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Well come back guys , few minutes ago we learned ,
Now we are going to learn the core important tool, when you will learn this, you will notice it in every best movie and you will also able to apply in your story too.
Imagine a pyramid , its Pyramid of Transformation
5. Environment/Atmosphere (Top of Pyramid)
4. Do
3. Capability
2. Belief-Values
1. Spiritual (Bottom of Pyramid)
During following process , at each level he is asking The Three Golden Questions consistently.
5. Environment
So when change Occurs character tries to create The familiar Environment, which he has in his Comfort Zone,
He says to himself, “okay, its change , but if I create my usual Environment , it will be alright”
He will try to behave as if its normal , but guess what it doesn’t work ..
4. Do
So he will say to himself, “ okay , I can’t create the Environment but I know what I can do”
So he will do what he usually do in such situation ,
Guess what , this also wont work.
3. Capability
He will say to himself, “What I usually do its not working , but I know what I’m capable of , I can do this , I can turn this around!!”
He tries hard , to make it work.
But it doesn’t work ,life is not that easy ,
Now his morale is getting down , he still don’t want to give up
2. Belief-Values
He says to himself, “ now what I do, is not working, my capability is not working , but I believe that someone else have turn around this or I believe if I do this other way and don’t give up it will definitely work out”
He have some references in past , or from he seen somewhere , and he has belief system so he thinks he kept moving forward in this new way it will work out , but again it doesn’t.
1. Spiritual
Now its crisis,
He says to himself, “oh lord , everything is falling apart , my capability , beliefs aren’t working , what should I do!”
He is calm , he is now empty vessel.
At this Spiritual level , it doesn’t mean just God , it can be Nature , or even the character himself .
The spiritual is the part that has immense potential , those are beliefs too but they have no references , no supporting legs.
Like if I ask you , is there God and you have your own concept of GOD , its true for you , even you don’t have real references to back that idea up, but deep down we believe there is one energy behind every living thing.
Same applies to the beliefs about the character himself, which is his identity
And when the character is in this Spiritual level , thinking about problem in totally different perspective, he taps into Great deep unimaginable potential inside. He discovers new energy within.
And now he step through all levels again , but he has transformed
His beliefs change , his values change
He realize his true capability
Now what he does is special
Now he have created new Environment for himself
And finally he Solves the Conflict ,
His Comfort zone gets expanded. He becomes bigger than his problems.
See when I was going down the pyramid from Environment to Spiritual,
The intensity of Conflict was increasing .
Finally at last level he transforms , steps up in each level and finally conquers that Conflict
That’s how my friends Intensity of Conflict increases and the Character Finally discovers his true potential and wins over the conflict.
So for the whole movie , sequence is like this
SET UP + CONFLICT = level 5-4-3-2-1
Conflict reaches at its peak
RESOLUTION= level 1-2-3-4-5 .
THE END
Now take movie examples and it will be even more clear .
In Kung fu panda
When Poo gets selected as Dragon Warrior
Environment
Do
2.He tries to fight like he used to in his dreams , in funny way it doesn’t work
Capability
3. He thought he was capable of until he realizes he have to stop Tai Lung and he tries to run.
Beliefs-Values
4. Deep down he believes he can make it work , he works hard until he founds that there is nothing in that Dragon Warriors Scroll for him
Spiritual
5. He gives up , he realizes he is just normal , not special and not Dragon Warrior, and he is blank , and then he realizes that there is no Magic Ingredient , and You have to believe that there is and make it special.
Beliefs-Values
6. His beliefs change about himself, he realizes he is Dragon Warrior
Capability
7. His capability changes, he knows that he can Stop Tai Lung
Do
8.His Actions change
Environment
9. His environment changes
The End
Now lets look at
Master Shifu
1.When Master Oogway chooses Poo as Dragon Warrior , Shifu gets a naive student , who is cranky , fat, crazy , funny with no quality of Warrior, he tries to be with him like he behave with others but it doesn’t work
2. He teaches Panda like he usually teaches other students , that even doesn’t work
3. First he thought that if Master Oogway thinks that I can teach him , then I may be capable of teaching Poo too , so accepts Poo as student
4. When Oogway dies and until now he was believing that somehow he and Oogway will make Panda as Dragon warrier , but when Poo tries to run , he even finally gives upon his beliefs too
5. Then he realize he cant do anything , without Oogway and he is blank , helpless and he remembers the Words of Oogway, “There are no accidents” .
Now he believes in the words ,which has no references for him , until he sees Poo eating the Monkeys Food ,
Master Shifu Transforms
6. He realizes he can make it happen, he now believes “there are no accidents”
7. He realizes his capability , he realizes he can teach Fat Panda
8. Now what he does is Unconventional , new way to teach Panda
9. He creates the environment that will able let him coach Panda very effectively , finally he achieves it and makes Panda a Dragon Worrier
THE END
In Toy Story
And he is just meaningless toy.
But then Woody convinces him , that Being a toy is way more special than being a space ranger, because there is kid in that house who loves you more than anything in the world.
At this point its virtual reference for Buzz ,and when he sees the name of ANDY on his shoe , he is in spiritual level , he feels amazing connection between Him(Buzz) and Andy , a spiritual connection.
And he Transforms!
THE END
If you watch any great movie Up, Meet The Robinsons , Cars, Ratatouille, Incredibles,Coraline any awesome movie that touched you emotionally it goes through this Pyramid
5-4-3-2-1-2-3-4-5
From 5 to 1 the intensity of Conflict increases and 1-5 character transforms and wins over the Challenge.
In Up , when Russell leaves and Mr. Frederickson is alone seeing the Elley’s Diary , he have reached up to level 1 i.e. Spiritual and when he sees all the Diary ..
He realizes the amazing connection between him and Kavin – Russell-Dug.
You can see him transforming, at that moment , his back spine becomes straight , its like he have got new energy.
Guys If you see any movie, and that didn’t touch you emotionally it’s only because they didn’t go through pyramid overall for their characters.
We have discussed so much , I hope that will help you lot , and don’t read this stuff , apply to any movie you will watch , apply to your favorite movie , don’t just buy it because I’m saying . try it.
And this Pyramid Concept, I have learned from our Coach Tony Robbins.
Guys please give your feedback.. What you liked in article? Or where should I improve? Or anything that you want to see in next articles…
So here guys I’m signing off, see you next time , until then
Keep Animating .. Keep contributing .. Keep Growing
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Mahesh
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March 1st, 2010 at 12:54 am
Guyz this articles are rocxxxx(always)……thnx u…and u r coach Tony Robbins…if i m not wrong den he is the guy who speaks about motivation and invisible forces stuff on TED right??
anyways thnx guyz…..!!!
March 1st, 2010 at 9:58 pm
Hey thanks Yatin ,
and Yeah he is
March 9th, 2010 at 11:12 am
Intensity of conflict, name itself is pretty intense!
After I read the first article, I was not sure about what you mean and what I grasped. It felt like you were generating dots and when continued to 2nd article those dots were cleared.
I guess you used intensity of conflict technique there, in articles, too!!!:)…Kidding….
Most amazing thing in this article: AGAIN those examples…I love examples!
Within those examples, I liked that you used Poo and Shifu both from same movie…from there character view…its effective. This shows the invariability of RULE, because RULES hold good in all the cases, even its main character or side one…
What else I can say…You’ve produced great outputs….
Now….time for some suggestions and complaints…:)
Though not so hard to understand, I would love to see the image there showing that pyramid thing. Remember Tony……? Picture worths thound words…
(And complaint is….)
You have missed that dog saying “Hi there!” in UP’s example…..You can’t leave behind “hi there!” when you take Mr. Fredrickson, Russel, Kavin, Elly…I felt bad…!
SO, thats all….
Thanks.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Hey Kiran ,
I’ve included the picture like you have suggested. Actually i thought , i have included Dug (so obvious ) , but forgot , thanks for noticing.
And about the examples and overall structure , you guessed it right , i had to cover so much but had to tell effectively. So found the good structure and examples to tell. Specially examples from Same movie i did that purposely.
It feels awesome that i have able to get idea across you exactly i wanted and expected!
And i also want to say Thanks to Mitali who personally told to correct names from Kung fu panda and couple of mistakes.
Specially i want to say thanks to Sanket from whom i got pretty awesome comments on phone.
So Bottom line is , you watch any best movie and the characters go through Pyramid of Transformation!