Script Analysis: “First Man” — Scene By Scene Breakdown

Here is my take on this exercise from a previous series of posts — How To Read A Screenplay:

After a first pass, it’s time to crack open the script for a deeper analysis and you can do that by creating a scene-by-scene breakdown. It is precisely what it sounds like: A list of all the scenes in the script accompanied by a brief description of the events that transpire.

For purposes of this exercise, I have a slightly different take on scene. Here I am looking not just for individual scenes per se, but a scene or set of scenes that comprise one event or a continuous piece of action. Admittedly this is subjective and there is no right or wrong, the point is simply to break down the script into a series of parts which you then can use dig into the script’s structure and themes.

The value of this exercise:

• We pare down the story to its most constituent parts: Scenes.
• By doing this, we consciously explore the structure of the narrative.
• A scene-by-scene breakdown creates a foundation for even deeper analysis of the story.

Today: First Man (2018). You may download the script here.

Screenplay by Josh Singer, based on the book by James R. Hansen.

IMDb plot summary: A look at the life of the astronaut, Neil Armstrong, and the legendary space mission that led him to become the first man to walk on the Moon on July 20, 1969.

First Man
Scene by Scene Breakdown
By Rose Banks
GoIntoTheStory.com

pp. 1–8: Cockpit of X-15 rocket plane. Test pilot Neil Armstrong is calm and focused as he prepares for a suborbital flight, unfazed by the exceptional high altitude turbulence. As the plane ascends he’s captivated by the black sky, the stars, the moon. However on the return leg the plane bounces off the atmosphere, and while Neil’s ability to think logically under pressure allows him to bring the plane down safely Col. Chuck Yaeger has some concerns: is Neil too much of a risk-taker?

pp. 8–10: In the hospital Neil watches his two year old daughter Karen undergo a then-experimental radiotherapy treatment. Later, at home, he comforts her through its side-effects, singing her a song about the moon, before going to his home office to talk to a specialist and consult the many medical papers and textbooks he has collected.

pp. 10–12: On a social visit to the Armstrong home Joe Walker mentions that NASA are looking for engineer-pilots for the Gemini program. Neil is interested but tells Joe he can’t consider moving the family to Houston while Karen is ill. Waving Joe on his way, Neil’s wife Janet displays signs of strain, while Neil watches over the sleeping Karen. [Foreshadowing: first sight of the small name bracelet Karen wears.]

pp. 12–13: Karen’s coffin is lowered into the ground, Janet in tears alongside their son Rick, Neil stony-faced. During the reception afterward at the Armstrong home Neil retreats to his office, where among his collection of medical books and papers he finally allows himself to cry. He places Karen’s bracelet in his desk drawer. After their guests have gone Neil and Janet share a moment of comfort on the porch.

pp. 13–15: Janet is surprised Neil wants to go into work. As is Joe, when Neil later arrives, only to find he’s been temporarily grounded pending an investigation of the X-15 atmosphere bounce. Neil picks up a newsletter: NASA to Select Astronauts for Project Gemini.

pp. 15–18: Gemini astronaut selection, overseen by Deke Slayton. Waiting in a corridor lined with military men, including Ed White and Pete Conrad, Neil bonds with Elliott See, the only other civilian applicant. Later Neil impresses the interview panel, including Bob Gilruth and John Glenn, with a combination of his technical knowledge and dedication to the space program. Glenn asks if Neil’s daughter’s recent death will affect his performance. Neil responds in a measured and guarded way.

p. 18: Neil gets the news that he’s been selected for the Gemini program. Janet reacts positively. They are both hopeful for the future.

pp. 19–20: Houston, astronaut briefing presided over by Deke, assisted by Gus Grissom, and watched by Neil, Elliott, Ed White, Pete Conrad, Jim Lovell, and others. An animated movie explains the workings of a future moon mission, that the purpose of the Gemini project is to perfect the docking manoeuvre the command and lunar modules must perform. Politics rears its head: Deke makes it clear the USA need a coup in space the USSR can’t possibly beat.

pp. 20–23: As the Cuban Missile Crisis plays out in the background, and Neil studies technical specs for the Gemini mission, Janet receives and deflects a dinner invitation from Pat White; still grieving over Karen, Neil isn’t ready for social engagements.

pp. 23–24: Strapped into a rapidly spinning trainer machine, Neil is challenged to stabilise the machine before G-forces knock him out. [Foreshadowing: this is what he will need to do to prevent disaster on the Gemini 8 mission.] As he passes out Neil sees a vision of his past, happy life with Karen and Janet. Coming back to consciousness he surprises Gus and Deke by demanding another attempt. Later, vomiting in the bathroom, he has a bonding moment with Ed, equally badly affected.

pp. 24–25: In a Physics of Rocket Propulsion class Neil baffles the other astronauts by displaying a genuine interest in the topic.

pp. 25–27: As Neil returns home we see the Armstrongs have a new baby, Mark. Later, eating dinner with Janet, Neil finds himself able to laugh with her at his geeky fascination with his lectures. He puts on a record — Lunar Rhapsody — and he and Janet dance to the music, taken back to the passion of their courtship and their youth.

pp. 27–28: The Armstrongs have dinner with Ed and Pat White, Elliott and Marilyn See, while the kids play outside. Janet reveals another side to Neil when she tells the other couples he wrote the musical for his college revue.

pp. 28–31: Neil, Ed, and Elliott are gathered on the Whites’ back porch. It’s revealed that Neil is backup crew for Gemini 5, while Ed is slated for a first, historic, EVA. But a call from Deke directs them to put on the TV: the USA has again been beaten by the USSR; Ed White will not, after all, be the first man to walk in space.

pp. 31–33: Gemini 5 launch. Neil and Elliott, the backup crew, are introduced to program newcomers Buzz Aldrin and Roger Chaffee, before Deke tells Neil he’s going to be in command of Gemini 8, but with Dave Scott, not Elliott, as his pilot.

pp. 33–36: Shortly before the Gemini 8 launch. Neil takes time out to play with his son Rick but Ed interrupts with bad news: Elliott, piloting the plane, and Charlie, another of the astronauts, have been killed flying in to train in St. Louis.

pp. 36–39: At Elliott’s funeral reception Buzz shocks the other astronauts by breaking ranks to criticise Elliott’s piloting skills. He and Neil clash when Neil steps in to defend his friend’s reputation. Neil moves away into the Sees’ living room, where he thinks he sees Karen playing under a table. He tells Janet he has to go and takes their car. Ed and Pat give Janet a lift back home during which she admits that Neil never talks about Karen. Returning she finds Neil taking sextant readings; she leaves him in peace.

pp. 39–59: Neil and Dave Scott are assisted into the capsule by fellow astronaut Pete Conrad and a number of techs. The launch goes smoothly and later Neil is able to locate and rendezvous with the Agena vehicle. Docking also goes smoothly — this is the USA’s long awaited spaceflight coup. Janet listens to the progress of the mission in her living room beside her two sons, her mother, a NASA official, and a photographer from Life Magazine. But then Neil notices the capsule has begun to spin. Deciding the problem’s source is the Agena, Neil makes the decision to undock. But the spin only gets worse. Mission Control cut the public newsfeed, leaving Janet in panic-stricken ignorance. Back in the Gemini capsule, Neil and Dave are in danger of blacking out when Neil has an idea: to use some of the fuel designated for re-entry to try to stabilise the craft. Climbing over the now-unconscious Dave he engages the re-entry thrusters. It works; they stop spinning. But the use of this fuel means they must now abort the mission and land at the first opportunity.

pp. 59–60: Janet storms into Mission Control and confronts Ed and Deke: they have nothing under control, she accuses, they’re boys playing with balsa wood models.

pp. 60–61: Neil and Dave prepare for re-entry, trying and failing to think of some other way they could have stabilised the craft while preserving the mission objectives.

pp. 61–63: Intercut between the Gemini 8 pilot press conference, in which a NASA spokesman tries to focus on the mission’s successes while Neil fends off the press, and the formal mission review in which Neil and Dave defend their decisions to prematurely undock from the Agena and, later, to use up some of their re-entry fuel.

pp. 63–64: In his home office, Neil argues with Life Magazine about the title of their upcoming Gemini article, Our Wild Ride in Space, detesting the sensationalism. The sight of a model plane flashes him back to an image of Karen and their former home.

pp. 64–65: Chatting with Pat at the Whites’ house, Janet reveals she had married Neil because he seemed mature and settled. What she had wanted was stability.

p. 66: Ed drops in on Neil to invite him for a beer at Dave’s, finding Neil poring over Gemini/Agena technical diagrams and schematics. The Life Magazine article sits in a waste paper basket.

pp. 66–68: Neil, Ed, and Dave share beers on the Scotts’ patio. Ed supports Neil and Dave in their Gemini mission decisions, then admits to the truth of a rumour he and Gus Grissom will on the crew of the first Apollo mission. Since Deke wants Gus to be the first man on the moon this also puts Ed in the frame for the first lunar landing.

pp. 68–69: Fearing the worst from the outcome of the NASA investigation, Neil is instead fully exonerated. His cool-headed handling of the Gemini 8 near-disaster has propelled him into the Apollo program — but also into a public relations role.

p. 69: The early years of the Apollo program pass in a montage of scenes of family life at the Armstrong house.

pp. 69–70: Walking home with Neil, Ed White tells Neil about his son Eddie’s fascination with the space program. The two men pass a neighbour’s swing set; happy memories, for Neil, and he almost, but not quite, begins to talk to Ed about Karen.

pp. 70–76: Gus, Ed, and Chaffee board the Apollo 1 command module for a dress rehearsal of their flight three weeks later, while at the White House Neil, in suit and tie, defends the dollar cost of the Apollo program to a skeptical senator. The test countdown is delayed by a comms problem; the three astronauts wait in the cockpit, bored, until disaster strikes: a short circuit; a spark flies; within moments the cockpit is engulfed in flames. At the White House Neil is called out of the reception to take a call from Deke. The wine glass Neil is carrying breaks in his hand: Gus, Ed, and Chaffee are dead.

p. 76: Later that night. A prerecorded CBS interview with Ed plays on Neil’s TV. The anchorman tells the audience that following the day’s tragedy the first Apollo flight has been postponed indefinitely. Neil does not look ready to quit.

pp. 77–78: Ellington Air Force Base. Neil test-flies the Lunar Landing Training Vehicle (LLTV), a lethal looking contraption that proves impossible to control and crashes in a ball of flame; Neil just in time ejects and parachutes to safety.

pp. 78–79: Deke and Bob Gilruth argue the LLTV is too dangerous and should be scrapped. They’re worried about the political fallout from another accident. Neil says the politics aren’t his problem. He argues danger is best faced in simulation, not on a mission.

pp. 79–80: While laying out fresh laundry Janet notices Pat near-catatonic in her driveway, staring into the trunk of her car — the loss of her husband Ed has hit Pat hard. Putting aside her own anxiety for Neil, Janet goes out to take care of her friend.

pp. 80–81: Neil returns home with deep scratches on his face from the LLTV accident. Janet, already unsettled by Pat’s distress, wants to know what happened. Neil finds himself unable to answer her questions, or even to be in the same house as Janet and Rick; he jumps back into his car on a pretext and disappears.

p. 82: Montage that switches between the building of the Saturn V rocket engine and protests against the costs of the attempt to send a man to the moon.

pp. 83–84: Kennedy Space Center. The completed Saturn rocket is rolled out of the Vehicle Assembly Building, watched by Mike Collins, Neil, Buzz, Jim Lovell, and others. Buzz comments on the size of the explosion should the rocket blow up, and calls the accelerated program “a political rush job.” His insensitivity antagonises the others, including Neil, but Buzz doesn’t care, making plain his ambition to take over Gus’s place in the pecking order and get a chance to land on the moon.

pp. 84–85: Neil watches the launch of Apollo 8, the first mission to orbit the moon. Later, in the bathroom, Deke delivers the news that Apollo 11 will be the first landing, and that Neil has been picked to command the flight. Neil receives the news without outward display of emotion. Mike Collins will be Command Module Pilot, and in the lander with Neil — Buzz. Deke offers Neil the chance to break the planned crew rotation and replace Buzz with Jim Lovell. Neil says he will think about it.

pp. 85–86: At home, Neil watches the re-entry of Apollo 10, the last mission before the scheduled moon landing. Janet is unsure how she is feeling. Their son Mark also has difficulty processing that Neil will soon be going to the moon, but unlike his mother can cast off his confused feelings and run outside to play.

pp. 86–88: Apollo 11 Pre-Flight Press Conference. It’s something of a PR circus but Neil maintains a wary distance, giving minimal answers and refusing to be goaded by the reporters into any display of emotion. Buzz, in contrast, is loving it, and tells the reporters he’s planning to take some of his wife’s jewellery to the moon, to give her “bragging rights.” [Foreshadowing: Neil’s decision to take a piece of jewellery to the moon for very different reasons.] Neil tells the audience he’d like to take more fuel. [Foreshadowing: fuel will nearly run out as Neil searches for a safe landing site.]

pp. 89–90: Janet confronts Neil: with only a few days before the launch he still hasn’t discussed the risks of the mission with their sons. She feels he’s been shirking handling the human dimension of the situation and has dumped that responsibility on her.

pp. 90–91: Later that night, Neil and Janet sit with their sons. Neil answers simple questions but then Rick asks Neil if thinks he’s coming back. Neil is evasive, but Rick presses, until Neil admits it’s possible he may not. As they part, Neil and Rick shake hands.

pp. 91–93: Gilruth practices a contingency speech, for use should Neil and Buzz be stranded on the moon, which continues in V.O. as Neil comes to the door of his home. He gives Janet a peck on the cheek then gets into a government sedan; he’s relieved to be away from the tension in the house and that the mission has finally started.

pp. 93–96: Apollo 11 launch. In the mess hall Neil looks over a map of the lunar surface while Mike and Buzz sign envelopes with commemorative stamps. The astronauts ride the gantry elevator to the command module (CSM). Unlike Buzz, Neil is unfazed by the size of the Saturn V rocket; his focus is complete. Sealed into the CSM, the three astronauts await lift-off, which when it comes is a nerve-shattering experience, more intense than a Gemini launch, startling even Neil.

pp. 96–99: Earth orbit. Another burst of thrust now puts them on course for the moon. The Earth recedes into the distance. Mike sees what look to be sparks flying outside of a window; Neil sees them too but ignores them. A slight hiccup in comms with Houston emphasises that from this point on, they’re on their own.

pp. 99–101: The CSM separates from what’s left of the Saturn, turns to dock with the lunar module (LM) within, and pulls it free; the docked CSM and LM head for the moon. Later, Mike smells burned electrical insulation. Neil brushes this aside but is evidently thinking of the Apollo 1 ground test fire. Buzz suggests some music and Neil produces a cassette tape: it’s Lunar Rhapsody, the music he and Janet danced to earlier.

pp. 101–102: Approaching the moon. Neil and Buzz look up from their maps to find the moon filling a hatch window, no longer a faraway object but the place they will very soon go.

pp. 102–111: Lunar landing. Neil and Buzz enter the LM and undock from the CSM, beginning to drop toward the moon. Neil will be piloting the lander; Buzz is aware his life is now in Neil’s hands. As they descend they are interrupted by a series of alarms; Neil becomes annoyed and decides to ignore them. Descending further, the intended landing site comes into view — and it’s covered in boulders. Neil makes the decision to take over manual control and searches for a safe place to set down, but they are rapidly using up fuel and achieve touchdown only as the fuel gauge reaches zero: The Eagle has landed. Buzz extends a hand to Neil in congratulation.

pp. 111–114: First steps. Neil and Buzz suit up, vent the cabin’s air, and after a small struggle pull open the hatch to reveal the surface of another world. Neil unfolds the externally mounted camera that will record his historic first step. At the foot of the ladder he pauses. His expression captures a complex mix of emotions. And then finally he steps down: That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind. Moments later, Buzz joins him on the lunar surface.

p. 114: Neil finds time to be alone on the surface. He remembers again happy times in California with his family, before the death of his daughter. He takes Karen’s name bracelet and flings it into a nearby crater. Overcome by emotion, he cries.

pp. 114–115: Lift-off from the moon. O.C., the voice of a television presenter, wondering what the lives of the returning astronauts will become, once they are back home.

p. 115: Montage showing crowds around the world watching the moon landing, individual interviewees euphoric and amazed at the feat.

pp. 115–116: Confined for a period of quarantine, Neil and Buzz try to come to terms with their celebrity and the world’s response to their mission. Buzz is both mesmerised and bewildered by the news coverage; Neil is quietly thoughtful.

pp. 116–117: Escaping her own posse of reporters, Janet is brought by Deke to visit Neil in the quarantine facility. Deke leaves them alone together but a glass wall still separates them. Then Neil touches his hand to the glass. Janet does likewise. The couple press hands together, from opposite sides of the glass.

Writing Exercise: I encourage you to read the script, but short of that, if you’ve seen the movie, go through this scene-by-scene breakdown. What stands out to you about it from a structural standpoint?

If you’d like a PDF of the First Man scene-by-scene breakdown, go here.

Kudos to Rose Banks for doing today’s breakdown.

To see dozens more screenplay scene-by-scene breakdowns, go here.