Andrew Stanton: The clues to a great story

Andrew Stanton wrote the first film produced entirely on a computer, Toy Story. What made that film a classic wasn't the history-making graphic technology, it was the story and the characters that children around the world instantly accepted into their own lives. 

Stanton wrote all three Toy Story movies at Pixar Animation Studios, where he was hired in 1990 as the second animator on staff. He has two Oscars, as the writer-director of Finding Nemo and WALL-E. His adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs fantasy-adventure John Carter, opens in cinemas in March.

The following video runs for nineteen minutes. It consists of a speech Andrew Stanton made to the TED Conference in February 2012.

If you have any level of interest in screenwriting, or if you wondered about the theme of Lawrence of Arabia, you MUST watch this video.

(My thanks to Brian McDonald for telling me about it.)

First posted:  8 March 2012

Don't get it right, get it written

Some advice for aspiring screenwriters:

The secret of screenwriting success is simply this: Don't get it right, get it written.  – Art Arthur

So many people drop out after a few classes. Most people never finish a screenplay. I impress on my students to finish in the time allotted. There are a lot of perfectionists out there who kinda circle around and around and research and read books and study—and they never really finish screenplays. What I took away from my teachers was they made me finish scripts.  – Kris Young, UCLA

Butch Cassidy

I don’t know what it means, a perfect story. I think you just wanna basically try to figure out the story, and stay in the story as long as you can and as closely as you can, and end it. I think when you start telling yourself, “I wanna write a perfect thing,” all you’re gonna do is castrate yourself, and get into deeper and deeper trouble. It’s hard to do anyway. It’s no fun going into your pit every day and trying to figure out how to get two or three or five pages. Some days you don’t do anything. Then if you have two crappy days in a row, you’re really in deep shit. You just wanna get it done, and you pray someone will like it.   – William Goldman

Toy Story 3

The first draft is nothing more than a starting point, so be wrong as fast as you can.  – Andrew Stanton

Actually finishing it is what I’m gonna put in as step one. You may laugh at this, but it’s true. I have so many friends who have written two-thirds of a screenplay, and then re-written it for about three years. Finishing a screenplay is first of all truly difficult, and secondly really liberating. Even if it’s not perfect, even if you know you’re gonna have to go back into it, type to the end. You have to have a little closure.   – Joss Whedon

Once you start writing your screenplay, the most important advice I can possibly give you is to keep going. Do not go back and make revisions under any circumstances. Once started, press on like there's a pack of wolves nipping at your ass.  – William Froug

First posted:  11 October 2011

Andrew Stanton: The clues to a great story

Andrew Stanton wrote the first film produced entirely on a computer, Toy Story. What made that film a classic wasn't the history-making graphic technology, it was the story and the characters that children around the world instantly accepted into their own lives. 

Stanton wrote all three Toy Story movies at Pixar Animation Studios, where he was hired in 1990 as the second animator on staff. He has two Oscars, as the writer-director of Finding Nemo and WALL-E. His adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs fantasy-adventure John Carter, opens in cinemas in March.

The following video runs for nineteen minutes. It consists of a speech Andrew Stanton made to the TED Conference in February 2012.

If you have any level of interest in screenwriting, or if you wondered about the theme of Lawrence of Arabia, you MUST watch this video.

(My thanks to Brian McDonald for telling me about it.)

Don't get it right, get it written

Some advice for aspiring screenwriters:

The secret of screenwriting success is simply this: Don't get it right, get it written.  – Art Arthur

So many people drop out after a few classes. Most people never finish a screenplay. I impress on my students to finish in the time allotted. There are a lot of perfectionists out there who kinda circle around and around and research and read books and study—and they never really finish screenplays. What I took away from my teachers was they made me finish scripts.  – Kris Young, UCLA

Butch Cassidy

I don’t know what it means, a perfect story. I think you just wanna basically try to figure out the story, and stay in the story as long as you can and as closely as you can, and end it. I think when you start telling yourself, “I wanna write a perfect thing,” all you’re gonna do is castrate yourself, and get into deeper and deeper trouble. It’s hard to do anyway. It’s no fun going into your pit every day and trying to figure out how to get two or three or five pages. Some days you don’t do anything. Then if you have two crappy days in a row, you’re really in deep shit. You just wanna get it done, and you pray someone will like it.   – William Goldman

Toy Story 3

The first draft is nothing more than a starting point, so be wrong as fast as you can.  – Andrew Stanton

Actually finishing it is what I’m gonna put in as step one. You may laugh at this, but it’s true. I have so many friends who have written two-thirds of a screenplay, and then re-written it for about three years. Finishing a screenplay is first of all truly difficult, and secondly really liberating. Even if it’s not perfect, even if you know you’re gonna have to go back into it, type to the end. You have to have a little closure.   – Joss Whedon

Once you start writing your screenplay, the most important advice I can possibly give you is to keep going. Do not go back and make revisions under any circumstances. Once started, press on like there's a pack of wolves nipping at your ass.  – William Froug