Paramount Pictures
Pixar Storyboard Artist, Emma Coats, was once quoted as saying: “Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.” Every film relies on some sort of convenience at one point or another – it’s essential in progressing the story.
But sometimes they take one step too far and work themselves into a corner, where the only solution to escape is through inexplicable timing and boundless illogicality. It isn’t always a bad thing, and more often than not, audiences can bite their tongue and suspend their disbelief if it is achieved in a well-executed manner. Other times, it’s just glaringly obvious.
While the films on this list aren’t all necessarily bad – in fact some are very good – they employed much contradiction and convenience in order to close their narratives. They made us cringe, they made us laugh… but...
Pixar Storyboard Artist, Emma Coats, was once quoted as saying: “Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.” Every film relies on some sort of convenience at one point or another – it’s essential in progressing the story.
But sometimes they take one step too far and work themselves into a corner, where the only solution to escape is through inexplicable timing and boundless illogicality. It isn’t always a bad thing, and more often than not, audiences can bite their tongue and suspend their disbelief if it is achieved in a well-executed manner. Other times, it’s just glaringly obvious.
While the films on this list aren’t all necessarily bad – in fact some are very good – they employed much contradiction and convenience in order to close their narratives. They made us cringe, they made us laugh… but...
- 2/14/2014
- by Dale Barham
- Obsessed with Film
After Pixar story artist Emma Coats tweeted Pixar's 22 rules of storytelling in 2011, quite a few people have riffed off of those rules. In the case of Stephan Vladimir Bugaj, a Pixar employee of 12 years, he's decided to elaborate on them. Read More: Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling Presented with Film Stills from Pixar Films Bugaj has an ebook with an elaboration of each of the 22 rules of storytelling on his site... and it's free to download! (Bugaj is retaining copyright, so when you pass it along to friends, make sure you send along the whole thing.) With permission from Bugaj, we're reprinting his explanation of Rule #3 below. Download Bugaj's guide to the 22 rules of storytelling here, and check out his personal website here. Note: This free eBook is not a Pixar product, nor is it endorsed by the studio or its parent company. Trying for theme is important, but you won...
- 11/25/2013
- by Stephan Vladimir Bugaj
- Indiewire
Back in 2001, former Pixar story artist Emma Coats tweeted this series of "story basics" in 2011. Now someone has taken the rules and superimposed them over stills from Pixar films, noting, wisely, that all Disney copyrights, trademarks, and logos are owned by The Walt Disney Company. The images are posted in an album on imgur, the online image hosting service, by the guy behind Bert is Evil, Dino Ignacio (@dinoignacio). While the Pixar storytelling rules make sense in the world of Pixar, they are also true for almost any other kind of storytelling. For instance, #11:" Putting it on paper let's you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you'll never share it with anyone." #14 is a good one too: "Why must you tell This story? What's the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That's the heart of it." So follow your heart.
- 9/16/2013
- by Paula Bernstein
- Indiewire
Pixar story artist Emma Coats has worked on the company's feminist animation Brave. She recently tweeted a list that has been making the rounds, and we spotted it on website Open Culture. Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling is great advice for any writer, really — and in some cases, great life advice in general. Open Culture played a game of Mad Libs with rule number four, which could be a fun way for someone with writer's block to become unstuck: "Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___." The list proves why Pixar's character-driven films are emotional, memorable and so damn likable. Some rules seem like common sense, but are often totally ignored by green...
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- 3/12/2013
- by Alison Nastasi
- Movies.com
Last year Pixar story artist Emma Coats tweeted out 22 rules of storytelling for for Pixar Animation Studios. Alex Eylar, aka ICanLegoThat, has taken twelve of those rules and has created a fun little Lego set up for them. I think this is a great list of rules for any filmmaker or storyteller to follow. Read through them and let us know what your favorite rule is.
Here's the full list of 22 rules:
#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.
#2: You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different.
#3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.
#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that,...
Here's the full list of 22 rules:
#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.
#2: You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different.
#3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.
#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that,...
- 7/24/2012
- by Venkman
- GeekTyrant
Merida in Brave
Photo: Disney / Pixar Note: This article is loaded with spoilers for Brave. If you haven't seen the film yet, you may not want to read on. The timing on storyboard artist Emma Coats' list of rules to storytelling she has learned while working at Pixar couldn't have come at a better time. Coats tweeted the following rules in recent months (and continues to do so daily), which were then compiled by Pixar Touch and I've taken the first 22 of them and decided to see how they work while examining Pixar's newest film, Brave. Brave was the first time I've ever sat down to watch a Pixar story and been utterly and entirely baffled at how pedestrian and second rate the storytelling was. Even if you wanted to dig deeper and try to make up your own reasons as to why it was good you'd come away empty.
Photo: Disney / Pixar Note: This article is loaded with spoilers for Brave. If you haven't seen the film yet, you may not want to read on. The timing on storyboard artist Emma Coats' list of rules to storytelling she has learned while working at Pixar couldn't have come at a better time. Coats tweeted the following rules in recent months (and continues to do so daily), which were then compiled by Pixar Touch and I've taken the first 22 of them and decided to see how they work while examining Pixar's newest film, Brave. Brave was the first time I've ever sat down to watch a Pixar story and been utterly and entirely baffled at how pedestrian and second rate the storytelling was. Even if you wanted to dig deeper and try to make up your own reasons as to why it was good you'd come away empty.
- 6/25/2012
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Emma Coats is a Storyboard Artist at Pixar Animation Studios. From time to time she tweets pithy rules, poignant guidelines, and important instructions she’s picked up from her more senior colleagues on how to create compelling stories. David A. Price is the author of Pixar Touch. The book chronicles the “roller-coaster rags-to-riches story behind the phenomenal success of Pixar Animation Studios,” which has accumulated in its 13 or so years of existence no less than twenty-six Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes Awards, and three Grammy Awards. On Price’s blog for his book, he recently aggregated 22 of Coats’ most insightful 140-character-or-less ideas on the essence of good storytelling and created one handy list. Although not everyone strives to to tell Pixar-y tales, the below can be used as a good benchmark and/or checklist from which to gauge and/or influence your very own stories and storytelling process
Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.
Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.
- 6/12/2012
- by Joshua Cohen
- Tubefilter.com
What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a collection of all the things you’ll be talking about tomorrow with your friends. Assuming you have friends. We hope you do. If not, we’ll be your friend. We begin this evening with the first image from Guillermo Del Toro’s Pacific Rim, featuring Idris Elba looking badass in a suit that, if our guess is right, allows him to control giant robots or something. Everything about this film makes it a giant, sloppy, wet orgy for nerds. We cannot wait. “We certainly don’t feel that a third movie is a foregone conclusion. Hopefully the second movie turns out well and we are really happy about everything so far. So three movies, again not to do everything that Christopher Nolan does, but if you do it right it’s a good model. But that idea, whether you want to call it a trilogy or not, although...
- 6/9/2012
- by Neil Miller
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: I celebrate all levels of trailers and hopefully this column will satisfactorily give you a baseline of what beta wave I’m operating on, because what better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? Some of the best authors will tell you that writing a short story is a lot harder than writing a long one, that you have to weigh every sentence. What better medium to see how this theory plays itself out beyond that than with movie trailers? I'm interrupting this normally scheduled column so I can talk ever so briefly about a project I'm not only excited about but only discovered earlier this week.
- 8/20/2011
- by Christopher Stipp
- Slash Film
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