From TV commercials to online video content to full feature film production: There’s more to telling a good story…than just a good story.
So what is the art of storytelling?
First there’s the idea…then there’s the craft behind it. The key plot points and character arcs needed to tell any story, should be the same whatever the format. The story could be a minute, it could be 90 minutes or 13 episodes of a TV drama series. The plot points and therefore the art of storytelling, will be the same: The Big Event, The New World, Approach To The Inner Most Cave, The Mid-Point, Grace, The Big Gloom and The Climax. One way or another these ingredients will always be included. The character arcs will be the same. Characters need obstacles because character is defined by action. When the couple walking in the park are attacked by a mugger, does the guy run away leaving his date to defend herself or does he confront the assailant and risk his life?
Here’s a great diagram that helps to explain what those key turning points are and how character is defined by action.
THE MATRIX OUTLINE
Set Up A
In digital space, Trinity talks to Cipher over the phone and says Morpheus thinks he’s the one. She believes the line is being traced and hangs up. Outside an apartment, police kick in the door and point guns at Trinity sitting at a computer. Outside the building, a cop tells Agent Smith they can control one little girl, but Agent Smith tells him his men are already dead.
In the apartment, Trinity kills the cops, receives a new location from Tank and runs to the new location followed by more cops and Agent Brown. She leaps an impossible gap between two buildings and the cops stop. But Agent Brown has the same skills and makes the same jump.
Trinity flies from the building, smashes through a window and down stairs into a hallway. She exits and runs to a payphone. A truck pulls up opposite and revs it’s engine. The phone rings. Trinity runs to the payphone and grabs the receiver as the truck plows into her. The Agents climb from the cab to find Trinity gone but they don’t care, they have the name of their new contact – His name is Neo.
In an apartment, Neo sleeps at his computer as it searches the net. A message appears – Wake up, Neo. He’s told to follow the white rabbit. There’s a knock on his door. He takes cash from a group of dope heads and gives them a hard drive.
Inciting Incident
The main dope tells Neo he needs to unplug and asks if he wants to go to a party. Neo says no then spots a white rabbit tattoo on the dope girl’s shoulder. In a club, Trinity introduces herself. Neo asks if it was she on his computer. Trinity tells him all she can say is he’s in danger and they are watching you.
Set Up B
She tells him she knows he is looking for Morpheus like she did. But it’s not Morpheus he’s really looking for. It’s the question he is looking for. Neo says what is The Matrix. The following morning, Neo arrives to work late and is warned by his boss that he must make a choice if he wants to keep his job.
In an office cubicle, Neo receives a fed ex. It’s a phone, which rings. It’s Morpheus. Morpheus tells him they are coming and tells him to stand. Neo looks to see Agent Smith, Agent Brown and cops at reception. He ducks down. Morpheus tells him to do what he says. The cubicle opposite him is empty and he should run into it. Neo does and the agents and cops arrive to find him gone.
Morpheus tells Neo to head to an office at the end of the room and stay low. In the office, Neo enters and Morpheus tells him to climb outside onto scaffolding. Neo asks how he knows all this but Morpheus says he doesn’t have time to explain. Neo climbs out but he’s too scared and returns to the office. He’s taken by the agents and put in a black car. Trinity watches from a motorcycle.
In an Interview room, Agent Smith tells Neo they know about his double life. One as a program writer for a software company and the other as a hacker.
Agent Smith says they need his help to catch Morpheus. They are willing to give him a fresh start for his co-operation. Neo says he has a better deal, flips his finger and asks for his phone call. Agent Smith tells Neo what use is a phone call if he cannot speak. Neo’s mouth seals up.
They rip open Neo’s shirt and pin him to the desk. Agent Smith takes out a red flashing bug, which turns into a metallic creature, and it crawls inside Neo’s stomach. In Neo’s bedroom, Neo wakes screaming. His phone rings. It’s Morpheus. He tells Neo he is the One and to meet him at Adams Street Bridge.
At Adams Street Bridge. Trinity picks up Neo in a Cadillac. He’s held at gunpoint and told to take off his shirt. Neo doesn’t comply and the car stops. He goes to get out but Trinity reminds him of the road he’s been down before and to take a chance. Neo agrees and Trinity removes the bug in Neo’s stomach.
At a building, Neo meets Morpheus. Morpheus asks Neo if he believes in fate. Neo doesn’t because it means he’s not in control of his life. Morpheus agrees.
Morpheus tells Neo why he is here. It’s something he feels but doesn’t know, like a splinter in his mind. Morpheus tells him about The Matrix. It’s all around us. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to hide the truth. You are a slave. A prisoner of your mind and you have to see it for yourself. He opens a pill box.
The Big Event
Morpheus offers two pills. A blue pill and a red pill. The blue pill will send him home. The red pill will keep him in wonderland and show him the truth. Neo takes the red pill and Morpheus takes him through to another room. Neo is sat in a chair and hooked up to wires. A call is made on a telephone. Morpheus tells him the pill disrupts his input/output carrier system so they can keep track of him.
The New World
The pill kicks in and the mirror opposite Neo turns to liquid. Neo sticks his finger inside and the liquid mirror runs up his body, choking him. Tank gets a lock on Neo and he is transported through to The Matrix. Neo wakes, naked, hairless, in a pod filled with red liquid, hooked up to tubes and wires.
Neo looks around him to see millions of pods stacked in rows as far as the eye can see. A machine hovers in front of him and unplugs him. The pod drains of the red liquid and Neo is flushed down a tunnel and out into a filthy river. Another machine hovers above him and picks him up. Inside a ship, Neo is helped to his feet by Trinity. Morpheus welcomes him to the real world.
Neo is under observation. His muscles are rebuilt and his eyesight returned. He has never used them before. In a bedroom, Neo wakes, his hair has grown back and he’s wearing clothes. A metal coil is in the back of his neck. Morpheus enters.
Morpheus tells Neo he probably thinks it’s 1999 but it’s actually closer to 2199. He says he can’t explain it, he has to see it. He is shown around the ship where they transmit the pirate signal and hack into The Matrix. He offers to show him.
In the control room, Neo is hooked up to a chair, similar to the one in his reality. A rod is inserted into the coil in the back of his head and he screams. He wakes in a bright white space. Morpheus welcomes him to the construct – A loading program for dressing, weapons, and training programs. Morpheus shows him the world he lives in – The nuero interactive simulation that they call The Matrix.
Morpheus tells Neo he’s been living in a dream world and shows him images of earth as it exists today – Apocalyptic. Neo finds himself down in the apocalyptic world and Morpheus tells him AI took over the world and enslaved humans for their energy. There are fields where humans are grown and harvested.
Morpheuas asks what is The Matrix. He turns off a TV and explains. It’s a computer-generated dream world, built to keep humans under control, to turn them into batteries. Neo can’t take it and asks out. On the ship, he wakes in a panic and tells them to stay away from him. He throws up.
Approach To The Innermost Cave
In a bedroom, Neo wakes and says to Morpheus he can’t go back, can he? Morpheus asks would he want to, now he knows the truth. He tells Neo when The Matrix was first built there was a man born inside who had the ability to change The Matrix to what ever he saw fit. It was he who freed the first of them and showed them the truth. After he died the Oracle prophesized his return and his coming would hail the destruction of The Matrix and bring freedom to the human race. That’s why they have dedicated their lives to search for him. And now the search is over. Morpheus tells him to get some rest for his training.
The following morning, Tank enters. Tank was born in the real world and tells Neo about Zion, the last human city deep in the earth’s core where it’s still warm. He tells Neo he’s excited to see what he can do if Morpheus is right. In the control room, Tank hooks up Neo to the chair and loads a combat training program – Jujitsu. Neo goes learns Jujitsu in seconds. He wants more.
Montage of Neo learning training programs. He wakes and tells Morpheus he knows Kung Fu. Morpheus tells him to show him. They enter a virtual dojo and fight. Morpheus puts Neo down easily. He tells Neo his weakness is not his technique and they continue. On the ship, Mouse tells the others they are fighting and they rush to watch. Neo gets dropped heavily.
Morpheus asks how he beat him. Neo says he was too fast. Morpheus says it has nothing to do with muscle, or being faster. Do you think that’s air you’re breathing and stands with his back to Neo and says, again. Neo calms himself down. Morpheus tells him not to think he is but know he is. They fight again. Neo lands a punch but pulls it short. He tells Morpheus he knows what he is trying to do. Morpheus tells him he’s trying to free his mind. He can only show him the door but he has to walk through it. He asks Tank to load the jump program.
They land on of a skyscraper. Morpheus tells Neo he has to let go of everything and free his mind. Morpheus runs and jumps across to another building. Neo jumps and drops to the ground. On the ship, Neo is released from the chair. He has blood in his mouth and says he thought it wasn’t real. Morpheus tells him his mind makes it real. Neo asks if you can die in The Matrix. Morpheus tells him the body cannot live without the mind. In the bedroom, Neo sleeps and Trinity brings him dinner. Outside the room, Cipher asks Trinity why hasn’t Morpheus taken him to see the Oracle yet. Trinity says he will take Neo when he’s ready.
On earth, Neo and Morpheus walk through a busy street. Morpheus talks about how everyone is oblivious to what is going on. A woman in a red dress passes by. Neo bumps into someone. Morpheus asks if he was looking at the woman in the red dress and tells him to look again. Agent Smith points a gun in his face. Morpheus asks to freeze it and everyone stops. It’s another training program. He tells Neo that Agent Smith is a sentinel program. The gatekeeper. Eventually someone will have to fight them and that person is you. Tank calls and says we have trouble.
Back on the ship, a sentinel-killing machine chases them. Morpheus tells them to set the ship down. Tank shuts down the ship and arms the ENP to disable the sentinel. They wait in the dark as a sentinel checks them out but it moves away.
Later, Cipher sits at a computer. Neo looks at the green encrypted code. Cipher tells him no one knows how to read it. He offers Neo a drink and tells him so you’re hear to save the world.
Twist
At a table, Cipher cuts into a juicy steak and Agent Smith asks him if they have a deal. Cipher says he knows the steak doesn’t exist and The Matrix is telling his brain that it is delicious. But after nine years he’s realized that ignorance is bliss. Agent Smith says then we have a deal. Cipher says he doesn’t want to remember anything and be rich, important like an actor. He offers up Morpheus in return who has the access codes to Zion.
Grace
On the ship, Tank serves breakfast. Mouse tells Neo he wrote the Agent program and if he likes the woman in red he can arrange for him to meet her privately. Switch calls him a digital pimp. Mouse says to deny our impulse is to deny what makes us human. Morpheus enters and tells them he’s taking Neo to see the Oracle.
Everyone is hooked up on the ship. In the Matrix world they stand across from a telephone ringing and Morpheus answers it. He says we’re in. They exit the building. Cipher drops a ringing phone into a trashcan. In a car, Neo asks Trinity if she ever went to see the Oracle. She says she did. Neo asks what she told her. Trinity doesn’t answer. Morpheus says they are here.
In a tower block Neo and Morpheus enters an elevator. Morpheus tells Neo the Oracle is a guide, to help him find the path. Neo asks did she help him, what did she tell him. Morpheus says she told him he would find the one. They exit the lift. They stand outside a door. Morpheus tells Neo he has to walk through it. He opens the door.
Neo is asked to wait with other potentials. Neo watches a Buddhist boy bend a spoon. He asks Neo to try and tells him it’s not the spoon that bends but only us. Neo bends the spoon. He is told the Oracle will see him now.
In a kitchen, the Oracle bakes cookies. She tells him not to worry about the vase. He turns and knocks it over. He asks how she knew. She says what will really bake his noodle later on is whether he would have broken it she hadn’t mentioned it. She says he’s cuter than she though and she can see why she likes him. Neo asks whom. The Oracle says not too bright though. She asks him why he thinks Morpheus brought him to see her.
She asks if he thinks he’s the one. Neo doesn’t know. She tells him being the one is like being in love. No one can tell you you’re in love, you just know it. She checks him over like a doctor and tells him he’s not the one. She says he’s waiting for something. Neo laughs and says Morpheus almost had him convinced. The Oracle says without him they would be lost.
She says Morpheus believes in him and no one can change his mind. He believes it so blindly he is going to sacrifice himself to save his. He’s going to have to make a choice. On one hand you have your life. On the other you have Morpheus. One of you is going to die. Which one will be up to you. She tells him not to worry about it. He doesn’t believe in this fate crap. He’s in control of his own life. Remember? She gives him a cookie and tells him by the time he’s finished eating it he will feel right as rain. Neo exits the kitchen and tells Neo what was said was for him and him alone.
In the room they entered, Mouse answers the cell phone and Tank tells him they’re on their way. Outside, they pull up in the car. Cipher smiles at Neo. Inside the building, they climb the stairs. Neo sees a black cat walk past twice and says dejavu. Trinity says it’s a glitch in The Matrix when they change something. They pull out guns and race upstairs. Inside the room, Tank tells Mouse it’s a trap. Mouse runs to the window to find a brick wall. He flips open a box and pulls out guns. Police kick in the door and shoot him dead. Back on the ship, Mouse dies for real.
On the stairs, Morpheus sees police coming up. He calls Tank and asks him to search for a wet wall. Downstairs, the agents arrive and say they’re on the 8th floor. Upstairs, Neo is given a gun and told I hope the Oracle had good news. They find the room with the wet wall.
The Big Gloom
They climb down the wet wall as police train guns on them. Cipher sneezes. The cops shoot through the walls. A cop turns into Agent Smith and he rips Morpheus out into the room. He tells them to go but Neo says they can’t leave him. Trinity says they have to and they slide to the ground floor. More cops are waiting and they enter a gunfight.
Upstairs, Agent Smith beats up Morpheus and the police take him. Outside in the street, Trinity removes a manhole cover and exits. On the ship, Tank receives a call from Cipher asking for an exit fast. Tank tells him a TV repair shop. Trinity calls Tank and asks for an exit and gives her the same one. Inside the TV repair shop, Cipher gets there first and answers the phone.
On the ship, Cipher wakes and grabs a gun. In the repair shop, the phone rings again and Trinity tells Neo to go first. Back on the ship, Cipher kills Tank and Dozer. In the repair shop, Neo says the phone went dead. Trinity tries calling. Cipher answers. On the ship, he stands over her sleeping body and tells her how much he was in love with her. He says how tired he is of the war and the same food. But most of all he’s tired of that jackass.
Cipher jumps onto Morpheus’s lap and tells him he never saw this coming. He tells Trinity that Morpheus tricked them. If he’d told them the truth they would have told him to stick the red pill up his ass. Trinity says he set them free. Cipher looks around the ship and says you call this free. He pulls the plug on Apoc. In the room, Apoc drops down dead. Cipher tells her welcome to the real world. He unplugs Switch and moves to Neo.
Cipher says if Neo is the one then there is no way he can pull the plug. How can Neo be the one if he is dead. He tells her to look into Neo’s eyes and tell him if she believes. Yes or no. Trinity says yes. On the ship, Tank is still alive and shoots Cipher dead. In the room, the phone rings. Neo picks it up. On the ship they wake. Tank tells Trinity Dozer is dead.
On the roof of a building, a helicopter lands and agents exit. In a room, Agent Smith has Morpheus. He tells Morpheus that the first Matrix failed because it created a perfect world and humans couldn’t handle it and they lost entire crops of them. They realized that humans defined themselves of misery and suffering which was why the Matrix was redesigned to this. And once they started thinking for the human race, it became our civilization. Evolution. Like the dinosaur. Morpheus is injected. Agent Brown enters and says there could be a problem.
On the ship, Neo asks what they are doing to Morpheus. Tank tells him they are hacking into his mind to get the code to Zion. Neo says there has to be something they can do. Tank says they have to pull the plug. In the room, Agent Smith says deploy the sentinels. On the ship, Tank moves to pull Morpheus’s plug. Neo tells him to stop. The Oracle told him this would happen and he would have to make a choice. He says he’s going in.
Trinity says Morpheus sacrificed himself so they could get him out. Neo tells her Morpheus did it because he believed in something he is not. The Oracle told him. Trinity says it can’t be true but won’t say why. Neo has decided. Tank tells him its suicide. Neo says Morpheus believed in something and he has learnt from him because now he believes in something. He can bring him back. Trinity says she’s going in with him. Neo says no but Trinity says she is ranking officer.
In the room, Agent Smith pulls a chair over to Morpheus. He says he tried to classify the human race. They are not mammals. They move to a place and multiply. They follow the same pattern as a virus. A disease. A cancer of the planet. On the ship, Neo asks Tank for lots of guns. They enter the bright white room with rows upon rows of guns. Trinity tells him no one has ever done this before. In the room, Agent Brown asks why the serum isn’t working. Agent Smith asks his men to leave him alone with him.
He tells Morpheus he hates this reality, this zoo. It’s the smell. He must get out of here. And in your mind is the key. He needs the codes to get into Zion. He crushes Morpheus’s head. Downstairs in the lobby, Neo enters in a long black coat. Security asks to search him and Neo opens his coat filled with guns.
He shoots the guards. Trinity enters and cops surround them. They rampage through the hallway shooting everyone in sight. They enter an elevator.
In the room, Agent Brown enters and tells Agent Smith that they are trying to save Morpheus. In the elevator, Trinity sets a bomb and they climb into the lift shaft. They hold onto each other and Neo shoots the cable. They fly up and the lift drops down exploding through the building. In the room, the sprinkler system turns on. Agent Smith tells his men to find them and destroy them.
On the roof, Neo and Trinity fight with police. Agent Brown morphs into a policeman and joins in. They kill all the police and Neo fires at Agent Brown but he ducks the bullets. He returns fire and Neo does the same. He is hit in the leg and falls. Agent Brown puts a gun to his head. Trinity puts a gun to Agent Brown’s head and pulls the trigger. He morphs out of the cop. Trinity asks how Neo moved that fast. Neo asks if she can fly the helicopter. She says not yet and Tank uploads a program to her on the ship.
Downstairs, Agent Brown enters the room with Smith and Morpheus. The helicopter hovers outside the window and Neo turns the machine gun on them and shoots them down. They return to dead cops. Morpheus snaps his cuffs and runs to the open window. Agent Smith arrives and shoots through the wall and clips Morpheus in the ankle. Neo says he’s not going to make it and jumps from the helicopter and catches Morpheus.
Swinging on a rope below, the helicopter is out of control. Neo and Morpheus jump to a roof and the helicopter crashes into a building. Neo hangs onto the ropes, as Trinity swings free. Back on the ship, Tank says he is the one. Neo pulls Trinity up and they have a moment.
Morpheus asks Trinity if she believes it now. Neo asks but what about the Oracle. Morpheus tells him she told him what he needed to hear. There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. Morpheus calls Tank and asks for an exit. Agents arrive but they are gone. Agent Brown says they have their positions and sentinels are standing by. Order the strike. In a subway, a phone rings by a tramp. Neo, Trinity and Morpheus arrive. Morpheus answers first and disappears. On the roof, Agent Smith senses them.
Sprint
In the subway, Trinity wants to tell Neo something but she is scared to tell him. Everything the Oracle told her came true except for this moment. The phone rings again and she answers it. Agent Smith morphs into the tramp and fires at Trinity but she is gone. The phone explodes from the bullet. On the ship, Trinity wakes and says an Agent is with Neo; they have to send her back. Tank says he can’t. In the subway, Agent Smith approaches Neo. Neo looks to the stairs but decides not to run. He and Smith go at it. They both draw guns but both are empty. They compose themselves.
They go at it again. Neo gets hit hard and is sent flying to the ground. Back on the ship, he coughs up blood. Trinity says he’s killing him. IN the subway, Neo stands and composes himself again beckoning Agent Smith forward. Neo hammers at him again. Smith has him cornered and pummels Neo to pieces. Smith hears a train approaching.
Smith grabs Neo by the leg and throws him onto the rails. Neo broken and bloody hauls himself up but Smith jumps down and puts him in a headlock, holding him firm as the train approaches. Neo jumps and slams Smith into the roof and drops down again. He jumps onto the platform as the train crashes into Smith. Neo goes to leave but the train screeches to a stop and Smith climbs off the train. On the ship, sentinels arrive. They only have 5 minutes to get Neo back.
Neo exits the subway, steals a man’s phone and calls Tank. Neo runs to the location chased by Agents morphing into people along his route. Tank tells him to go through a door and upstairs. He burst through an old lady apartment, out a back door and down are stairwell leaping into a dumpster. On the ship, the sentinels have arrived and cut their way into the ship. Morpheus says Neo will make it.
Tank tells Neo to take the fire escape on 303. Agents shoot at him as he smashes his way into the building. On the ship, sentinels rip their way inside. Trinity asks Neo to hurry. In the apartment building Neo runs into a room to be confronted by Smith. He shoots Neo continuously. On the ship, Neo flat lines. Morpheus says it can’t be.
On the ship, sentinels rip their way in. Trinity holds Neo and tells him she’s not afraid anymore. She was told that the man loves would be the one so he can’t be dead. Because I love you. She kisses Neo. Neo’s heartbeat starts again. In the apartment, Neo climbs to his feet and turns to the Agents. They fire and Neo stops the bullets. Tank asks how. Morpheus says because he is the One.
Climax
Neo sees that everything is The Matrix code before him. Smith runs at him giving everything he has but Neo doesn’t break sweat as he easily parries Smith’s punches. Neo runs and jumps inside Smith and bursts through his body with light. The other two agents run away. On the ship, the sentinels are into the control room of the ship. Trinity calls out to Neo. The phone rings as a sentinel is right upon them and Morpheus hits the EMP. The sentinels are destroyed and Neo wakes in Trinity’s arms.
Neo tells The Matrix that he is going to show the people the real world.