Andrew Stanton TED Talk: “Clues to a Great Story”

A 10-part series analyzing the Pixar writer-director’s TED Talk.

Andrew Stanton is one of the key members of Pixar’s ‘braintrust’ whose screenwriting credits include Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, Wall-E and Finding Dory which he also directed [along with A Bug’s Life, Finding Nemo and Wall-E].

Back in March 2012, Stanton delivered a TED Talk: “The Clues to a Great Story.” Given his Pixar connection and the deep insights Stanton provided in his talk, I produced a transcription of the entire 19-minute presentation along with analysis of his comments.

Today: Part 1

A tourist is backpacking through the highlands of Scotland and he stops at a pub to get a drink. The only people in there is a bartender and an old man nursing a beer. And he orders a pint. They sit in silence for awhile, then suddenly the old man turns to him and says, “You see this bar? I built this bar with my bare hands. Found the finest wood in the county. Gave it more love and care than my own child, but do they call me McGregor the Bar Builder? No.”

Points out the window. “You see that stone wall out there? I built that stone wall with my bare hands. Found every stone, placed them just so through the rain and the cold, but do they call me McGregor the Stone Wall Builder? No.”

Points out the other window. “You see that pier on the lake out there. I built pier with my bare hands. Drove the pilings against the tide and the sand, plank by plank by plank, but do they call me McGregor the Pier Builder? No.”

“But you fuck one goat…”

[Crowd laughter]

Storytelling is joke-telling. It’s knowing your punch line. Your ending. Knowing everything you’re saying from the first sentence to the last is leading to a singular goal. And ideally confirming some truth that deepens the understanding of who we are as human beings.

We all love stories. We’re born from them. Stories are who we are. We all want affirmations that our lives have meaning. And nothing has a greater affirmation than when we connect through stories. It can cross the barriers of time — past, present and future — and allows us to experiences the similarities between ourselves and through others, real and imagined.

The children’s television host Mr. Rogers always carried in his wallet a quote from a social worker that said, “Frankly there isn’t anyone you couldn’t learn to love once you know their story.” And the way I like to interpret that is probably the greatest story commandment, “Make me care.”

Please, emotionally, intellectually, aesthetically… make me care.

We all know what it’s not like to not care. You’ve gone through hundreds of TV channels, just switching, channel after channel. And suddenly you actually stop on one, it’s already halfway over, but something’s caught you and you’re drawn in. That’s not by chance, that’s by design.

So it got me thinking, what if I told you my history with story. How I was born for it. How I learned along the way this subject matter. And to make it more interesting, we’ll start from the ending and we’ll go to the beginning. So if I were to give you the ending of the story, it would go something like this.

“And that’s what ultimately led me to speaking you here at TED about story.”

A few things:

• “A tourist is backpacking through the highlands of Scotland”: Note how Stanton starts. He didn’t define story. He didn’t frame the subject of story. He didn’t talk about story. Rather he started off by telling a story. What better way to cement the idea of storytelling than telling one?
• “But if you fuck one goat”: Of all the stories in the world Stanton could choose, he tells this one. Why? Well, first it’s a great story told in the classic form of a joke. But beyond that, I think Stanton chose an off-color joke for this reason: To surprise us. Here is Pixar dude dropping an F-bomb on us, straight out of the chute. If you study Pixar movies, you know how much they cherish the idea of surprise: twists, turns, complications, roadblocks, reversals. With the joke, Stanton conveys the point without even having to talk about it.
• “Knowing your punch line”: I feel like I’ve made this point a hundred times over the years on this blog if I’ve made it once: Professional screenwriters never start writing a story unless they know its ending. The ending reflects back on everything that comes before it, so you better damn well know it before you type FADE IN.
• “Stories are who we are”: This may sound like a wall poster slogan, but it is a profound statement that speaks to the core essence of existence, as community, as individual. Stories arise from, speak to, and create windows into our life experience.
• “Make me care”: As much as I love the social worker’s quote that Mr. Rogers carried around with him, this line — these three words — are perhaps the most important takeaway for anyone writing stories. Make the reader care. In Hollywood, that means the script reader, the manager, the agent, the producer, the studio executive, the actor, the director, any person who opens your script, at the most basic level your job as a writer is to make them care.

Tomorrow: Part 2 of the transcript of Stanton’s TED Talk.

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