‘Hero’s Journey’ isn’t just a construct. What Campbell first articulated and Vogler popularized is nothing more than a product of physics,29 a chain of cause and effect with beginning, middle and end, seeking symmetry.

The first turning point in the fifth act is the presentation of the opportunity to commit to change (a mini ‘inciting incident’) and/or a conscious decision to do so.

the work of Kuleshov and Eisenstein (the father of the montage, effectively the Kuleshov Effect in action),

Once upon a time a young friendless boy called Elliot discovered an alien in his backyard. Realizing that unless he helped the creature home it would die, he took it on himself to outwit the authorities, win over sceptics and in a race against time, in a true act of courage, set his friend free.

At the beginning of a scene characters establish themselves on fairly solid ground, pursuing a goal they believe will restore order to their world. Just when they think they might be getting somewhere, something happens to throw their world into turmoil once again.

Mamet points out, as E. M. Forster did before him,8 that our only interest should be in what happens next.

It’s a basic narrative technique which forces you to read the copy underneath in the hope that it will explain such a superficially strange juxtaposition.

it’s the point from which there’s no going back. A new ‘truth’ dawns on our hero for the first time;

The assimilation of knowledge is in the very cells of drama – a character’s flaw is merely knowledge not yet learned.