Story Compendium

A Personal Note.

John Ludwick — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 17:59:45 +0000

I’m a story fanatic like many artists in animation. Though I’m not as versed or practiced as inspiration Brad Bird from Pixar, director Wes Anderson, graphic novel artist Will Eisner, screenwriter Lawrence Kasden, and many others, I can say that I’m no longer satisfied with just watching and believing.

Brad Bird

John Ludwick — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:50:19 +0000

“[I originally opened the Incredibles] with the Parrs just at the moment they first went underground – at the beginning of their new life as a family, and Violet is a newborn. A new villian, Syndrome, discovers where the Parrs live – like a mob boss finding an FBI informant – and attacks them in their home. It was funny and creepy in a cool way, but although we ultimately didn’t use it, it did end up really helping the finished film. And I learned that getting the right scene can have a lot to do with picking the right points in a story’s time frame.”

Brad Bird, The Art of The Incredibles, page 63, Chronicle Books, ©2004 Disney Enterprises Inc./Pixar Animation Studios, ISBN 10: 0-8118-4433-1

Nicholas Meyer

John Ludwick — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 09:30:58 +0000

As long as we’re on the subject of sound, I found this one:

“IT IS INTERESTING TO OBSERVE THAT SOUND ALWAYS DOMINATES PICTURE… if you play happy music [while driving around in your car], even some fairly squalid and dispiriting surroundings appear more cheerful. If you play sad or ominous music, the most agreeable vistas assume a sinister aspect. It is this fact that makes film music so important, for no matter what the cinematographers photograph, nor how skillfully such images are edited, it is an inescapable fact that the music which accompanies them will dominate and, in the end, dictate the ambience.”

Writer/Director Nicholas Meyer, in the liner notes of The Star Wars Trilogy: The Original Soundtrack Anthology. 20th Century Fox Film Scores, Arista Records, Inc., ©1993 Lucasfilm, Ltd.

Matt Wood

John Ludwick — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:00:39 +0000

“[the most challenging aspect of storytelling in sound design] is deciding what sound will take center stage – music, sound effects, ambient noise, dialogue. One, two, or all of these might best capture the story at that moment… Sometimes the ambient sound is all that is needed. It depends. Whichever sound takes center stage will affect how the audience interprets the scene…”

Matt Wood, Sound Editor and voice of General Grievous, personal interview at Star Wars Celebration III, April 22, 2005

Matt Wood gave a presentation on sound design for Episode III at the 2005 Star Wars Celebration Convention. There, he showed his process in great detail for the scene where Obi-Wan chases and defeats General Grievous. He showed the many layers he builds to make a scene feel real. Afterwards, I asked him how his work best contributes to storytelling – the quote is based on my notes from that day.

Will Eisner, Reader Influence

John Ludwick — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:45:46 +0000

“No storyteller should ignore the fact that the reader has other reading experiences. Readers are exposed to other mediums, each of which has its own rhythm. There is no way of measuring it, but we know that these different media influence each other.”

Will Eisner, Graphic Storytelling, pg. 69, Poorhouse Press, ©1995 Will Eisner

At some point, we’ll see a clear indication that games influence these other media. I don’t count cross-marketing strategies, such as Halo Legends (video game extending market into animation). Whereas there’s a clear indication of Bioshock being influenced by Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, and not because Ayn Rand struck a deal with 2K. There is no such indication with games just yet.

Rob Davis

John Ludwick — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 18:09:54 +0000

“The rule of thumb is the KISS rule: Keep It Simple, Stupid! Your layouts should be simple, clean and to-the-point. Each panel should have only one action in it and should flow easily and naturally to the next panel. The page should flow together as one piece of work. Avoid fancy panel layouts until you become very proficient at telling the story. The art should emphasize the story, not stand in its way.”

Rob Davis, Penciller’s Rulebook, Online, Internet.

The K.I.S.S. rule applies to many professions as a caveat to overthinking and redundancy. Though character action can often be complex in motivation, it is almost always done instinctually… simply, and in-the-moment.

Robert McKee

John Ludwick — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:15:17 +0000

“Structure and character are interlocked. The event structure of a story is created out of the choices that characters make under pressure and the actions they choose to take, while characters are the creatures who are revealed and changed by how they choose to act under pressure. If you change one, you change the other….
…For this reason, the phrase ‘character-driven story’ is redundant. All stories are ‘character-driven’. Event design and character design mirror each other. Character cannot be expressed in depth except through the design of story. The key is appropriateness.”

Robert McKee, Story, pg 106-107. ©1997 Robert McKee. Harper-Collins Publishers, Inc., 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022 ISBN 978-0-06-039168-3

Some feature film directors and short film directors decry McKee’s modern breakdown of storytelling craft. McKee shares many unambiguous declarations of storytelling principles (not rules, he hammers) like the one above. The lack of uncertainty in the principles is good for beginning storytellers, so until you make it to the Big Leagues….

Walt Disney

John Ludwick — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 06:11:26 +0000

“‘Comedy,’ [Disney] once wrote in a memorandum, ‘must have contact with the audience. This we all know, but sometimes forget. By contact, I mean that there must be a familiar, subconscious association. Somewhere, or at some time, the audience has felt, or met with, or seen, or dreamt, the situation pictured. A study of the best gags and audience reaction we have had, will prove that the action or situation is something based on an imaginative experience or a direct life connection. This is what I mean by contact with the audience. When the action or the business loses its contact, it becomes silly and meaningless to the audience.’”

Walt Disney, as quoted by John Canemaker, pg. 58, Paper Dreams: The Art & Artists of Disney Storyboards, ©1999 Disney Enterprises, Inc., ISBN 0-7868-6307-2

If you ignore that The Diz is talking about Comedy, he could be just as well talking about story overall.

Hayao Miyazaki

John Ludwick — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:12:46 +0000

Concerning the film Spirited Away, Miyazaki wrote,

“I would say that this film is an adventure story even though there are no brandishing of weapons or battles involving supernatural powers. However, this story is not a show down between right and wrong. It is a story in which the heroine will be thrown in to a place where the good and the bad dwell together, and there, she will experience the world. She will learn about friendship and devotion, and will survive by making full use of her brain. She sees herself through the crisis, avoids danger and gets herself back to the ordinary world somehow. She manages not because she has beaten the ‘evil’, but because she has acquired the ability to survive….
….Chihiro’s being strong enough not to be eaten up is just what makes her the heroine. She is a heroine not because she is beautiful or because she possesses a unique mind. This is the key characteristic of this work, and therefore it is a good story for ten-year-old girls.”

Hayao Miyazaki, pg. 15, The Art of Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, Viz Books, ISBN 1-56931-777-1

Will Eisner

John Ludwick — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:21:16 +0000

“Someday they will tell stories by extra-sensory transmission. Then [artists] won’t have to do any work at all.”

Visual storytellers invest the majority of their time communicating clearly. This quote, as weird as it is, points this out.