Foreshadowing
Hinting at what's going to happen before the audience notices — the preparation that makes them say "of course" when the finale comes.
Distinction: Foreshadowing and plant & payoff are siblings, not the same thing: foreshadowing hints at WHAT WILL HAPPEN (sets the tension up ahead of time), plant & payoff later harvests a PLANTED detail with its counterpart (pays off the setup). One shot can do both.
Common mistake
Announcing instead of hinting ("This gun is going to get us into trouble").
Foreshadowing or plant & payoff?
The two are siblings and they're constantly confused. In the Workshop Film's first scene Saliha throws the dough her apprentice rolled out into the bin at a single glance; in the last scene the same apron is hung on the nail. That's not foreshadowing, it's a plant & payoff: the first movement prepares the counterpart of the last.
Foreshadowing does a different job — it gives notice of what's coming and doesn't let on that it's giving notice. In the same film it could have been built like this:
As Saliha rolls out the dough, her hand trembles for a moment. She sprinkles flour, carries on. Nobody looks.
The audience doesn't learn anything in that moment; it only registers an unease. When it comes out that the hand can no longer do the work, that frame comes back: "of course."
How to set it up
- Know what happens in the finale. Foreshadowing is written backwards; you can't hint at an ending you don't know.
- Let the notice sit beside the scene's REAL job. If the scene is doing other work, the audience registers the clue but doesn't dwell on it.
- Place it once. Place it twice and it becomes an announcement; three times and the audience gets there before you.
- Let nobody comment on it. "This won't end well" isn't foreshadowing, it's the polite form of a spoiler.
Check
Take the clue out of the scene: does the scene still do its own job? If it doesn't, the clue was stuck onto the scene, and the audience will notice it.