What makes a great story is when the hero (and the audience) changes emotionally. Of course, characters don’t change overnight but gradually, and this gradual change is what story telling is all about. Use the four-part story structure to divide a screenplay into four Acts of roughly 30 minutes each (for a 120 minute movie). […]
What do all great movies have in common? It’s not the direction, special effects, or acting, but the underlying theme that defines the entire story. Without a definite theme, even if the audience isn’t aware of it, a story cannot be emotionally satisfying. Think of every movie you’ll gladly watch over and over again even […]
Every great movie is founded not on physical action but on emotional change. Action supplements the emotional story so it’s important to give your hero an emotional dream to pursue from start to finish. The easiest way to identify the emotional dream in any movie is to look at the emotional impact the movie leaves […]
Pixar generally produces great movies such as “WALL-E,” “Up,” “Inside Out,” “The Incredibles,” and all the “Toy Story” movies. However, Pixar often produces flawed stories that are good but not great and the latest good but not great Pixar film is “Onward.” The basic story in “Onward” is that the world takes place in a […]
To make a compelling story, start with an impossible goal. That impossible goal alone will make people wonder, “How can the hero solve this problem?” Impossible goals are intriguing because they are so puzzling, which makes people want to know what happens next. The more vivid and detailed you can make this impossible goal, the […]
There’s an interesting animated film called “Spies in Disguise,” which is good, but not great. What’s good about “Spies in Disguise” is that it focuses on two main characters: a super-spy and a bumbling gadget maker who works for the spy agency. The super-spy is confident and his belief is that you have to fight […]
In the beginning of every story, every hero needs an emotional dream that can only be achieved through physical conflict. The key is this physical conflict must make achieving the emotional dream seemingly impossible to achieve. In “The Invisible Man,” a woman’s physical goal is to escape from an abusive man. Her emotional dream is […]
Great movies often inspire sequels, but far too often, those sequels prove disappointing. The reason for this is simple. In the original story, there’s both a physical conflict and an emotional dream. In the sequel, they trip out the emotional dream and pile on the physical conflict. That simple creates an empty story with more […]
Everyone has an idea for a movie. The trouble is many people’s ideas are not big enough. Big stories don’t mean massive special effects, explosions, and millions of spaceships crashing into each other. Big stories are about something life-changing in the end. When plotting your story, look at your ending. Is your ending changing someone’s […]
Think of any story and ask yourself why does the hero need to fight the villain and why does the villain need to fight the hero? In bad movies, there’s no logical reason. They just fight because otherwise there’s no physical action. However, in good movies, there is a reason why the hero and villain […]