Pixar Story Tips

[Tom]

Noticed this online post on Tuesday. A storyboard artist at Pixar made a chart showing some of the qualities they weigh when creating stories.

 

Looks like some great tips.

 

Tom

[NancyGormezano]

Very good tips. I think for myself, however, I will transcribe the tips into text, to make it more accesible, reading-wise.

[Gerry]

That's great information. Just lately, after immersing myself in

 

A) Robert McKee's Story Structure seminar and book;

2) Keith Longo's animation tutorials;

C) Mark Simon's How to Pitch for TV; and

D) Anne Lamott's excellent "Bird By Bird"

 

That they are ALL telling me the EXACT SAME THING but from different angles: What is a story, why it's told, and how to tell a good one. this Pixar bullet list is yet another perspective.

[thejobe]

yea they covered most of the problems im having writing my story. im about 8 chapters in and i dont know where to go next. its very discouraging.

[Rodney]

im about 8 chapters in and i dont know where to go next. its very discouraging.

 

Ask your characters where they want to go.

[Roger]

I think I'm going to print this out and put it up by my workstation. Good stuff.

[fae_alba]

im about 8 chapters in and i dont know where to go next. its very discouraging.

 

Ask your characters where they want to go.

 

Back when I was publishing my magazine I wrote a serial story for each issue or roughly 10,000 words each. Did that for 8 issues. For each one I started with a plot, or what happens, then I figured out the outcome, how will it end. Then I started at the beginning, and as Rodney says, I let the characters write the story. Sounds hokey, but after a bit as a writer, you sort of give up control of the story and simply become a conduit to writing it down.

[thejobe]

im about 8 chapters in and i dont know where to go next. its very discouraging.

 

Ask your characters where they want to go.

i asked them. they just kicked some dirt around and said "i don't know, you think of something".

but seriously im just kind of doing the story little by little on and off for a year or 2.

if you guys want to take a look at it i can post it here. i like to hear what other people think.

most of my friends around here dont really care to read it so haven't had any creative criticism.

[fae_alba]

if you guys want to take a look at it i can post it here. i like to hear what other people think.

most of my friends around here dont really care to read it so haven't had any creative criticism.

 

I'll take a look if you wish...

[thejobe]

here ya go. its a fairly short read for now.

book_together.zip

[thejobe]

just wondering if you ever got around to reading any of the book.

[Gerry]

I've had this hanging in my studio, as rough and low-res as it is, and just the other day had the brilliant brainstorm of actually checking out pbjpublishing.com to see if they had a better version. Well, lo and behold, they not only offer it as a framable poster, but they also have a high-res version to download! It's formatted a little differently and they had to remove Pixar's name, but it's way nicer than the image above.

 

Check it out at http://www.etsy.com/listing/109570611/post...hop_home_active or go right to their home page at http://www.pbjpublishing.com/app/hansel-and-gretel/

[Rodney]

This is an old topic but...

 

Stephan Vladimir Bugaj recently wrote a series of articles about Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling and its genesis and he has now made it available as a PDF file entitled "Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling (that really aren't PIXAR's)".

 

The link to the PDF was published here.

http://www.bugaj.com/blog/2013/10/31/pixars-22-rules-of-story-analyzed-as-a-pdf-ebook

 

Concerning the articles/book he states:

Introduction.

In 2011 a former Pixar colleague, Emma Coats, Tweeted a series of storytelling aphorisms that were then compiled into a list and circulated as “Pixar’s 22 Rules Of Storytelling”. She clearly stated in her compilation blog post that the Tweets were “a mix of things learned from directors & coworkers at Pixar, listening to writers & directors talk about their craft, and via trial and error in the making of my own films.”

We all learn from each other at Pixar, and it’s the most amazing “film school” you could possibly have. Everybody at the company is constantly striving to learn new things, and push the envelope in their own core areas of expertise. Sharing ideas is encouraged, and it is in that spirit that the original 22 Tweets were posted. However, a number of other people have taken the list as a Pixar formula, a set of hard and fast rules that we follow and are “the right way” to approach story. But that is not the spirit in which they were intended. They were posted in order to get people thinking about each topic, as the beginning of a conversation, not the last word. After all, a hundred forty characters is far from enough to serve as an “end all and be all” summary of a subject as complex and important as storytelling.

So since Pixar’s name is associated with that list, I decided it’d be beneficial to the world’s storytellers for another Pixarian to write a series of blog articles to look at the aphorisms one-by-one and analyze them. In the spirit of inspiration, exploration and discussion in which the advice was intended, I found points of agreement and disagreement, and offer up caveats, expansions, and excisions that I felt made the advice stronger. This book is a compilation of those blog articles (with a few edits, most notably this intro stopping before going off-topic).

Here's a little bit about Stephan... from his blog:

A writer/filmmaker who most recently worked at Telltale Games as Creative Development Director, helping to develop narrative and visual storytelling for The Walking Dead season two, The Wolf Among Us, Game of Thrones, Tales From The Borderlands, and as-yet unreleased projects.

Prior to that I co-developed and co-wrote two feature projects that were in-development at Pixar Animation Studios. This role was the result of mentoring with various Pixar heads of story and directors starting in 2004. My total of twelve years of experience at Pixar Animation Studios included stints in various production tech roles, which has given me extensive expertise in the overall animated feature production pipeline, from concept development through postproduction.

 

 

Direct link to PDF file: http://www.bugaj.com/s/Pixar22RulesAnalyzed_Bugaj.pdf

 

Why should you read this?

Because *if* you are creating a film it has some good suggestions well worth implementing in your approach.