I give you this post in a quiet and lonely apartment.  Alyssa is in Washington DC at the GI Film Festival right now where Those Forgotten is screening tonight along with what sounds like a great selection of short films.  I have told her that she has to get a picture of her with celebrity host, Pat Sajak, so I’ll provide it for you next week if I get it.

It’s been a hectic week (but what week isn’t), along with planning Alyssa’s trip, she is directing a documentary.  On Saturday myself, Alyssa, Malerie and Andrew (two awesome sound recordists and sound editors that I met during the filming of Those Forgotten) went up to Waymouth, Nova Scotia to visit Alyssa’s Aunt and Grandmother.  For anyone who doesn’t know Nova Scotia, Waymouth is near Digby, which is about 3 hours drive from Halifax.

Alyssa’s Aunt has Osteogenesis imperfecta Type 3 which is known as “brittle bone disease”.  It is a genetic disorder that affects Type-1 collagen and leads to brittle bones, loose joints, bone deformity, spinal curvature and short stature.  The documentary is about all the amazing things she has been able to do during her life.  We have filmed most of the interviews, so in a few weeks we are going to film the B roll and start editing.

What's left of the Evenjobb Motte

This documentary has reminded me of a discovery I made a few months ago.  There is a small town (and I mean small, with a population estimated at 150) in Wales named Evenjobb, or sometimes called Evanjobb.  I have joked that one day I need to make a documentary called, “Evan Jobb goes to Evenjobb”

Those are my stories from the week, now I have a short topic for you this week.  More of a reminder than anything.  When you are writing and creating your protagonist and the world around them sometimes you forget that a major part of the creation of your protagonist is the creation of the antagonist.

People are lazy.  This is a fact that needs to be understood in order to write a proper story.  I don’t mean lazy in the fact that they are all out of shape, I mean in the fact that people will exert as little energy as possible in order to accomplish the task at hand.

When given the choice, people will choose the easier of the two.  Unless you have a reason to do something difficult why bother?  And this is where it is important for writing.  You have to give your characters a reason to do the difficult tasks.  People don’t take risks unless they have to, but a story without risks isn’t much of a story, so force your characters to take risks.

Look at everything you do during the day.  Think about the last time you took a risk, the last time you had a world shattering realization, the last time you truly used your entire potential.  It was not during an average day, it was as a result of some tremendous change in your life.

Only during a crisis can we fully understand the true nature of a character.  We can experience their personality and see how they conduct themselves from day to day, but it isn’t until a crisis that we strip away everything and can finally witness what is at their core.  A protagonist needs an antagonist to push them to the limits both mentally and physically in order to become a fully developed character.

So develop your antagonist, make them a match for your protagonist and then take it a step further and make them more of a match.  Make them completely unravel your protagonist, push them to the limit of their character and then push them some more.

Because a protagonist is only as developed the antagonist.

A MESSAGE FROM THE YORKTON FILM FESTIVAL:

This year, the Yorkton Film Festival celebrates its 65 anniversary and we’re asking you to come and join us in the celebration. For 65 years, the Yorkton Film Festival has showcased the best in Canadian short film and brought together some of the biggest names in Canadian filmmaking. This year promises to be no different as we welcome:
Michel Roy – Chairman of the Board for Telefilm Canada
Tom Perlmutter – National Film Commissioner and Head of the National Film Board
Valerie Creighton – President and CEO of the Canada Media Fund
Joan Prowse – Co-founder of CineFocus Canada
And that is just a small selection of some of the panelists and speakers that we will be having at this year’s festival. We’re also offering a master-class, hosted by Tom Davidson, on shooting with DSLR video formats.

In addition to this, 4 lucky (gala?) attendees will win one of the following stock sets from footagefirm, the leader in providing HD and SD royalty-free stock footage from around the world:
18 Production music DVDs
10 After Effects Template DVDs
11 Super Slow Motion Stock Footage DVDs
10 HD Backgrounds DVDs
We also offer our unique Prairie experiences that make the Yorkton Film Festival what it is. From our LobsterBlast, where you can experience fine dining and skeet shooting, to an afternoon BBQ at the horse races, we have unique experiences that will leave you talking about them for years to come.

The only thing missing from this year’s festival is you; and you can change that by going to our website: www.goldensheafawards.com and registering to attend this year’s festival. But hurry, the deadline for getting tickets to our Golden Sheaf Awards Gala and our LobsterBlast event is Friday, May 18th.

So register today and experience North America’s longest running film festival for yourself.

The twist ending is both beloved and hated.  It offers an ending that makes the audience rethink the film they have seen and makes them crave a second viewing.  But it also can take a perfectly good story into the perfectly wrong direction and leave audiences forever complaining.

To help keep your story on the right track, I have prepared 3 guidelines that, as I have seen, have to be met in order to provide a proper twist ending.

1. The twist has to make sense.
2. The audience cannot have predicted the twist before it happens.
3. The twist has to feel like a natural progression of the story and lead to a satisfying ending.

Now before I go any further, I have to give a warning.  I am going to attempt to not ruin any films for you.  But I cannot discuss twist endings without giving away some part of the ending away.  I will attempt to highlight the structure of the twist and not the details, but even that may give too much away.

Spoilers Ahead.

1.  The twist has to make sense.

This one should be apparent to everyone, but I’m sure you can name a few films that ignore this guideline.  The easiest way to have a twist make sense is to set it up early in the script or to foreshadow it.  You don’t even have to draw much attention to it, if it’s an item, just mention it in passing.  Every word in a script is important, so if it’s written it’s important at some point in the story, otherwise why would you have written it?

The other side of this guideline is that the twist has to make sense in the world of the film.  This is where a story can really lose an audience.  If your story takes place in the real world, then you are bound to the physics and laws of the world, you cannot break them for a twist.

Good Twist Ending: Planet of the Apes (1968).  The protagonist is trapped on this planet, he wants to get home.  After all of the events of the story he tries to get home only to find the Statue of Liberty and he realizes he has been home all along.  A nice, simple ending, it works with all the mythology mentioned throughout the film and though there may be some debate as to whether it fits perfectly into the world of science, the accepted knowledge of space travel allows use to believe in time travel.

Bad Twist Ending: Planet of the Apes (2001).  I will ruin it here, because it doesn’t affect the plot of the film in any way.  The protagonist escapes in a space ship and returns to Earth, but Earth thought seeming the same, is now populated by Apes instead of humans.  There is no rational to this, there is nothing in the film that foreshadows or explains how this could have happened.  Is it a different planet?  A different part of the same planet he left?  Another dimension?  An altered timeline of Earth?  We don’t know.

2.  The audience cannot have predicted the twist before it happens.

Audiences are always trying to figure out what will happen next in a story, however they don’t actually want to know what happens next because that would spoil the story.  So a twist predicted by the audience falls flat and instead of being a twist, it is just an obvious event being portrayed as a twist.  You need to balance the foreshadowing of your twist with giving the audience too much information.  You need to withhold just enough information so that when all the pieces are presented, the audience understands, but not enough that they already saw what picture the puzzle pieces where creating.

Good Twist Ending:  Oldboy.  This one succeeds because the twist is not the questions the protagonist has been searching for, it is something he and the audience has failed to consider.  This makes for the best twists.  Since the audience is always trying to guess the twist ending, make them guess some other part of the plot.  Give them another mystery to consider.  Make them focus on the story of a man learning his true potential and make them forget about that horrible train crash at the start.

Bad Twist Ending:  Secret Window was a film that the only way it made sense to me is if the twist happened, and then it did happen.  End of story.

3.  The twist has to feel like a natural progression of the story and lead to a satisfying ending.

This ties in to the first guideline but must be noted separately to prevent two things, dream sequences and events that were all in the mind of the protagonist.

The audience has been with your story from the start, they have learned to empathize with your characters the last thing they want is to find out that all they have cared about never happened.  The audience wants to see how the story ends, they are invested in it, they want to know how THIS story ends, they don’t want you to suddenly switch gears and show how another story ends.  Therefore a twist involving a dream or memory must still fulfill the resolution and climax the story has been building up to. Make the twist feel natural, make it fit within your story, don’t make it destroy your story.

Another aspect of this guideline is that the twist should be the answer to a mystery.  If there is no mystery, if the audience completely understands every aspect of the film then a twist that confounds the story just complicates something that use to make sense and the audience will just be wondering why the author ruined their story.  So create at some mystery, have the audience trying to figure out the answer, make them want the to know the answer so bad that when you finally give them that tantalizing twist, they will be able to put their mind to ease.

Good Twist Ending: The Wicker Man (1973).  In this the protagonist is looking for a missing girl.  In the end he finds her, but he also finds out he was set up.  The story concludes, the loose ends are tied up and the audience is satisfied.  Other films like The Orphanage, Memento and The Sting all work for this reason.

Bad Twist Ending:  Next.  This film bugged me.  It is about a man who can see a little bit into the future, so of course you know that the end will involve a fake out and have it just be a vision, but this film took it to far and completely skipped the climax of the film.  The protagonist has the revelation that he can in fact complete the task put before him (which he was reluctant to do) and then it ends.  It is implied he will save the day, but we never see it happen.  Completely unsatisfying.

Then there is a film that is a personal favorite for having the worst ending possible, violating guidelines 1 and 3 while leaving only 2 in tack because you couldn’t have possibly seen it coming, Monster-A-Go-Go.  The twist doesn’t solve any mystery, it creates one, it makes no sense in the context of the real world or the film world, and it is akin to a dream twist ending, which would leave the audience unsatisfied if it was possible to be satisfied with the film to begin with.

There you go, 3 simple guidelines, try them out, see if they work for the films you’ve seen and if you find a twist ending that doesn’t seem to follow any of these guidelines, please share it with me.

In any story, the audience must form a connection to the protagonist.  They must care enough about the protagonist to want them to achieve their goal or else they will not be willing to go on the journey with them.

So the question is what kind of connection must be formed?

Often it is assumed that the connection must be based on sympathy.  The audience must feel pity for the plight of the protagonist.  They want them to fix the injustices set upon them and find happiness.  And to do this, two things happen.

1)         The protagonist is a kind, good person who we think deserves happiness.
2)         Their plight is so horrible that we want them to overcome it.

These are the two things that often occur, but they don’t have to occur together.  If you think about all the films you have seen and you’ll realize that the protagonist is not always a good person.  So it is clear that the first situation is not necessary.

This is because your protagonist doesn’t have to be sympathetic, but empathetic.

Your protagonist doesn’t have to be an upstanding citizen with no flaws who is always ready to save the day.  He doesn’t even have to be a nice person who is reluctant to become the hero.  He can be a downright brute, as long as the audience can empathize with him or her.

This is because audiences are not just drawn to your typical good acts of kindness.  They can be drawn to certain personality traits.  From the films I have seen, some of these traits that I can highlight are, loyalty, friendship, humor, dedication, honor, wisdom and hope.  If your protagonist has one of these traits, then the audience can still find empathy toward them.  Look at Dog Day Afternoon, The Godfather, Pulp Fiction, The Wild Bunch, Le Samourai, Monster, Four Lions and many others.  These films do not have good people as the protagonists, many of them are on the wrong side of the law, and though they are not doing good, yet we still connect with them because they possess one of these traits.

The other thing to remember is that no matter who your protagonist is, your antagonist is without question, the worse of the two.   So given the choice between the two, it is easier to empathize with the protagonist. Again look at the above mentioned films, in The Wild Bunch, the bunch may be robbing a bank, the first words the leader says about his captives is, “If they move kill em.”  And yet they are the protagonists.  Because the sheriff ambushes them and ends up causing a bloody massacre of innocent people in the street, and because the bunch have honor, they have friendship and loyalty and though they may be criminals, they have a connection to each other and you join that connection.

Also look at Silence of the Lambs, compare how the other criminals treat Clarice to how Hannibal treats her.  Given the choice, Hannibal seems like the nicer one out of the group.

Another thing to consider is that an evil person almost always thinks they are doing good.  Be they a thief, politician, psychopath, or adulterer.  People do what they think is best for the world around them and for themselves.  But not everyone has to perceive what he or she is doing as good.  But, if we understand the underlying reason for this decision, if it follows one of the traits listed above, then though the act may be horrific, the audience can still empathize.

Your protagonist doesn’t have to evoke sympathy, but your protagonist cannot act on an unempathetic emotion.

As for the second point above, that is necessary and there is no way around it, have a story without a sufficient antagonistic force and you’ll lose your audience.

Zachary Herrmann accepts the Writers Block Crystal in 2011 at the Yorkton Film Festival Golden Sheaf Awards Gala for his short film screenplay ELIJAH THE PROPHET, which was filmed in April of 2012 and is currently in post-production

These lucky scribes are all invited to attend the 2012 Yorkton Film Festival, where they will be festival accredited screenwriter nominees as part of the Golden Sheaf Awards Gala.

One of these lucky writers below will crowned May 26, 2012 as the CSSC’s top scribe for 2012 and be walking away with a cool $1,500 cash and the coveted Writers Block Crystal.

Good luck to all the nominees and congratulations to all of our quarter and semi finalists this year, what an amazing bunch of talents you have all proven to be.

Here are the 2011/12 Top 13 Finalists, in no particular order:

“Cowboys and Indians”, Paul Adamian USA
“Aleksandar Waiting”, Frank Canino CAN/USA
“Joe Blow, the Cyclone Kid”, Kamila Sediego CAN
“I Should Have Stayed Home”, Michael Angelella USA
“Cells”, Brian Flory USA
“A Cabin In The Woods”, Joshua Bartolome CAN
“Pretend Friends”, Matthew Allcock CAN
“An Incandescent Light”, David Gott USA
“No Answers In A Gun”, Ken Wallace AUS
“Letters From A Stone Cold Killer”, Sean Harris Oliver CAN
“Please Bring A Plate of Sandwiches”, Julian Williams UK
“The Day”, Gregory John Schatz USA
“Oh Bananas”, Dennis Goldberg USA

I typed up the first draft of this post on an electric typewriter that Alyssa bought for me.  It still had the ink ribbon in it.  But talk about spelling mistakes.  It’s one thing to be be a terrible speller, it’s another to be unable to go back and fix every time you hit the wrong key on the keyboard.  It’s a real eye opener.  I can type with all my fingers, without looking at the keyboard, but clearly I can’t hit the right keys as much as I should.

But I must say, the clacking as the letter appears on the page is more satisfying than any keyboard.  I’m going to need to find out where to get more ribbons so I don’t have to ration the one I have.

So I have some news to report, I have been putting it off for awhile, but I have let it build up and now I just need to say it.

I am excited beyond words about Those Forgotten, the short film I wrote and produced.  It just won a Gold Remi award down at WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival and now we are gearing up for the film to play at the Female Eye Film Festival in Toronto and at the GI Film Festival in Washington, D.C.  The GI Film Festival is the only military themed film festival in the United States (and as far as I know, Canada as well).  But the festival gets cooler than that.  Pat Sajak (yes the one and only from Wheel of Fortune) will be hosting the short screening that features Those Forgotten at the Canadian Embassy!  Not cool enough yet, the festival rates the films out of 5 stars in 4 categories, Bravery, Courage, Honor and Sacrifice.

But as awesome as that is, there is another reason why this week I can’t bring myself to write about screenwriting but instead write about my own film.  It’s because Those Forgotten has been selected to be apart of the Short Film Corner at Cannes!

To say I’m excited is an understatement.

So this week I want to remind you have another reason to make a film.  Traveling.

We all are writers, we all write because we have to, because we all live with stories inside of as we are compelled to put them on a page.  But after you have written the film, and when you are knee deep in the grit of production or worse the film shoot, sometimes you can lose sight of the reason why you are putting your blood, sweat and tears into the film.

In case the thrill of the film and the passion to see your story come to life begins to fade due to the stress of production, always remember that festival submissions mean travel.  It’s like well deserved vacation.

Think about it, what’s better than visiting a new place?  Visiting a new place, seeing some great films and partying with your fellow filmmakers.

I went up to the Yorkton Film Festival when Those Forgotten was awarded 4th prize at the 2009 Canadian Short Screenplay Competition and had the time of my life.  Great films, great people and great food.  How many film festivals feature a lobster boil and skeet shooting?  Now I can say with pride that I have been skeet shooting and I hit 7 of 10 targets.

So if you like seeing the world, make a film.

Now if only I could afford to go to all these places…

And once again, I could use for votes in the “Guerre des Flicks” for YoungCuts Film Festival.  $15 and you can watch the films, including Those Forgotten, and vote on your favorites.

http://www.youngcuts.com/static/festival_audience_subscription_payment

‘Seeing In The Dark’ director of photography Colin Hubick has won the Best Cinematography Category for Foreign Film at the Sunset Film Festival Los Angeles.

Los Angeles, CA— The Canadian Short Screenplay Competition, the most prestigious name in short film script contests, has earned one more honour: The CSSC’s 2008 1st place winning script ‘Seeing In The Dark’ director of photography Colin Hubick has won the Best Cinematography Category for Foreign Film at the Sunset Film Festival Los Angeles.

‘Seeing In The Dark’, penned by Calgary native Gordon Pengilly, placed 1st in the 2008 CSSC. It received its world premiere at the Edmonton International Film Festival in 2011. The short film tells the story of a paroled prisoner (played by Cormican) and his first day as a free man who tries to make amends with those who he wronged and those who wronged him. It is a story of longing to finally belong only to find he no longer belongs. The film also stars Regina, SK local Amy Matysio (Single White Spenny).

‘Seeing in the Dark’ co-directed by David Cormican and Helen Hatzis, will screen at the Sunset Film Festival Los Angeles in May 2012 where Hubick will also be on hand to receive his honour. The film was produced by David Cormican.

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About The Canadian Short Screenplay Competition (CSSC)
The Canadian Short Screenplay Competition, administered by Year of the Skunk Productions, and established in 2008, is the premiere script contest for short film screenplays. CSSC is the single-most competitive, prestigious, short screenplay festival in Canada, winner of the 2010 Canadian Weblog Award for Literature and Writing, a champion for screenwriters everywhere and a launching pad for writers’ professional careers.

“Write what you know” is a common phrase used by anyone giving advice to screenwriters.  But I have never been a fan of the phrase, I have often found it misleading and troublesome.

The phrase does have it’s merits.  It states that you can’t write what you don’t know, which makes sense.  But the lesson you should take from it should not be to avoid what you don’t know, but to increase your knowledge until you do know it.

If you interpret the phrase as only writing what you know and what you have experienced then you are limiting yourself and the range of your stories.  Besides, under that interpretation fantasy and science fiction could not be written because no one has ever experienced those situations.  Instead you are limited to autobiographical and sometimes self indulgent stories.  Perhaps you do in fact lead a thrilling life the demands to be told as a work of fiction, but I know that my life as a twenty-five year old aspiring screenwriter and youth programs supervisor in Nova Scotia is not boring but it certainly isn’t thrilling enough to need an autobiography.  Instead you need to pull out the exciting parts and give them their own story.

Story is life streamlined.

Writing what you know should not be limited to your life.  You can always learn more about another life.  You can research another time in history, you can learn about another place.  You can even learn about what has already been written on the subject in other stories.  You can always learn more and increase what it is that you do know.

I am currently writing a short story where the protagonist and his family go to hell.  I have obviously never been to hell, but I can still write about it.  I can still learn about hell and about the interpretations that have already been made and then make my own version.  So as long as I do my research, I will still be writing what I know.

Where I find the phrase is most important is when it comes to your emotional experiences.  In this case, write what you know.  Have you experienced every emotional situation?  Of course not, do you need to?  Of course not.  But if you are writing about an emotion, you must have some way to tap into it and share it with the reader.  

But once again you know more than you think.  I may not have experienced a father being betrayed by his son, however I have a father and I can take those emotions and express them in this story.  I also know the feeling of betrayal, so I can take that emotion and express it in this story.  So even though I have not experienced the exact same emotional state, I can build it from the emotions I have experienced and create a truthful emotion to connect with the audience.

But you’ll find that there are many experience you cannot properly express and relate a story to.  In that situation instead stick to what you know.

So to recap.  It is flawed to think you know everything and can write anything.  However, as I have stated, you know more than you think.  You can research and learn more about the situation and you can take emotions from other experiences in your life and shape them into you story.  So it’s not a matter of writing what you know, it’s learning what you don’t know.

So let’s rephrase it.  “If you don’t know it, learn it.”

Footnote:
Those Forgotten has been accepted to the “Guerre des Flicks” People’s Choice voting for the 2012 YoungCuts Film Festival.  So if you get a chance, check out the film and maybe even vote.  There is however a subscription fee unless you have a film in the festival.  But it’s a small price to pay to see a great collection of short films.

http://www.youngcuts.com/guerre_des_flicks

The Yorkton Film Festival recently announced the nominees for the Ruth Shaw Best of Saskatchewan Award of Excellence as part of the 2012 Golden Sheaf Awards, which included the Canadian Short Screenplay Competition’s ‘Rusted Pyre’ written by Daniel Audet and directed by Laurence Cohen.

Yorkton, SK— The Canadian Short Screenplay Competition’s 2008 3rd place winning script ‘Rusted Pyre’ written by Daniel Audet and directed by Laurence Cohen, has been nominated in the category of Best of Saskatchewan as part of this year’s Golden Sheaf Awards.

The Canadian Short Screenplay Competition was nominated in the same category last year for their short film ‘Minus Lara’, written by Surita Parmar and directed by Rob King.

This is the second Golden Sheaf nomination for Producer David Cormican.

“It’s a remarkable honour to be recognized amongst my peers like this—not to mention two years running”, says Cormican of the nominations. “YFF is a fantastic venue and their long-standing support of the industry makes it a top destination for filmmakers every May”.

‘Rusted Pyre’ stars Brooke Palsson (HBO’s ‘Less Than Kind’) and Samantha Somer Wilson (‘Nurse.Fighter.Boy.’) and will screen at the 2012 Yorkton Film Festival.

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About The Canadian Short Screenplay Competition (CSSC)
The Canadian Short Screenplay Competition, administered by Year of the Skunk Productions, and established in 2008, is the premiere script contest for short film screenplays. CSSC is the single-most competitive, prestigious, short screenplay festival in Canada, winner of the 2010 Canadian Weblog Award for Literature and Writing, a champion for screenwriters everywhere and a launching pad for writers’ professional careers.

Everyone knows that your protagonist has to be actively seeking what he or she wants.  They have to be fighting the events in their life and they have to be overcoming obstacles.  The protagonist must never be given a free ride, they must never be handed a conclusion, they must never be handed a way out.

So it’s clear that coincidence must never help your main character.

In the real world we are accepting of coincidence because there aren’t any other options.  Once a coincidence happens, it happens and we deal with it.  So we accept and they know someone chose the coincidence to happen.  So no longer is a coincidence a chance event, it is a calculated event by the writer because they couldn’t think of anything else.   And the story ends up being resolved by outside forces other than the protagonist.  So instead of the protagonist striving to overcome the obstacles, someone or something else overcomes the obstacles for them.  And the audience is left feeling cheated.

But don’t confuse coincidence with a set up plot device.  In Aliens the power loader is seen, and Ripley is seen using it, so when she uses it to fight the Alien Queen the audience accepts that in the given situation, she would think to use this machine.  It is lucky for her that there is a power loader on the ship, but since the audience already knew it was there, they accept that she uses it.  Instead coincidence would be when there is no set up and the event just happens without any prior notice.  So if in Aliens someone walks up to Ripley and presents her with a power loader without the audience ever seeing one or knowing what one was.

Or take a look at Life of Brian.  Brian is running away from the roman guards.  He runs up a tower to escape only to find that the tower is incomplete and he is trapped at the top.  The guards are closing in and there is nowhere to go.  While trying to escape he falls off the tower and… lands in a space ship which fly around the galaxy in a dog fight before crashing back to Earth leaving Brian unharmed.  It is pure coincidence that Brain is saved, but in this film it’s done as a joke and a passing character even remarks how lucky Brian is.

If this had happened in serious movie, the audience would go completely mad and demand their money back.

But this happens in serious movies.  And audiences have been fine with it.

Look at Jurassic Park, the T-Rex saves Professor Grant and the kids from the velociraptor just in time.

Or the end of Return of the King when the Eagles show up to save Frodo and Sam.

Like everything in film, the rules don’t apply to every situation.  Even though it gives your protagonist a way out of the situation, coincidence can be part of films, but it has to be used properly.  To avoid the audience rejecting coincidence I have found you have to do one of the following 4 things.

1) Set it up.  If the item or event in question is set up then the audience will accept it.  Be it the power loader in Aliens or the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark

2)  Show the repercussions of the coincidence.  This works when the coincidence occurs near the start of the story.  If you spend enough time showing what happens due to the coincidence, if you show the effect it has on the character’s life, then we accept the character’s struggle and accept that chance events can happen.  The audience doesn’t think about the coincidence, they just think it’s the story.  Look at The Virgin Springs when the 3 herdsmen arrive at Tore’s house  Or how there are only ever supervillians the moment a superheroes is created.

3)  Put the characters through so much turmoil the audience will be thankful they get a break and are saved by coincidence.  This one usually works best in comedies because the coincidence can be played off as a joke, but it works in other films too.  This why the above mentioned scene in Jurassic Park works and Return of the King and even Toy Story 3.

4)  It is used to make a statement, to show the powers of the unseen forces of nature or the karmic powers of the world.  Take for example, The War of the Worlds.  Bacteria kill the aliens.  It is a poignant look at how we are all just fools for thinking we are stronger than nature and capable of overcoming the natural world.  It works because it provides a commentary on life.

Do I recommend you use coincidence in your stories?  No.  It is a slippery slope and you can very easily go astray.  But I also recognize that it can work sometimes.  However for every time coincidence works in a story, I’m sure you can find ten stories where it didn’t work.  So look for coincidences, see where it works and where it doesn’t and decide for yourself if there is any place for it in film.