context.
How Do You Misdirect Your Audience?
You can use any story element to misdirect the audience, but the most commonly used are characters, sound, props, plot points, strategic information reveal, and the time of the incident of any event.
Examples of Misdirection in Great Films
Gone Girl by David Fincher
Misdirection by unreliable narrator
This is one of those stories that is completely narrated in misdirection.
The film opens through husband Nick’s (Ben Affleck) perspective, who becomes the prime suspect in the disappearance of his wife, Amy (Rosamund Pike), on their fifth marriage anniversary. As the investigation and media frenzy take over, we are let into the lives of our two main characters and led to believe that Amy might actually be dead.
We learn about their failing marriage and Nick’s extramarital affair. Thus, when Nick lies through his teeth about his loving relationship with Amy to the police, he instantly becomes an unreliable narrator in the story.
Thus, even though his alibis are believable, you cannot trust him and can’t take his word. Rather, you, with the police, start suspecting him.
This automatically shifts all your trust to Amy instead, even though you know even less about her than Nick. Wonderfully, you have begun rooting for her now.
What you might not realize is that you have been misdirected to dislike Nick as a character, so that you automatically take Amy’s side right from the beginning, until it is revealed that Amy is alive and purposefully in hiding.
This is one of the many misdirections in the film.
By regulating how the audience judges the characters, their morality, and their intentions, a filmmaker often shatters the expectations of the audience with misdirection to give them a more surprising resolution than expected.
The Sixth Sense by M. Night Shyamalan
Misdirection by character
Just by establishing a character in a certain way and revealing information about them strategically, a filmmaker can determine the character’s impression on the audience.
This is what M. Night Shyamalan does in The Sixth Sense. The magician of misdirection keeps both the characters and the audience engaged, looking for the ghost, all the while narrating the events through the ghost’s perspective!
The beauty of a nuanced misdirection lies in the clues left throughout a film’s events, leaving you both frustrated and delighted at the same time that you didn’t pick up on them!
Money Heist by Álex Pina
Misdirection by sound
In the Spanish drama series, Money Heist, the makers use a powerful misdirection but with a genius twist. This misdirection is not only for the audience per se, but for the main character—the Professor (Álvaro Morte), too.
In the Season 2 finale of the drama series, the Professor and Raquel (Itziar Ituño), the love of his life and newly minted partner-in-crime known as “Lisbon,” are sprinting through a dense, shadowy forest. The air crackles with urgency as police hounds close in, their shouts breaking the eerie silence of the forest.
Eventually, they are forced to separate, with a radio as their only mode of communication. Raquel ends up taking refuge in a barn, but not for too long. The police arrive, and she is completely surrounded. A gun to her head, she is ordered to compromise the Professor, but she’s steel-willed and denies the police any information.
All the while, the Professor is on the radio with her, frightened and worried, begging her to tell them everything in exchange for her life. The Professor frantically runs through the forest to reach Raquel, when… bang! A gunshot rips through the radio.
The Professor stops dead, the forest swallowing his anguished cry. But as the episode races to its close, the fog clears. The shot? A cruel ruse. She’s alive and in police custody. The Professor’s despair was their bait, and he bit—hard.
What I love about this particular sequence is that the filmmakers don’t use misdirection as a generalized cliff-hanger of “what happens next.”
Instead of revealing that Raquel is alive in an upcoming episode of the next season, they make a choice to reveal it at the tail end of the same episode.
Raquel is a crucial character in the series at this point, so to lose her in the narrative would have been a huge plot twist. At times, thrillers do go for the cheap surprise, whether it makes sense or not. But in Money Heist, the reveal elevates the value of the misdirection because now the audience knows things are going to change forever—for better or worse.
Final Destination 5 by Steven Quale
Misdirection by props
The sequence leading up to Candice’s fall in Final Destination 5 is a series of brilliantly crafted misdirections that keep us on the edge of our seats until the mishap finally happens.
The misdirections also seem to be symbolic, as the death of poor Candice (Ellen Wroe) is a sharp irony. Throughout the scene, we keep worrying about the loose screw in her gymnastic apparatus but how she is killed by it in the end is absolutely unexpected—just how a nuanced misdirection should be.
Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock
Misdirection by casting
Killing the heroine halfway through the film was a risky but brilliantly used misdirection by Alfred Hitchcock in Psycho, especially considering the film dates back to the ‘60s.
An actor’s face value is as important as their acting skills. Big actors usually have strong plot armor and are expected to survive the story.
In Psycho, when a star like Janet Leigh is killed off midway through the movie, the audience is thrown off guard and does not know what to assume, whose story to follow, or what to expect next. This amplifies the shock factor of the plot twist.
Misdirection can turn your story into a fun experience with plenty of unexpected twists and turns. When done well, a reveal should prompt viewers to think, "Of course! How did I miss that?" rather than, "That came out of nowhere!"
The audience hates being deceived. So, not meeting audience expectations doesn’t mean you lie and fill the screenplay with deceiving information, revealed in an untimely way, aiming for a plot twist in the climax that feels isolated and seemingly unmotivated.
Also, be careful not to clutter your narrative with forced misdirections.
For a better understanding, check out the examples in the article—how each misdirection is a strategic literary device, not just a stylized form of storytelling.
A few weeks ago, I was excited to learn several things involving one of my favorite TV series -- Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown. The first was that Season 1 had picked up two Emmys, one of which was awarded to its documentary-style cinematography. Soon after, I was fortunate enough to catch Parts Unknown DP Zach Zamboni speaking at a Rule Boston Camera Pub Night. In his presentation and the subsequent Q&A, Zach discussed things I've wondered about since the show was still called No Reservations: details of the crew's difficult (sometimes) improvisational shoots on the fly, far from home, with limited resources. And Emmy-winning footage as a result. To hear Zach's full thoughts on the technical -- and philosophical -- aspects of his Emmy-winning shooting, click through.
