I know that headline was a bit antagonistic, and I'm sorry, but I had to get your attention. And now that you're here, I'll be nicer, I swear. It's just that I've had something on my mind lately, something quietly discomforting, and maybe even borderline malevolent. It's something that I've come to know as Gear Acquisition Syndrome – GAS for short – and it's a form of mass artistic paralysis.
You see, GAS is a way of thinking, or rather a psychologically-crippling state of mind, in which someone becomes convinced that they can't produce something worthwhile or meaningful until they've acquired certain pieces of gear, say a GH4 and a set of Nokton hyperprimes, or an F5 and some Zeiss CP2s. The thinking goes that it just wouldn't be prudent to produce work with their current, terrible, awful, shitty gear, like a T3i and a nifty fifty. I mean, why would you shoot something now with your inadequate old gear when gorgeous image (or sound) quality is right around the corner with your next purchase.
Say you decide to purchase (insert camera name here). It's got most of the features that you would ever need in a camera, so you start saving your money. "Once that sweet camera is in my hands," you think to yourself, "Nothing will be able to stop me." Two months later, on the front page of every filmmaking site, (insert camera name #2 here) makes its debut. It has more features and costs a little more, but the images it produces are just spectacular. So you do what any rational person might do. You discard your original plans and opt to save for the better product.
And then NAB rolls around, and you just start shouting at your computer, "WHAT THE HELL IS EVEN GOING ON AND WHY CAN'T BLACKMAGIC JUST ACCEPT THE CAMERAS THEY ALREADY PRODUCE?!?" And sure enough, you're back on the Blackmagic bandwagon again, waiting for (insert camera name #3 here) to be released. Several months later, the process starts over.
This would be a good time to take a little bit of a breather from my rant to segue into the video that originally prompted me to start writing this article. It's a lovely little roundup of conversations with prolific filmmakers (including our very own Joe Marine) . Cinema5D's Sebastian Wöber caught up with these folks at NAB last month, and what they had to say on this very subject is illuminating.
Now, where was I? Oh yeah. Even if you overcome the massive headache of figuring out which camera to buy, then you actually buy it before something better comes along and makes you change your mind, and even if it's everything you could have ever wished for, chances are that you'll probably forgo making something creative until, say, you've also purchased a gimbal stabilizer. (Shoulder rigs are so two years ago, didn't you know? Get with the times.) A basic tripod and a slider just won't cut it for you, not with your artistic ambitions. And come to think of it, neither will those vintage Nikon primes that you've been using for years. No, you need cinema glass now.
That's the problem with GAS. It's not, nor will it ever be, a one-time affliction. It's constant and ongoing, and the flood of new products keeps us creatively paralyzed and in a perpetual state of cripplingly-indecisive stasis. This process quite literally drains us of our creative juices, and not in the fun way, or even in any way that produces something tangible or worthwhile. We spend hours hopping around to various blogs and forums, trying to squeeze every little tidbit of information out regarding our potential future purchases. In truth, a good portion of us will never even make those purchases. We're just wasting time.
None of this is to say that you shouldn't pay attention to gear news and make informed choices when you decide to purchase new gear. Filmmaking is an inherently technical endeavor, and it's smart to evaluate your needs and make sure you purchase gear that meets those needs, at least to the highest extent that your budget will allow. But when we become crippled by anxiety and the paradox of choice, it becomes very easy to lose sight of why we were even attracted to filmmaking in the first place.
As Joe wisely says in the video above, "This new gear is only as good as you are, and no one piece of gear is going to make you better." Right now might be a time for some critical self reflection from all of us. We should be asking ourselves if we've really outgrown our current gear -- is it legitimately holding us back in any way, or are we just telling ourselves otherwise because the film blogs are hailing the benefits of a shiny new toy? Maybe we need to invite the uncomfortable possibility that we haven't actually outgrown anything, but that instead we just lust after new equipment because we like the thought of it propelling us to new creative heights. We like that thought because it's easier and safer than actually creating content and sending it out into the world, and putting in the time and effort to grow creatively to the point where new equipment actually becomes a necessity.
Credit: Dollar Photo Club
I'm not suggesting that everyone stop reading gear stories immediately and go live in the woods to craft the next great screenplay, although, let's be honest, that would be awesome. All I'm saying is that we should start becoming a little more conscious and critical of this gear-addicted culture that we've created. This new technology is a blessing in so many ways. Its ubiquity and inexpensiveness have quite literally broken down the barriers of entry into an artistic medium that, only 15 years ago, was prohibitively expensive for most people. Now, even our smartphones are capable of making films. The old barriers are gone. This never-ending cycle of gear acquisition, however, is proving to be an even more impenetrable barrier for many of us. It's time to realize that it's entirely self-imposed, and that even the lowliest camera today is capable of capturing great images.
We all started reading this site presumably because becoming a better filmmaker was high on our list of priorities. Somewhere along the way, we stepped aboard the train of obsessive gear acquisition, and that priority fell by the wayside, whether we knew it or not. The time has come. Let's jump off the train, and get back to what's important. Let's make some goddam films, people!
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.
Credit: Dollar Photo Club
