The greatest story commandment is: Make me care.
Interpretation
Engaging storytelling elicits emotions and connections from the audience.
This quote emphasizes the importance of emotional engagement in storytelling. Andrew Stanton suggests that a compelling narrative must resonate with the audience, making them feel invested in the characters and the plot, thereby creating a memorable experience that captures their attention and empathy.
In practice
During a writing workshop, when discussing the fundamentals of captivating narratives.
We all fall into our habits, our routines, our ruts. They're used quite often, consciously or unconsciously, to avoid living, to avoid doing the messy part of having relationships with other people, of dealing with a person next to us. That's why we can all be in a room on our cell phones and not have to deal with one another.
Change is fundamental in story. If things go static, stories die.
I never thought fashion was the job for me, because I'm Japanese. Clothes! That was a European, society thing.
My dreams were at once more fantastic and agreeable than my writings.
Movie actors earn their living and learn their craft through listening and reacting.
I came to poetry through the urgent need to denounce injustice, exploitation, humiliation. I know that's not enough to change the world. But to remain silent would have been a kind of intolerable complicity.
Burn, burn tree and fern! Shrivel and scorch! A fizzling torch To light the night for our delight, Ya hey! Bake and toast βem, fry and roast βem! till beards blaze, and eyes glaze; till hair smells and skins crack, fat melts, and bones black in cinders lie beneath the sky! So dwarves shall die, and light the night for our delight, Ya hey! Ya-harri-hey! Ya hoy!
Animation is the one type of movie that really does play for the entire audience. Our challenge is to make stories that connect for kids and adults.
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