Significantly different perspectives on, and interpretations of, the same dramatic event by different eyewitnesses.  

There are three things needed to produce the effect: 

1- There must be different interpretations of what happened.

2 - There must be no way to verify the truth with the only evidence being witness testimony. 

3 - There must be pressure to bring closure and resolution to the event, as in a court trail.

Different points-of-views occur because:

1 - Our own personal and natural biases. 

2 - The flawed way our brains recalls memories. 

These two jokes show how points-of-view and bias can alter the truth:

Joke One: On a train, there are four people facing each other: A young woman, an old lady, an Army general, an Army private.

The train goes through a dark tunnel. A kiss and a slap are heard.

The old lady thinks: It was good that young woman slapped the man that kissed her.

The general thinks: Wow, that private kissed the girl, and I get slapped for it.

The young woman thinks: Why did the man kiss the old lady and not me?

The Army private thinks: Man, am I cool. I kiss the back of my hand, slap a general, and get away with it.

Joke Two is one that Desi Arnaz told every week to warm up I Love Lucy audiences:

A pretty 18-year-old girl finds a frog in her garden. The frog tells her:

 “I’m not really a frog. I’m an Army sergeant that a witch put a spell on. The witch told me, ‘The only way to break the spell is for a young girl to put me on her pillow at night’.”

The girl put the frog on her pillow when she went to sleep.

The next morning, her mother entered her bedroom and saw an army sergeant in bed with her daughter.

And to this day, the mother does not believe her daughter’s story about the frog.

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In the movie Roshomon, a woman is traveling through the woods with her samurai husband. She is ravaged by a bandit (Toshiro Mifune) who kills her husband.

The event is retold from four points of view: the bandit, the wife, a woodsman who witnessed it, and the dead husband via a spiritualist.

Rashomon inspired many American movies. It was remade as The Outrage, a western starring Paul Newman as the bandit, directed by Martin Ritt. Filmmakers should check out both movies.