basic animation story

This article is the continued from series of articles –Story Writing For Animation. You can read them all articles by clicking here

The Great Bedtime of Stories had a Secret

Do you remember the times, when mom used to tell the Bed time stories of   Princess, Prince, Magic….? Now its your time to tell a great bedtime story to whole world. Which will open the door of new Dreamworld, where they will fall in love with every thing of that world !

So what is the great story ? What makes the great story ?  Start from yourself. Which movies do you like the most? Ask the question , that what is it that makes me feel like that I MUST BE IN THIS DREAM WORLD ? But be aware that Most people generalize that what I like that must be appreciated by Audiences , and that’s the terrible mistake if you are planning any project , where you are pushing the Audience into the story , and it wont happen. And you will get criticized that “ The Story is too self indulgent where it doesn’t even care about the Audience”

So are there any RULES that makes great story ? actually its creative world here are no specific protocols that must be followed but you need to be flexible in approach. ( What the heck does that mean ? Just stay with me ) Our master tells us that “Before breaking the traditional rules in this field , it is MUST that you Must learn and understand the traditional Rules , so then you will know why exactly you are breaking the rule”

Lets start understanding The Rules . . .

When we study the Great Animation movies , the story has something common and that’s its structure . The Story Structure !
Yes , there is frame that helps , and fits for any best movie.
Its SETUP-CONFLICT-RESOLUTION

SET UP :

Where you slowly introduced the audience to  the new world , characters , whats the characters in the story feel about the world , how they are leaving the world , what is that makes them happy , sad, excited ? Are they after something  ? Are they waiting for something ?  it’s the basic plot you create, where story is going to  happen.

Its very important and the basic part where your job is to introduced and make the impression on the audience that it’s the believable world , it has same life , same fellings as they have !

Believe me if you loose here the audience never gonna involved in the story and your story will be self involved with you ! Now further in the story you will drag audience and they refuse your call!

CONFLICT:

It’s the important phase too . Until now you have created the believable world , Audience is with you , they know the limitations of that new world , limitations of characters. Now its right time to challenge the characters through the situation or introducing the villain character , or whatever but the Conflict situation must be believable for audience. It will be not much difficult if

  1. you clearly understand the your story world and the characters you are creating.
  2. you are successfully created the first phase of  “SET-UP” .

If you have difficulties in creating the problem , then that two things you haven’t done properly and you have to work on it .

RESOLUTION:

Finally its time to charge up our hero, or character to fight with situation , struggle with it ,  stretch themselves against there limitations, be smart and remove the Conflict which is created in the story. And the character must grow. .  (if you see in real life too we struggle , stretch ourselves and WE GROW. . .)

So this is the BEST  STORY STURTCURE FOR EVERY BEST MOVIE . .  Toy Story,  Nemo, Kung Fu Panda . .  And all that legends.

In next article we dig little more about story will find something more exciting , energetic . . .

Thanks . .  We will love if you  share your ideas, thoughts . .

Share –Stretch and Grow . …   See you again . . 

Mahesh

For All Animation Story Writing Lessons click here

4 COMMENTS

  1. We all actually know that setup-conflict-resolution thing, but we haven’t given that much attention to that. When I read it, checked out references in my memory and got ya its damn true!!!
    But knowing this is kinda problem! See, every time I watch movie this bell rings into my head….this is conflict and it is going to be resolved…I really try to forget this thing for a while…No doubt, movies have great way of resolution, it gives us 100% joy of the movie but still I cant get off that bell………………
    Mahesh, you are bad bad man…you have ruined my movie life!

    By the way, its very good article. You already use many examples but use even more of them because it makes article more easy to understand and more exiting or i could say it comes closer to human language.
    Thanks.

    • Thanks Kiran ,
      I will definitely use more examples in upcoming articles 🙂

      And about the thing that you have start noticing the Structure thats really Awesome …

      You know the great storytellers use an amazing tool , that makes everybody forget the SETUP- CONFLICT-RESOLUTION structure, though somebody knows it .

      In next some articles I’m going to discuss that Tool too . . 🙂

      I have suggestion , that you are noticing structure thats cool , and you have to go further than that , i mean knowing labels help to some extent but knowing outcomes can make you use all these labels practically .

      In every article i approach the same way that Whats the outcome of some tool ..

      Like what is the outcome of Setup ?
      how can we make sure that its achieved?

      Seeing that small details in other stories and movies , you will able to awaken the most awesome STORY TELLER inside you , who grabs the audience such that they don’t want to move inch from their seats ..

      My ultimate outcome is to teach everybody the practical usage of each tool ..

      i would really love to hear from somebody that “yeah man i figured out , how they have implemented and strengthened Conflict in Toy Story and i can do that too in my story or why did they do that this way and not that way ”

      Just try figure out the ways Good movies achieve every outcome of every small tool 🙂

      THATS Why watch all the bad movies in the world , somebody screwed up big to teach you that the way YOU NEVER TELL STORY .. 😉

      You will learn more very easily than Good movies ,
      because no matter how i try to study Toy Story , after few minutes , i start enjoying the movie ..

      Good movies must be studied but so as the BAD ones , as they contain more lessons , In GOOD movies , mostly the inside story structure is hidden by masters , you need to watch it many times , but the bad ones are crying out loud , SEE I DID THIS AND I MESSED UP THE STORY SO REMEMBER YOU MUST NOT DO THIS , Audience Hates you .. 🙂

      Also one thing as that what would have done to make that story become GOOD ??
      Changing the conflict?
      or Resolution ?
      So what would have been the Resolution or SET UP if it was your story ???
      Its just some times matter of “situations” that change whole story ..
      thats why the “situation” tool is so much important ..
      I do that a lot .. 🙂

    • Hi .. Kiran ..

      Here is the index of articles, their links and information about each Animation Story Writing article on our web ..

      Animation Story Writing Lessons

      Index

      1. Magic formula for best animation movie
      2 Basic Story Structure (Setup -conflict -resolution)
      3. Logline of story
      4. Setup (What is setup and World)
      5. Setup (Rules )
      6. Setup (Introducing Character , Chacracter relationships)
      7. Setup (Introducing Motivation And Goal )
      8. Summarizing the previous 7 lessons
      9.Introduction to Conflict
      10. Types of Conflict and Conflict with self 1
      11. Conflict with Self 2
      12. Conflict with others
      13.Conflict with Situation
      14.Progression of Conflict

      https://bramhaa.com/animation-storywriting/

      I’m continuing this series of Animation Story Writing .. 🙂

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