Khan Academy to the rescue!

In class on Tuesday not only did I learn about Celtx but I learned that Khan Academy is another useful tool when it comes to learning about the process of storytelling. As you can probably tell I need as much help as I can get because I am in the second week and have yet to come up with my story. However, that is an issue for another day. Today, I decided to check out one of the videos that my teacher recommended, the video is titled Story Spine and it is one of the several lessons that Khan Academy provides in an educational storytelling series that it had in partnership with Pixar. I was honestly really excited when my teacher recommended this resource because I have always found Khan Academy to be really useful in other subject matters so I was pleasantly surprised that it was a resource available to me for even my more creative classes.

So after watching the video I honestly felt much better about the whole process. For one, I felt reassured that this advice was coming from professionals, especially from Pixar since they are obviously one of the largest animation companies in the world. Just the fact that they were able to reference movies that I grew up with as a kid an explain the whole thought process behind it was really exciting to me. One of the main points that they touched upon in the video was that they often organize their stories by something they refer to as story "beats". They explained that one story "beat" will generally refer to a point in the story where a character makes an important decision or where there is a distinct cause and effect. They then proceeded to break down Nemo and Toy Story into their own story "beats". As I saw them explain the "story spine" and the "structure" of every story I realized how important the planning and structuring of a story really is. They also constantly emphasized how it is important to not get too caught up in the details of a story and first just outline "what" is happening instead of "how". I think this honestly is a really good tip because I know I always get caught up in the details but I should probably take a step back and just outline the story before going more in-depth. I definitely think I will continue to utilize Khan Academy as a resource in helping me develop the story for this short film.