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Now here, this is an interesting thing. There’s lots of things in the script where it repeats. Things repeat later on, or kinda have significance where there’s repeated dialogue…[1]

1. Introduction

In this article we use concepts from Translation Studies and Film Studies to examine how foreshadowing is achieved through the interlinking of visual and verbal codes in Edgar Wright’s films, and to what extent this is taken into consideration in subtitling and dubbing. In cinema, this narrative technique is called “planting and payoff,” or as it is popularly termed, “Chekhov’s Gun.” The Russian playwright, Anton Chekhov, often stated that no gun should be shown on stage if it is not used at some later moment. “If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.” The philosophy behind this is that a story should be as focused and coherent as possible, minimizing the number of elements that are ultimately unimportant or even irrelevant to the thrust of the narrative.

Howard and Mabley (1995: 72) define a plant as “a line of dialogue, a character’s gesture, a mannerism, a prop, a costume, or a combination of these” and, as the story progresses, the presence of the dialogue, item or frame is “paid off” by acquiring a new meaning in light of changed circumstances. It can also have a more straightforward use:

[p]lanting and payoff can also have a more mundane use in the telling of a story. It can provide us with a bit of information that is relatively meaningless at the time, but that becomes much more critical later in the story.

Howard and Mabley 1995: 73

A plant can therefore be verbal, acoustic, visual or any combination of those three, and so can the payoff. Given that we are dealing with interlingual subtitling and dubbing, the linguistic code or film dialogue is, needless to say, of primary importance since, without dialogues, there is no translation in the traditional sense of the word. The primary unit of analysis will be the information provided by the “line of dialogue” or plant, which may be reinforced throughout the film narrative by other verbal or nonverbal elements and have either a visual, acoustic or verbal payoff, i.e., acquire a new meaning or become critical in light of a certain action, event or even another dialogue that appears later in the film. We will look at examples of planting and payoff where the translation of the verbal plant might need to take into consideration the information provided by subsequent verbal or nonverbal signifying codes to reflect the foreshadowing contained within.

2. On planting and payoff in Edgar Wright’s films

One of the recurring planting techniques Wright employs, as we will see, is to announce important plot points by having a character verbally mention something that will occur later in the film, often with a high degree of specificity, but disguised by the screenwriter as an off-hand comment using a figure of speech. That is to say, on some occasions a character, by using a phrase with a metaphor or a colloquial phrasing, “inadvertently,” but of course intended by the filmmaker, predicts or foreshadows exactly where the plot is going.

Foreshadowing therefore, at least in Edgar Wright’s films, shares certain characteristics with wordplay. Hoey (2005: 82) discusses an example of verbal-visual wordplay in the film Airplane!,[2] where an ex-pilot on a flight talks to his co-passenger of his “drinking problem.” As the narration continues in flashback, we see him pour a soft drink and, attempting to drink, spill it all over himself, thus the “drinking problem” is his inability to bring the glass to his lips, rather than a euphemism for alcoholism. The basic pattern is the same: in Hoey’s words, the audience is lexically primed to extract a certain meaning from the (absence of) context, the accompanying visual which follows the phrase “drinking problem” provides a new context, thereby relexicalising it and creating a new meaning.

Planting and payoff in Edgar Wright’s films is also achieved by means of paronomasia or wordplay, often based on homographic puns. Within Translation Studies, there exists considerable research on wordplay as well as on verbal-visual cohesion. A large part of this research focuses on the co-occurrence of both channels of communication (Baumgarten 2008, Chiaro 2006, Martínez Sierra 2008). However, unlike most cases of humour-based wordplay, here the difference rests in the elapsed time between the priming and the relexicalising. An overwhelming number of instances of planting and payoff in the films under analysis depend on delayed occurrence, with the most extreme cases presenting a delay of an hour or more between the plant and the payoff. Wright’s films take their time in paying off the plant, thus rewarding viewers who remember the earlier remark or frame and can therefore recontextualise it, often upon repeat viewings.

Wright’s use of stock expressions to foreshadow later plot events that become visual representations of said expressions is similar to Pedersen’s (2015: 166) discussion of the visual representation of verbal metaphors, where he points out how dead or stock metaphors in a line of dialogue are revitalised by means of a simultaneous visual portrayal that takes them literally. However, while the above-mentioned works focus on the creation of immediate humorous effect, the primary skopos of planting and payoff is foreshadowing, therefore Wright’s use of verbal-visual reiteration is more akin to what Genette (1983: 40) termed prolepsis or “any narrative manoeuvre that consists of narrating or evoking in advance an event that will take place later.” Or in Hallidayan terms, it can be considered an example of endophoric reference, where the meaning of a phrase is dependent on the subsequent audiovisual context in which it is presented within the text (Halliday and Hasan 1976). Speaking about information shared between the audio and video channels in film texts, Zabalbeascoa (2005: 193) points to the possibility that “how we translate a single sentence or even word does not depend entirely on the word or sentence itself, or even its immediate surroundings, but may depend on passages that are far removed from the part of the text we happen to be translating at any given moment.”

3. Methodology

This article follows a variation of Baldry and Thibault’s (2006) multimodal transcription analysis with several changes. Firstly, the level of detail has been significantly dialled down to focus specifically on the verbal, visual, sound and graphic elements that are relevant to translating the dialogue. This is inevitable, given that Edgar Wright’s films are quite content-dense and it would be impossible to replicate the fine-grained detail of every relevant shot within the span of one article.[3] As the aim of this article is to explore how these films use the technique of planting and payoff to foreshadow important plot events, focusing mostly on verbal plants and visual payoffs, it looks principally at the different semiotic elements that may influence the translation.

It also opts for substituting Baldry and Thibault’s (2006) classification of visual frames, visual transitivity, camera position and movement, soundtrack and metafunctional interpretation with Chaume’s (2004b, 2012) list of signifying codes in film. This is not to say that one is better than the other, rather that Chaume’s list was drawn up with a view to prioritizing the verbal and nonverbal filmic codes relevant to Audiovisual Translation. Indeed within the different categories that make up his taxonomy, many of the same elements highlighted by Baldry and Thibault may be found. By using categories instead of a list of elements, it streamlines the descriptive process, much like Bordwell and Thompson (2008), Casetti and Di Chio (1991) and other film theorists classify film elements under the categories of mise-en-scène, cinematography and editing, respectively.

Chaume (2004b, 2012) lists 11 categories of signifying codes in film, which are briefly discussed below:

  • Linguistic code: This includes all verbal interactions, whether diegetic (for example, dialogue between characters) or non-diegetic (for example, an unidentified narrator).

  • Paralinguistic code: Voice qualities including tone, timbre, pitch and pauses.

  • Musical code: The film’s soundtrack, including songs and background music, again both diegetic (songs or music playing in a shot, audio players, the presence of musicians or singers in a shot) and non-diegetic (background score or songs used to illustrate a mood or event, but without a tangible presence in the scene).

  • Sound effects code: In cinema and TV, the use of background sounds which are neither songs nor music to simulate reality or to underscore the audio effect of an action or movement is called Foley art.

  • Sound arrangement code: Whether the sound is coming from an onscreen or off-screen source, be it dialogue, music or lyrics, may influence a translator’s decision in how to render the translation, especially in regard to kinesic synchrony and isochrony (the duration of the original dialogue).

  • Iconographic code: Visual icons, indices and symbols, either in the background or foreground, represented independently or in conjunction with the verbal text.

  • Photographic code: Changes of perspective, lighting, the use of colour as a metaphor.

  • Mobility code: This can refer to either the movements of the camera with regard to what is being filmed, or the movements of onscreen characters and objects, including lip movements, gestures and body language.

  • Graphic code: In-universe written text displayed on screen, such as letters, posters, signboards, etc.

  • Planning code: Chaume singles out the framing distance as being one of the elements most relevant to isochrony in dubbing as depending on whether the image is a long shot, medium shot, close-up or extreme close-up, more or less adherence to lip movement and gestures is required. Also, the presence of certain visual or graphic elements in the foreground or background of frames may require a dialogue translation that links them semantically.

  • Syntactic code (editing): Associative ties between shots that link them together to form the narrative, such as cuts, wipes, fade-ins/outs. This ensures spatial and temporal continuity between shots and provides a cohesive narrative. Other techniques include the use of graphic matches, match cuts, crosscutting, flashbacks and flashforwards, etc.

Based on repeated viewings of both the subtitled and dubbed versions of the films, a spreadsheet of some sixty perceived instances of planting and payoff, and their translations, was compiled. The original screenplays of all three films, available online,[4] as well as bonus DVD commentary tracks, were also consulted. These instances were classified as either verbal-visual (where the payoff is predominantly visual in nature) or verbal-verbal (where the payoff hinges on the repetition of a keyword or an earlier line of dialogue). Subsequently, the signifying codes operative in each sequence were included as columns and their frequency of appearance noted, along with two final columns marking the functional success or failure of each plant-payoff in the subtitled and dubbed versions for every film. Inevitably, some degree of subjectivity is inherent in the selection of relevant codes from the plethora of cinematographic elements that constitute a film shot or sequence. Nevertheless, every effort has been made to justify the choice of specific codes based on the functions they fulfil as foreshadowing tools in the narrative.

4. Analysis

The following samples were chosen specifically to highlight the semiotic ties between the linguistic code and other nonverbal and visual codes that may affect how the dialogue is translated, both in subtitling and dubbing. While selecting the examples, attention was also paid to factors such as the length of a take and whether overlapping codes might force the translator to forego translating a particular word or line of dialogue. A decision was made to present only examples that offered the translator leeway in communicating the intent behind the planting. That is not to say there were no restrictions at all, but sometimes, depending on the genre in question, certain professional practices and studio guidelines may also have an influence on whether something is translated or not, as is often the case with background songs, which tend to not be translated, unless the film is a musical.

Each example is presented in the form of a table containing the verbal plant (ST or source text) and its target translations (TTS or target text subtitle, and TTD or target text dub) in Spanish, along with time-codes (TCR) of relevant frames. Important signifying codes are highlighted and Bordwell and Thompson’s (2008) guide to mise-en-scène, cinematography and editing is used to discuss the film elements that make up Chaume’s list of signifying codes and how they anchor or reiterate the information provided by the verbal codes. While not all the codes mentioned directly influence the translation, they are necessary for a verbal reproduction of the relevant shot or scene setup, and to indicate how explicit or subtle the plant and payoff may be.

4.1. Planting and Payoff in Shaun of the Dead (2004)

Shaun of the Dead (marketed as Zombies Party[5] in Spain) is a romantic comedy/zombie film or, as Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg refer to it, “a rom-zom-com” that pays homage to George A. Romero’s zombie film franchise, especially Dawn of the Dead.[6] Starring Simon Pegg (who co-wrote the script for all three films along with Wright), Nick Frost and Kate Ashfield, the film tells the story of Shaun, who leads a mundane life as a salesman in an electronics store. He shares a house with his friends, straitlaced Pete and freeloader Ed, who camps out on the sofa in their living room. Shaun’s daily routine consists of work, playing videogames with Ed, and spending his evenings at the Winchester pub with Ed, his girlfriend Liz and her flatmates. His relations with his mother and step-father are strained and it is when Liz breaks up with him for not putting more effort into their relationship that he decides to turn over a new leaf and improve matters with everybody. But before he can do so, a zombie outbreak over the weekend forces him to unite everybody and to lead them into hiding at the Winchester pub, where they hope to wait out the dangers until help arrives.

Shaun of the Dead establishes what would go on to be recognized globally as Edgar Wright’s signature film-making style: the blending of disparate genres in one film to subvert audience expectations, visual and verbal foreshadowing of narrative twists and plot events, and people, actions or events repeating themselves in different contexts. Visually, Shaun of the Dead also demonstrates Wright’s extensive use of crash zooms,[7] whip pans and close-ups in action montages, either by playing them straight, subverting their conventional use in mainstream media by employing them in mundane situations, or exaggerating them for comedic effect.

4.1.1. Always surrounded by women

The plant: At the Winchester pub, after Liz breaks up with Shaun, Ed attempts to cheer him up by inventing stories about some of the pub’s regular patrons. Shaun asks about a man seated at the bar and Ed says his name is “Snakehips” and he is “always surrounded by women.” The shot changes to a close-up (planning code) of a smug Snakehips while Ed’s description (linguistic code) continues, allowing the audience to see his long thin face and grey mullet. This is followed by a toe to head tilt shot (mobility code) that focuses on his steel-toed red snakeskin boots (iconographic code), black trousers and leather jacket.

The payoff: Much later, after the zombie outbreak, as Shaun and the group make their way through fenced back alleys to the Winchester, Shaun notices a group of zombies devouring a body. A tracking shot (mobility code) through the fence slats shows us the body surrounded by female zombies. The camera zooms in on the scene (planning code), still tracking right to left, but pans in the opposite direction (mobility code) to focus on the body through the slats, starting from the head and lingering upon the feet which are encased in the red boots we were shown earlier (iconographic code). The long track shows us that the zombies surrounding the body are all female, and the pan and focus allows us to identify the body as Snakehips,’ thus creating (and subverting by showing us a dead Snakehips surrounded by female zombies) a visual reiteration of Ed’s earlier description.

Table 1

Example 1: Multimodal analysis of planting and payoff in Shaun of the Dead

Example 1: Multimodal analysis of planting and payoff in Shaun of the Dead

-> See the list of tables

At the pub, Ed is ostensibly referring to the fact that the man he calls “Snakehips” has multiple female lovers, reinforced by his next sentence “he’s a bigamist.” By focusing on the boots, the audience is cued to associate Snakehips with his particular type of footwear and the suggestion is made that a man thus outfitted might be going after encounters with multiple women, possibly at the same time. In spite of a duration of nearly 10 seconds, the Spanish subtitled version omits the “always,” opting for “rodeado de mujeres” [surrounded by women], while the dubbed version follows a literal translation of the original verbal text: “siempre está rodeado de mujeres” [he’s always surrounded by women]. This seems to be a more or less straightforward plant and payoff, and the absence of any restrictions, either verbal or visual, allows the Spanish audience to grasp the humorous foreshadowing encoded in these two sequences.

4.1.2. The next time I see him, he’s dead

The plant: “The next time I see him, he’s dead.” Ed mutters this line as a quasi–threat (linguistic code) to Pete when the latter shouts at Shaun and Ed for playing loud music at 4 in the morning. Before leaving the house to carry out their plan to save Shaun’s mother and Liz, Shaun has to go to the bathroom, where we see Pete, who is now a zombie, in the shower (planning code). While backing away from him and attempting to act normal, Shaun mentions (linguistic code) that they’re heading for the Winchester pub and that Pete is welcome to join them. During the course of the movie, he never explicitly tells Ed that Pete has become a zombie.

The payoff: During the final standoff at the Winchester, a group of zombies manage to break in through the back door. They attempt to grab Ed, who breaks away from them. Saying “Shaun, ’ere, look who it is,” a surprised Ed advances to the foreground of the shot, looking behind him (mobility code) and the camera racks focus (planning code) to zombie Pete entering the pub in the background. This is the first time Ed has seen Pete, since their earlier argument.

Table 2

Example 2: Multimodal analysis of planting and payoff in Shaun of the Dead

Example 2: Multimodal analysis of planting and payoff in Shaun of the Dead

-> See the list of tables

Zombies are usually portrayed as reanimated corpses, therefore zombie Pete, although mobile, is clinically dead by the time he comes to the pub. Both the subtitled and dubbed versions opt for an equivalent colloquial phrasing in the target culture, however the subtitled version makes the implicit threat more explicit “The next time I see him, I’ll kill him.” In doing so, it eliminates the polysemiotic nature of the original phrase arising from the verbal-visual ties between the two sequences. It therefore renders this literal foreshadowing inaccessible to Spanish viewers.[8] Interestingly, Wright and Pegg’s subtitled commentary track in the same DVD offers an alternative translation “La próxima vez que lo vea, será hombre muerto” [The next time I see him, he’s a dead man], which succeeds in maintaining both meanings and works well in both sequences. It also indicates that when such instances of visual-verbal polysemy are noticed or pointed out, as Wright and Pegg do in the commentary track, translators may be able to adjust the translation to account for foreshadowing, provided they do not break synchrony or interfere with the visual elements on screen.

4.1.3. You wanna live like an animal, go live in the shed

The plant: In the first part of the film, Pete is shown to be noticeably irritated by Ed’s presence in their house. Ed is slovenly, unorganised and all he seems to be doing is playing videogames.

During the argument mentioned in the previous example, Pete tells Ed to go live in the shed like an animal (linguistic code). The next morning, the audience sees the shed when, looking for improvised weapons to defend themselves against zombies, Ed gestures to the shed in the background of the shot (mobility and planning codes) and asks what is inside it. Shaun does not know and appears to have never used it. As it is locked and he does not have the key, Shaun breaks down the door (mobility code), and they enter the shed (planning code).

The payoff: In the final sequence of the film, we see a morning that plays out much like the beginning of the film. Shaun enters the living room yawning, only now it is Liz instead of Ed who is sitting on the sofa. Shaun heads to the shed, an interior shot of the door (planning code) as it opens reveals that it has been repaired (possibly indicating that it is now in use) and Shaun enters. He picks up a gamepad and as he sits down, we see Ed, now a zombie, chained in the shed. The two proceed to play videogames together. It is implied that Shaun now keeps Ed, whose behaviour is more animalistic (paralinguistic code), chained up in the shed much like a domesticated animal (mobility code).

Table 3

Example 3: Multimodal analysis of planting and payoff in Shaun of the Dead

Example 3: Multimodal analysis of planting and payoff in Shaun of the Dead

-> See the list of tables

The Spanish subtitled version of Pete’s dialogue uses “vete al cobertizo” [go to the shed] while the dubbed version translates it as “vive en un establo, cerdo de mierda” [live in a stable, you shitty pig], possibly due to Pete’s earlier likening of Ed to an animal and thereby making it more specific in translation. Both the subtitled and the dubbed versions use “cobertizo” in the later sequence where Shaun and Ed encounter zombies in their garden. The dubbed version, therefore, removes the initial mention of the shed as well as its verbal repetition which anchors the plant and the visual payoff. This reduces the line to more of a throwaway insult rather than an early reference to the garden shed on their property, which Ed will be occupying at the end of the movie.

4.2. Planting and Payoff in Hot Fuzz (2007)[9]

Hot Fuzz (translated as Arma fatal[10] [Terrible weapon] in Spanish) tells the story of Sergeant Nicholas Angel (played by Simon Pegg), a driven, by-the-book police officer at the London Met who is transferred to the idyllic, picture-perfect village of Sandford, Gloucestershire, because his work ethic and service record upstages his London colleagues and superiors. His transfer to Sandford and pairing with the bucolic and hero-worshipping Constable Danny Butterman (played by Nick Frost) is resented by the local constabulary, who have a somewhat laidback approach to law enforcement, as opposed to the hyper vigilance of the civil Neighbourhood Watch Alliance (NWA), run by the senior citizens of the village to denounce trivial issues such as loitering, transient performers and littering. When a spate of “accidents” leads to several deaths in sleepy Sandford, Angel suspects a conspiracy involving land deals over the construction of a bypass, and sets out to investigate and arrest the individual responsible. In the end, as part of his character arc, Angel undergoes a partial transformation from straight-laced city police officer to fast and loose village bobby.

The film is ostensibly a take on American buddy cop movies[11] of the 1980s and 1990s. However, Wright blends the cinematic tropes of Hollywood action films with the literary conventions and settings of British detective literature and TV series, such as the long-running Midsomer Murders[12] and Agatha Christie’s novels featuring Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple (the latter lives in the fictional village of St. Mary Mead). The film’s resolution is reminiscent of Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express[13] as well as the film The Wicker Man.[14] The audience follows Angel’s lead in piecing together the clues; however, there are two simultaneous plotlines running throughout the film, of which one is a red herring and the other, the real reason for the murders. Wright provides observant viewers with all the clues necessary to piece together the identity of the perpetrator(s) and the real motive, by concealing hints in multiple visual and verbal signifying codes, but prevents them from actually doing so by dint of its sheer preposterousness. Thus, upon subsequent viewings, audiences are able to note the various plants and payoffs that foreshadow both the murders and the real motives behind them.

4.2.1. Someone’s in for a surprise at 3 o’clock

The plant: This sequence has multiple plants leading to the payoff, of which we will focus primarily on the verbal ones.

There is an establishing crane shot (planning code) of the church steeple and spires (the bell tower), moving down to the church fete, with a large banner (graphic code) saying “Save the Church Roof” in the foreground, hinting at its state of poor maintenance. Off-screen (sound arrangement code), we can hear the Reverend Shooter (a Neighbourhood Watch Alliance member) on the mike: “Testing, testing. Someone’s in for a surprise at 3 o’clock, ladies and gentlemen. It’s the church raffle with a very special guest presenter” (linguistic code).

“Village Green”[15] (musical and sound arrangement codes) by the Kinks plays in the background, with the lyrics:

Out in the country,

Far from all the soot and noise of the city,

There’s a village green.

It’s been a long time

Since I last set eyes on the church with the steeple…

The local supermarket owner, Simon Skinner, shouts “Splat the rat” (linguistic code), and the camera cuts to a shot of him standing next to a poster (graphic code) advertising the game “Splat the Rat” (the UK version of Whack-a-Mole) and slapping his palm with a toy truncheon (mobility code), while glaring at the journalist Tim Messenger. A little later, Tim Messenger comes to Sgt. Angel and tells him that he wants to talk to him about one of the people recently killed, George Merchant.

While announcing the winners of the raffle, when Angel picks Tim Messenger’s name, Reverend Shooter calls out jokingly: “Tim, your number’s up” (linguistic code).

The payoff: Later, as the clock nears 3 (iconographic code), and Sgt. Angel is onstage to announce the raffle winners, shots of a cloaked and hooded figure running up the bell tower are crosscut with rapid shots of Angel, the large clock, Tim Messenger glancing at his wristwatch, gloved hands grasping the broken spire, and the attending public’s laughter. As Angel jumps off the stage and runs to the churchyard, the spire topples and splats (planning and sound effects codes) Tim Messenger’s head moments after he spots Angel and says “Hi Hi!.”

Table 4

Example 4: Multimodal analysis of planting and payoff in Hot Fuzz

Example 4: Multimodal analysis of planting and payoff in Hot Fuzz

-> See the list of tables

There are multiple verbal hints to Tim Messenger’s death throughout this sequence. Rev. Shooter’s off-screen announcement may be interpreted in several ways:

  1. The winners of the raffle will be announced at 3 o’clock,

  2. Sgt. Angel does not know that he will be invited to announce the winners, and

  3. Tim Messenger will be murdered at 3 o’clock.

The third meaning is only apparent in hindsight, i.e., when the murder takes place. This line of dialogue is replaced by “Contribuid vuestra aportación a la salvación del techo de la iglesia” [Contribute your share to the salvation of the church roof] in the dubbed version while the subtitle only translates the banner “Salvar el techo de la iglesia,” thereby prioritizing the graphic code over the earlier off-screen dialogue in the background. The subtitle also eliminates another important bit of foreshadowing, that Rev. Shooter is a co-conspirator and, therefore, aware of the plot to murder Tim Messenger.

Songs that make up the background score and are non-diegetic, are usually not translated, either in the subtitled or the dubbed versions of the films, and such is the case here with the Kink’s “Village Green,” which foreshadows the instrument of murder[16] and is therefore lost to non-English speaking audiences in both translated versions.

The two Spanish versions translate the funfair game “Splat the Rat” as “Aplasta la rata.” A “rat” in English can also mean an informer; “to rat” is to reveal confidential information. In Spanish, “rata” [rat] can be used to refer pejoratively to a person as well, but usually in the sense of a miser or an unpleasant person, rather than a tattle-tale. Whack-a-mole is relatively unknown in Spain, and its canonical name according to toy manufacturer Mattel’s tabletop version is confusingly “Guacamole,” a phonetic adaptation of the American name. An alternative translation to be found in some places[17] is “Dale al topo” [Let the mole have it]. This alternative would have foreshadowed the ostensible motive, “topo” being a Spanish colloquialism for a spy or an informer, but in turn, would eliminate the reference to the gory nature of Tim Messenger’s death. “Aplasta la rata” eliminates the motive but preserves the rhyme and onomatopoeic nature of the original English term, making it a plausible name for a funfair game.

Rev. Shooter’s joking announcement, “Tim, your number’s up,” is translated in both versions as “Tim, te ha tocado,” a colloquial Spanish expression meaning either “you’ve won (a lottery or a competition)” or “it’s your turn.” Where the English expression generally has a more negative connotation, it is the Spanish translation that, by virtue of being a perfectly acceptable phrase in either situation, lends itself to wordplay in this context. However, this does eliminate the reason for the public’s laughter at Rev. Shooter’s relexicalised pronouncement (a rather weak pun) which repurposes a set phrase with negative connotations to refer to a positive outcome involving an actual raffle number.

4.2.2. Everybody and their mums is packing ´round ´ere

The plant: On their first lunch break at the pub, the dialogue between DC Cartwright and Sgt. Angel (linguistic code), taken at face value, appears to be just a colloquial form of saying that many people in the countryside possess firearms.

Later, at the NWA meeting, Sgt. Angel is introduced to James Reaper, owner of Brannigan Farm. Reaper invites him to go hunting (linguistic code), thus establishing that Reaper (among others) possesses firearms. The close-up of Reaper (planning code) shows him wearing his characteristic tweed flat cap, red sweater and green jacket, which he wears all through the film.

The payoff: The establishing shot shows Reaper alone in the countryside. Sgt. Angel deliberately collides with Reaper’s car in order to prevent him from notifying the NWA members of Angel’s return to Sandford. A long shot of Reaper (planning code) shows his car moving out of frame, leaving him standing against an empty background of fields. Reaper shouts “Mum!” as Angel storms out of his car and heads towards him. He punches him and Reaper lurches out of the frame (mobility code), exposing a blurry figure in the background. The camera racks focus (planning code) to show a diminutive old woman with a rifle who shoots (mobility code) but misses Angel. An additional payoff is also derived from the fact that later in the film, most of the senior citizens of the village, who are members of the NWA, all turn out to have concealed weapons on their person, which they use in the final shootout.

Table 5

Example 5: Multimodal analysis of planting and payoff in Hot Fuzz

Example 5: Multimodal analysis of planting and payoff in Hot Fuzz

-> See the list of tables

The humour is derived from what turns out to be very literal foreshadowing in context, the farmer calls for his mother (Mum!) and we see the sudden image of a frail old woman cocking and shooting a hunting rifle, i.e., it is revealed that farmers’ mums do carry firearms in Sandford. Apart from the visuals, the plant and payoff are linked by the use of the word “mum.”

The Spanish translation of Sgt. Cartwright’s dialogue opts for substituting “mums” with “abuelas” [grandmothers] and is somewhat more specific; “Even the grandmothers of the farmers carry guns,” as opposed to “everybody and their mums.” However Reaper still shouts “¡Mamá!,” thus eliminating the repetition of the key word and the visual reiteration of an earlier dialogue. The choice of the expression “hasta las abuelas” [even the grandmothers] may have been motivated by the subsequent visuals, given that we see a very frail old woman, thus perhaps prompting the translator to emphasize the humorous incongruity inherent in the image of an elderly person facing off against the young and fit Sgt. Angel.

4.2.3. Jump into Sgt. Popwell’s grave

The plant: In the same pub sequence, DS Wainwright says to Sgt. Angel, “I bet you can’t wait to jump into Sgt. Popwell’s grave” (linguistic code). To which Angel replies, “I’m not jumping into anyone’s grave.”

Earlier in the film, during Sgt. Angel’s first meeting with his new Chief Inspector, Frank Butterman talks about Angel’s predecessor, Sgt. Popwell, and mentions that he had “a great big, bushy beard” or “una barba enorme” in Spanish.

The payoff: Fleeing the NWA members, who are armed with scythes, knives, and staffs, through the castle grounds, Sgt. Angel falls through a hole (mobility code) and lands in the catacombs (photographic and planning codes), where he encounters the cadavers of several people murdered by the NWA. As Angel stumbles through the bodies, each point-of-view shot is accompanied by disembodied voices, repeating earlier lines spoken by different NWA members detailing their supposed offences. As his flashlight falls on the bearded face of Sgt. Popwell’s decomposed cadaver (iconographic code), Frank Butterman’s line “A great big, bushy beard!” (linguistic code) is heard off-screen. Presented ostensibly as Sgt. Angel’s recollections, this voice also helps the audience to identify the bodies, especially that of Sgt. Popwell, and thus creates a link between DS Wainwright’s dialogue and Angel’s falling into the catacombs.

Table 6

Example 6: Multimodal analysis of planting and payoff in Hot Fuzz

Example 6: Multimodal analysis of planting and payoff in Hot Fuzz

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The payoff here lies in both the figurative and literal interpretations of the expression “to jump into someone’s grave,” i.e., to occupy someone’s place or position with undue haste. As Sgt. Popwell’s zealous successor, Angel takes up the investigation previously attempted by him and, when fleeing the NWA, accidentally jumps into the catacombs where Sgt. Popwell’s body lies. The subtitled and dubbed texts use the Spanish expression “meterse en la piel del sargento Popwell” [get into Sergeant Popwell’s skin] to maintain the colloquial register of the original conversation. This does however eliminate the literal foreshadowing inherent in the statement as at no point does Angel actually have anything to do with the dead body’s skin. Another point to note is that in the subtitled version, while most of the off-screen dialogue when Angel runs through the catacombs is translated, the phrase “A great big bushy beard!” is not translated in this sequence. This would also have led viewers who did not remember this defining characteristic of Sgt. Popwell to miss the reference to the earlier conversation at the pub, even if the translator had opted for a more neutral translation such as “ocupar el lugar del sargento Popwell” [to occupy the place of Sgt. Popwell], for instance.

4.2.4. You want to be a big cop in a small town

The plant: DC Cartwright’s dialogue “you want to be a big cop in a small town, fuck off up the model village” (linguistic code) refers to Angel’s insistence on treating all the deaths as murders, which his colleagues think is due to his service in the London Metropolitan Police Service. They also resent his transfer to the village of Sandford and his know-it-all attitude as compared to the more lackadaisical approach of the village constabulary. Cartwright and Wainwright tell him to go away (fuck off up) to the scale model of Sandford if he wants to play at being a big London-style police officer, and stop bothering them.

The payoff: The showdown between Simon Skinner and Nicholas Angel (mobility code) takes place within the miniature replica of Sandford. While most of the sequence is shot in a series of rapid cuts from low angles and medium close-ups of the two men (planning code), the shot of Angel walking away after leaving Skinner stunned is a crane shot that ends in a high angle perspective (planning code), emphasizing the dollhouse nature of the village model against Angel’s full height, as he walks up the replica of the main street (mobility code). Here, Angel literally is a big cop in a small town. Also note that the shootout in Sandford took place in the main street, and so does the fight between Skinner and Sgt. Angel in its miniature version.

Table 7

Example 7: Multimodal analysis of planting and payoff in Hot Fuzz

Example 7: Multimodal analysis of planting and payoff in Hot Fuzz

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The film in general plays with the idea that Sandford aspires to be a model (ideal) village, but also has an actual scale model. A theme of the film is that Angel has to fuck off up the village of Sandford where, after unmasking the NWA, he is promoted to Inspector, thus becoming a big cop. But as an explicit payoff we are given the scene where Angel is the last man standing in the Sandford miniature after defeating Simon Skinner, thus making him literally a big cop in a small town.

The plant is translated as “You want to be a super cop in a little village? Fuck up our model [idyllic] village?” While the English compound noun may mean either an exemplary village or a model or miniature version of a village, the Spanish translations use the term “pueblo modélico” [ideal village], but it does not possess the paronomastic nature of the original, although “modélico” shares the same root as “modelo” or model. A scale model or miniature village would usually be translated as “pueblo (en) miniatura” or even “pueblo modelo.” Perhaps influenced by the overall theme of the film, the translation instead switches the plant and payoff to Angel playing super-cop in the actual full-sized Sandford. The foreshadowing therefore is of a different kind in the translation; where in the original, the planting pays off in Sgt. Angel’s presence at the site of the miniature, the translation foreshadows Angel’s standoff against the NWA, who will go to any lengths to preserve Sandford’s Village of the Year status, and the consequent destruction of (the myth of) Sandford as the ideal picturesque British village.

4.3. Planting and Payoff in The World’s End (2013)[18]

The World’s End (translated as Bienvenidos al fin del mundo[19] [Welcome to the World’s End]) stars Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine and Eddie Marsan as four forty-something men and former schoolmates, coerced by Gary King (played by Simon Pegg), once leader of the group, into accompanying him on the Golden Mile, a pub crawl spanning twelve pubs in one night. The five friends had attempted but never managed to complete the Golden Mile in their youth and this flashback provides the film’s plot goal, depicted in a pre-opening sequence montage. They drive into Newton Haven and begin the crawl, but at pub number three The Cross Hands, a brawl in the bathroom reveals that the town has been taken over by robotic versions (Blanks) of the town’s inhabitants. Following Gary’s lead, they decide to continue with the crawl so as not to arouse suspicions and, along the way, learn more about the alien force that has taken over Newton Haven and possibly the world. They encounter various figures from their pasts, rehash past arguments and we find out Gary’s motivation for reinitiating the pub crawl.

As has been demonstrated in the two previous films, verbal-visual repetition is a key planting and payoff technique used by Edgar Wright and this is taken to extremes in The World’s End. The entire film is visually composed to reiterate actions and events as they played out in the pre-opening sequence flashback, with only our protagonists having aged (despite Gary’s attempts to cling to his youth), while time in Newton Haven appears to have stood still. Alienation and nostalgia have always been key topics in Edgar Wright’s films, whether in Shaun of the Dead (in the vein of George A. Romero, to whom this film pays homage), where he essentially questions the difference between a zombie outbreak and the mundanity of modern-day city life, or Hot Fuzz, where Sandford and its inhabitants are trapped in the pastoral bubble of an ideal British countryside so eerily perfect that it seems that something must be wrong. In both films, this verbal-visual repetition is played as much for laughs as for key plot information. In The World’s End, however, this repetition also constantly underlines the many themes of conformity, nostalgia, friendships, and adulthood running through the film as it foreshadows and/or bookends plot events.

4.3.1. Tonight we paint it red

The plant: “Take a moment to look upon it in its original colours boys, for tonight we paint it red.” Gary’s remark (linguistic code), heard over a long tracking shot (planning code) of Newton Haven while in the car before entering the town, at first appears to be an off the cuff statement about the group going out drinking.[20] Although there are several theories about the origins of the phrase,[21] variously attributed to the red glares of bonfires or drunken sprees in red light districts, most sources agree upon its being related to revelry and possible consequent mayhem.

The payoff: At the end of the film, after the remaining members of the group, along with Sam (played by Rosamund Pike), attempt to flee Newton Haven, the spreading EMP pulse catches up with their car and leaves them stranded at the exact spot where 10 years ago their younger selves had looked upon the town after their first attempt at completing the Golden Mile. The closing shot (planning code) of older Gary is a near-graphic match (syntactic code) of the earlier shot of young Gary upon the hill (shown in a pre-opening title flashback montage). In the background, Newton Haven is encircled in flames with a huge column of smoke rising into the sky. From the moment the Network (as the alien collective is named) disconnects itself in The World’s End bar until the fading to black, the entire sequence is tinted red (photographic code), as is the fiery EMP pulse with a blue-tinted lens flare that chases the car and finally engulfs it. (Note that blue has been used throughout the film to signify the Network and the Blanks who are part of it). Gary and his mates, who are responsible for pulling the plug on the Network’s presence on Earth, burning down Newton Haven and returning the world to a pre-industrial age, have effectively “painted the town red.”

Table 8

Example 8: Multimodal analysis of planting and payoff in The World’s End

Example 8: Multimodal analysis of planting and payoff in The World’s End

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The Spanish translation uses an alternative phrasing that has the same original connotation: “quemarla” [to burn it]. The fact that the flames are clearly visible throughout this later sequence and in the long shot of a burning Newton Haven may have prompted this choice of phrasing. By basing the translation on the iconographic code instead of the photographic code (the flames and smoke, instead of the colour red), it maintains the reiterative relation between the original plant and payoff, where Gary’s early offhand remark acquires a prophetic nature in hindsight.

4.3.2. He was all mouth

The plant: In the pre-opening montage, we are shown a close-up shot of a young Oliver flipping his friends the bird (iconographic code) as they mock him for ostentatiously talking on his mobile phone. The visuals are accompanied by Gary’s voice-over narration: “but really, he was all mouth” (linguistic code). As the letters on the title sequence against a black background disappear, a tracking and wipe sequence follows, contrasting older Gary’s life with that of his mates,’ where we again see Oliver loudly talking in a queue, this time on Bluetooth.

The payoff: When the Network leaves, in the ensuing collapse of the building, a falling beam strikes Blank Oliver and breaks the top half of his head. After the Blanks awaken the next day, and presumably gain autonomy after having been disconnected from the Network, a nearly headless Blank Oliver is shown flipping the bird to a mocking human (iconographic code), who throws a coin into his broken head, thus reiterating the image (syntactic code) of young Oliver doing the same. As Andy relates what became of everybody after the apocalypse, we see Blank Oliver has gone back to his old profession as realtor, with a football taped to the exposed part of his head.

Table 9

Example 9: Multimodal analysis of planting and payoff in The World’s End

Example 9: Multimodal analysis of planting and payoff in The World’s End

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Again, this is an example of an expression that is visually taken to its literal conclusion. At the beginning of the film, the close-up describes a characteristic of Oliver, that he is a talker (“all mouth”), and it links a particular sign (the middle finger) to him. At the end of the film, Blank Oliver repeats the action, thus making the shot a near-graphic match to the earlier frame. We also see that his mouth is all that remains of his head, which enables him to continue working as a real-estate agent in the post-apocalypse. The Spanish translations use the expression “era un bocazas” [he was a big-mouth], thus preserving both the original function as well as the subtext.

5. Conclusions

The aim of this article was to present a descriptive multimodal analysis of foreshadowing, in the form of intratextual references, in Edgar Wright’s cinema in order to explore whether they would be intelligible to a Spanish speaking audience. Of a total of 60 perceived instances of planting and payoff in all three films (of which 14 were classified as verbal-verbal and 46 as verbal-visual) 35 were successfully communicated in subtitling and 33 in dubbing, a success rate of around 58% and 55% respectively. Of all the visual signifying codes, the frequency of the iconographic code was the highest at 48, followed by the mobility code at 36 and the planning code at 28. There were 12 instances where all these three codes were operative in the payoff, often concurrently in the form of objects present either in the background or foreground of a sequence, and in the form of actions carried out by the characters in the film in relation to the aforementioned objects. Of the 20 instances of graphic code that were identified, The World’s End contains 14, of which 12 are pub signs that foreshadow the events that take place in those locations. The use of certain colours and lighting as photographic code to both hint at events and serve as payoff was noted in 12 instances within the films under study. The editing code had a frequency of 10, often in conjunction with the iconographic code, given that we looked for instances where the verbal-visual cohesion between the plant and payoff involved graphic matches to earlier shots, jump cuts, and editing techniques that have become representative of certain cinematic tropes (e.g., car chases).

Within the audio channel, apart from the linguistic code, which is the principal constituent of every plant, there are 2 instances where the paralinguistic code forms part of the payoff. There were 4 instances where the musical code, in the form of songs, functioned as plants; however, these were left untranslated, possibly due to their non-diegetic nature. This also brings into play the sound arrangement code, which had an overall frequency of 10. The remaining code, that of sound effects, appeared a total of 6 times as part of the payoff, always accompanying the visual elements (gunshot sounds, explosions, etc.).

What these figures show us is that non-linguistic elements can play an extremely important role (either directly or indirectly) in the translation of the dialogues, and therefore, their role needs to be further considered in Audiovisual Translation. This is especially true of modern cinema, where deciphering and/or anticipating plot twists, foreshadowing and Easter Eggs have become an integral part of the viewing experience. However, their very nature can sometimes make them difficult to detect given the limited time and source material that audiovisual translators often have to work with. Apart from the constraints of visual and temporal synchrony imposed by the format, media guidelines or company practices may also come into play, as is the case with most of the songs in the three films which were not translated, even though they provide contextual information. Moreover, it is not always up to the translator, rather it is often the translation project director or team who determines whether more inventive strategies, which may infringe upon standard practices, are required. It is also possible that the translator did not always notice the foreshadowing, and depending on the available source text (film script, video) and time constraints, might not have had the luxury of repeated viewings. What would appear to be useful in such cases is to provide as much complete information to the translator whenever possible, on a particular directors’ style of filming or additional material such as film commentary tracks, which, in the case of Wright, are often in-depth analyses of narrative and shot construction.