Storytelling Ted Talk

 Hello! Today in class we had a special lesson. We were reviewing storytelling in class and my teacher decided to show us "The Clues to a Great Story" the Andrew Stanton Ted Talk. For those of you who don't know Andrew Stanton is a vice president at Pixar, he is the filmmaker for feature projects like Finding Nemo, Wall-E, Toy Story, A Bugs Life, etc. Here's the link to the TED talk feel free to watch and come back! https://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_stanton_the_clues_to_a_great_story?language=en Anyways in the TED talk Stanton shares insights from his experiences in storytelling, offering valuable lessons for aspiring storytellers and anyone interested in the film creation. Stanton emphasizes the importance of connecting with the audience emotionally. He suggests that storytellers should strive to evoke genuine feelings and create characters that resonate with the audience. He says "Make me care emotionally, physically, mentally." This advice is beneficial because I feel like when doing projects and assignments in school the main goal is to finish the assignment that's how we have been trained our whole life, do the assignment by the due date. But Staton offers another insight he says to make your main purpose to make people care and create something meaningful and good. Not only is this motivation to strive but it has given me ideas for what I want to do with my film opening, I want to connect it to something that I feel personally, something that I can relate to and feel and care about.

Another thing he said was "Don't give away the answer," make them work for it: Instead of spoon-feeding the audience every detail, Stanton advocates for engaging their curiosity. He believes that leaving some things to the audience's imagination can make the story more compelling. Stories aren't good if they are predictable but good ones are inevitable. What I learned from this is to have a balance and create something that the audience has to feel to find they have to search for the answers within and leave them with that sense of anticipation afterward. I don't know if this is just me but after a lot of movies, I watch Immediately go and look up analyses and videos on the movie. I feel like that represents a good movie because you want to know the mystery behind it the hidden details that the creators made, reasons behind why scenes were the way they were, the double meanings to things, etc. What I want to take from this also deals with the emotional aspect, I want to do more research on movie opening making so I can leave the examiners with that same sense of wonder that I get when I watch my films. Something that Staton said that also goes along with this is "make a promise to your audience". When starting a story, Stanton suggests making a promise to the audience about what they can expect. This promise sets expectations and helps to guide the audience through the narrative. He says "A well-told promise brings you from the beginning of the story to the End. Now I know that I am just creating the film's opening scene but I also have to create a storyline, and I also want to make sure I incorporate that finished feeling into my film.