Episode 38: Pixar Storytelling Part 2

In the final part of our 2-part Pixar conversation, Fable and the Verbivore discuss the unique facets that help make Pixar’s movies some of the most effective and emotionally connected narratives seen in movies over the last 25 years. We feel that tips and tricks gleaned from their fundamental story elements have the potential to make any story, regardless of their medium, resonate more closely with their audience.

Our conversation covers how the opening sequences of Ratatouille connects you with Remy’s everyday struggles in his normal life as well as sets up the central conflict around the idea that “Anyone can cook”, how the creators of Up use an early sequence where Carl first meets Ellie to help establish the logistics of how he is able to fly his house to South America, and what change the director of The Incredibles made to a marital argument sequence between Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl to change the dynamics and salvage a moment that wasn’t working.

We unpack several more of the 22 Pixar storytelling rules through discussing: 1) their basic story structure that allows for the creation of unique story forms while ensuring that they set up their tales in a way that is satisfying to an audience, 2) how they purposely give their characters opinions that are in opposition to one another leading to natural conflict, 3) that they often figure out the intended ending before writing the middle of the story allowing them to write to connect the beginning to the end, and 4) the importance of checking in with yourself to understand what it is you personally connect with in a story so that you can use those elements moving forward.

As we closed out our review of Pixar storytelling, we focused on some of the key aspects of their narratives. The ways that they write towards a given ending and how the story beats serve as building blocks to reach that resonating moment, the lengths that they go to write and rewrite something to make it what it needs to be and not being afraid to scrap what doesn’t work, and the attention to detail and specificity of language that they use to further their stories.

We hope that you enjoy this episode and that you are staying safe! Keep creating and putting your unique voice out there!

Into the woods,
Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

The Verbivore forgot the name of the Chef in Ratatouille. The chef’s name is Gusteau.

The Verbivore discusses the flexibility in Pixar’s story structure. Some of these details came from the “Pixar in a Box: The Art of Storytelling” free class available on Khanacademy.org. Here is the link:

Both Fable and the Verbivore talk throughout the episode about Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling. This list is located in many places online, but here us one link to one copy of the list. Here are the rules they mentioned:

4. Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

7. Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.

10. Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.

13. Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.

20. Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d‘you rearrange them into what you DO like?

The Verbivore incorrectly references Bolt as a Pixar film, although some individuals from Pixar helped with the film it is officially a Walt Disney animation film.

The Verbivore mentioned the rule that Brad Bird who wrote The Incredibles and The Incredibles II followed to have each fantastic thing followed by a mundane thing and vice versa. He has talked about it in many interviews, but this Deadline interview is the one the Verbivore used for research.

The Verbivore references the Ted Talk “Andrew Stanton: The clues to a great story”. The sequence about storytelling as joke telling starts at timestamp 1:23. Here are some of his words:

“Story telling is joke telling. It’s knowing your punchline. Your ending. Knowing that everything you are saying from first sentence to the last is leading to a singular goal. And ideally confirming some truth that deepens our understandings of who we are as human beings.”

Books Mentioned:

Music from: https://filmmusic.io
’Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Bethany Stedman