FILM AND ANIMATION

HOW TO TELL A STORY

or storytelling the Pixar way

By Robin Parks 

It all starts with an idea. That idea sprouts into a story. There is a right way and wrong way of telling it and Pixar thinks it knows the way. From as far back as Toy Story in 1995 to their most recent, Turning Red (2022), Pixar has engaged in what I can only call a philosophical dissection of what a story is and they have given us numerous good and seven disastrous examples of how to do and not do it. People have problems with systems and art, but not Pixar: they have 6 basic rules for storytelling, as well as 22 acute observations about how to pull it off. Is this a problem? Well, maybe or maybe not…

Pixar was founded in 1986 in Emeryville, California, just thirty minutes from where I am studying Illustration at California College of the Arts. Where many big-name entertainment companies work to establish themselves in Los Angeles, whereas Pixar is located in the heart of the Bay Area. One of its founders included Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, who started Pixar alongside John Lasseter, a former Pixar Director, and computer scientists Edwin Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith. The company was quite innovative and advanced.

These are the secrets to storytelling at Pixar

Rule #1: Great stories are universal

What makes a story worthy of our attention? For Pixar, it is all about relatability and personal experience. One could say that Pixar believes that all personal experience is essentially the same personal experience. They lean into nostalgia, trauma, and basic attributes of everyday living. The movie Inside Out starts with a girl whose family moves from Minnesota to San Francisco. For many of us, whether we stay in one place or move, the notion of change is a basic one and it is crucial to the Pixar narrative experience.

Another example is the movie Ratatouille, the story of a rat who wants to become a great chef. We don’t often pull for rats, especially rats in kitchens, but the movie is all about Remy beating the odds and achieving his dreams. As Anton Ego, the food critic, puts it in his final review,“Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere."

"Not Everyone can become a great artist..."

Even if we have not directly experienced an event in a Pixar film, we feel a part of it. We understand the commonality of moving to a different place, growing up in a new environment, and learning about different cultures and backgrounds. Or as in Ratatouille, everyone has a dream and has to fight for what they want. For Remy, this was to be a chef, but for someone like myself, it’s to become an artist. One might say that this is a basic Pixar narrative strategy.

Rule #2: Great Stories have a clear structure and purpose

This is a basic tenant of Pixar storytelling since the beginning. The structure goes as follows:

Once upon a time, there was _____. 

Every day, _____. 

One day _____. 

Because of that, _____. 

Until finally, _____.

Simple, right? This is the foundation of most of Pixar’s work! How does this fit into Wall-E?

Read the list

Once upon a time, there was Wall-E, a Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class robot, who is the last robot on the deserted planet of Earth in the year 2805.

Every day, Wall-E collects various objects he finds around his home, such as forks and spoons, Rubik’s cubes, lighters, and other objects along the way.

One day, Eve, an Extra-Terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator, arrives when Wall-E discovers growing life on Earth: a plant!

Because of that, both Eve and Wall-E arrive on the Axiom, the ship humans have called home for the last 700 years. The discovery of the plant creates tension between Eve & Wall-E and the robo-pilot in charge of the Axiom, Auto.

Until finally, the plant is officially taken in by the Axiom. Humans finally arrive on Earth, ready to start their lives outside of the Axiom.

Now, the purpose of this story is important. Why must the story of Wall-E, for example, be told? Is there a greater purpose or belief this story serves for the audience? What can the audience learn from Wall-E?

What makes Wall-E effective is its commentary on mass consumption and climate change. We focus on the world of advertisements, products, and businesses when we should be focusing on the health of the planet. Mass consumption is the logical endpoint of capitalism, and the result is climate change. There’s at least one wildfire every year in California, flooding in South Sudan, and air pollution thriving in China and India. We are straying further and further from a healthy life, just as it happens in Wall-E.

The focus is on structure and purpose, a combination of clarity and values.

Rule #3: Great stories have an underdog, someone to root for!

In a Pixar movie, underdogs reign.

Can you root for me?

In Bug’s Life, Flik is an ant and failed inventor who has to find some warriors to save the colony from a clan of grasshoppers. When Flik returns, he comes back with a group of underdogs, all circus bugs. In Finding Nemo, Marlin, a single-dad Clownfish, and Dory, a Blue Tang fish that suffers from short-term memory loss, are on the mission to rescue Marlin’s son, a disabled Clownfish, from his captors. In Ratatouille, Remy, a rat, works his way to head chef by collaborating with inexperienced busboy turned restaurant owner, Linguini. In Monster’s University, Mike Wazowski is a not so scary monster who teams up with other not so scary monsters in a fraternity called Oozma Kappa.

Each of these stories focuses on the journey the underdog(s) face(s) rather than their standing in the world. Pixar understands that people are passionate about both where they stand in the world and what their possibilities are.

You could root for me

You can see this in the structure and logic of the narrative of Soul:

Once upon a time, there was Joe Gardner, a part-time music teacher who has dreams of becoming a full-time musician.

Every day, he goes to casting directors and musicians to get into the music business, but Joe has no luck. Joe teaches music to his students, but in the back of his mind, he’s still looking for his big opportunity.

One day, Joe auditions for Dorothea Williams’s open spot for a pianist and gets the part to play with them that night. However, in the heat of the excitement, Joe ends up falling into a manhole and temporarily dying.

Because of that, he appears up in the Great Beyond, but determined not to die yet, he ends up falling into the Great Before. He then meets 22, a stubborn soul from the Great Before who he has to convince into entering the world as a person.

Until finally, 22 finds love in living and ends up teaching Joe to appreciate the little joys in life rather than striving for one ultimate goal.

Rule #4: Great stories appeal to our deepest emotions

A movie of many emotions

The opening sequence of Up has become a cultural touchstone. The scene starts out with composer Michael Giachhino’s upbeat score as childhood sweethearts Carl and Ellie marry! The couple buys a house together and renovates it to Ellie’s specifications. They spend their married life together reading books, cloud gazing, and working together at the zoo. During one of their cloud gazing sessions, Carl imagines one of the clouds to be a baby and they try to start a family.Unfortunately, as the score calms to a melancholy tune, Ellie and Carl learn that they are infertile. Faced with the unfortunate truth, Carl reminds Ellie that she has always wanted to travel and they vow to save up enough money to do so. They save money, their car tire pops; they save money, Carl breaks his leg, they save money, a tree falls on their house. This same cycle continues as they grow older, forgetting about living like vagabonds. When Carl realizes this, he buys tickets for them to finally travel to Paradise Falls. Unfortunately, Ellie becomes ill and ends up in the hospital. She leaves Carl with her adventure book, telling him to go on without her.

This is a perfect example of a story making us aware of our own emotions and reactions to the plot. And maybe that’s what a story is: an emotional reaction to plot.

Rule #5: A great story is surprising and unexpected

In Turning Red, we expect people to be scared of Mei Lee’s power to turn into the red panda However, from the get-go, people are immediately interested in this new creature. In Monster’s Inc and University, monsters are always scary and it’s expected that the other characters will be terrified of them. In Turning Red, they gather in glee instead.

A movie based on the unexpected

A small surprise or unexpected twist can entice the audience into following the plot! How can a rat become a chef? How can a red panda not scare people? Pixar makes clear that the normal reaction will often not suffice.

Rule #6: Great stories are simple and focused

Pixar’s movies have been praised for their exploratory style of storytelling. However, even with deep, sometimes dark, subjects, the main idea or storyline is quite simple. Storytellers want to include as much information as possible, but many details are simply unnecessary.

A family, as simple as it gets

For example, in the movie The Incredibles, the original plot explained how the family came to live in a suburban neighborhood in order to escape the villainous Syndrome. There was a lot of detail about discrimination and hiding identities, but the Pixar team ultimately found all that stuff to be unnecessary information. Again, they stick to the point, and sometimes the most simple point.

Conclusion

Many film companies have at least one Magnum Opus and one blockbuster failure. While Pixar has produced various movies to great acclaim, garnering 485 major awards and 1,021 major nominations, this does not make Pixar the ultimate master of storytelling. There is great skill in how one tells a story and especially one that everyone is willing to listen to. To say Pixar has failed to create masterpieces would be a mistake. The company creates stories that are human, real, and raw, even though they adhere to a set of rules, the antithesis of what we consider art and the process of making art. Do they always follow those rules? No. But in having a strong template, they do know how to create stories that audiences love and enjoy. This is what an artist like myself wants to be a part of, to make personal experiences and narratives into a reality. It all starts with “Once Upon a Time,” “Until Finally”, you have your conclusion. Again, as the great critic Anton Ego put it...

The truth of the world below

“Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.”

©Robin Parks and the CCA Arts Review