Please watch this TED Talk by Andrew Stanton – https://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_stanton_the_clues_to_a_great_story/transcript?language=en – and discuss what you took away from the talk. Your response should be at least three sentences long.
20 thoughts on “Classwork: TED Talk by Andrew Stanton”
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After watching Andrew Stanton do his Ted Talk, I noticed he talked about always making a promise to the person that’s viewing your work. The promise is made in the beginning so the viewer could be engaged right off the bat with the thing they are about to read/watch. He explained every good. A promise tells the viewer that this would be worth your time and you won’t have any regrets.
After hearing Andrew Stanton’s Ted Talk in how story telling helps connects experiences both real and imagined, one take away I got is how change is a foundation in a story. Life and stories are similar in the sense that we are always making progress and changing. We are also always curious about what happens next and to completing a thought that we really want to know, so the best affirmation that we can have from stories is the ones that make us wonder.
Andrew Stanton gave really great insight and perspective on many elements of writing and how to capture an audience. For example, I was really invested in his idea of making the audience work for their meal, meaning hide facts but always be dropping hints to build up anticipation. I also took away that when writing a story it should not always be short-term scenes that tells the whole story, rather the writer should have a long term view in order to tie everything together and conclude for the audience.
After watching the talk with Andrew Stanton, I realized that it’s important for you the writer to have stake in the story you’re writing. He talked so passionately about the stories he’s written and it seemed like they have even made a difference in his life. Also, I realized when he said something similar to what i found true about my writing, that its easier and realer to write something you know about taking ideas from your experiences.
I took away that giving away critical information is very harmful to a story. As a storyteller, you must create anticipation for the audience to solve or think about. In turn, this creates interest and care for the story being told. I also learned that a good story is premeditated, thought through with a final goal, and with ways of reaching it as the story is told (guidelines).
One of the most interesting things from Andrew Stanton’s TED Talk, was when he said the audience must “work for their meal”. This was interesting because it’s what you told us to do as well meaning we shouldn’t give out too much information all at once. In order to keep the audience engaged, we have to give them only pieces of the puzzle for them to put it together on their own. I also really liked the example he gave about being able to start from the end to the beginning, which shows there is a lot of room for creativity in writing.
The main takeaway that i took from Andrew Stanton was that even if the first draft of your story is what you envisioned it’s not what’s going to be the final product. You must anticipate that there will change in order for your audience to be more invested in the story and resonate more with the character. And keep the audience curious wanting more for the next scene of the story so the ending is more gratifying than what they must have originally thought.
Andrew Stanton used his professional background to relay his experiences in storytelling. I really enjoyed hearing his premise of “make me care” when it comes to stories. Stories have a sort of invisible force that compels us to “work” for our meal- and this force is ultimately a promise to the readers (or viewers) that the story is worth their time. Finally, I learned that stories capture truth from personal experiences from Stanton and thus have the ability to reflect those experiences.
Honestly, my biggest takeaway from this Ted Talk was that my short story needs a lot a lot of work. I already knew this, considering I turned in my draft pretty unsatisfied, but his points helped me realize what I failed to take into account when writing it in the first place. I think I got lost in having the story mean something that I overlooked other aspects that actually make the story worthwhile, like the concept of the audience “working for their meal” or giving the characters a solid spine.
Andrew Stanton’s The Clues to a Great Story had many great takeaways. Such as the 2+2 philosophy, give the audience a promise that the story is worth their time and make them care. The biggest takeaway would have to be that storytelling drives from using “what you know”. For fiction writing the characters and or the environment may not be real but what they are experiencing is. Their values and truth to an extent come from what we know.
Andrew Stanton’s talk was really insightful and provided many tips I should incorporate into my own personal story. One thing that really stood out to me was how we as writers must attract the audience and make them believe that there is more to the story and it won’t be a waste of their time. He calls it the 2+2 theory where he doesn’t provide the answers but let’s the audience think and figure it out themselves.
Andrew Stanton discussed the relationship between stories and our lives, that not everything is clearly stated. The 2+2 theory relates to what Professor Corva spoke about, to give readers the eagerness to find out what would happen later. Since everyone has different opinions and views on certain things, the message and the interpretation would be very unique and different compared to other people. Besides, I like how Stanton used his experience to illustrate the guidelines for stories.
The talk Andrew Stanton gave was very eye opening. He broke down the idea of how story tellers get the audience hooked. He spoke about how he makes the audience “Work for their meal.” He gave examples of different effective ways of telling a story like starting from the end and working his way back to the beginning.
It was super fascinating to hear Andrew Stanton speak about the intricacies of creating various Pixar films that he has worked on because I have very fond memories of watching these films during my childhood, and I still love them now. I particularly liked what he said about making the audience care about the characters. It can be difficult to watch movies or read a book all the way through when this factor is not accomplished. Also, I found it interesting that the audience wants to work while watching the movie, but they should not be aware that they are working for it. People enjoy searching for clues, analyzing characters, and attempting to predict the plot. This makes the movie more interactive and meaningful to the audience.
The TED talk by Andrew Stanton was very insightful on how a great story can be produced. Like Andrew mentioned, there is no single formula for a great story and there are endless possibilities on how you can catch the audience’s attention. I was also able to get a better understanding of the 2+2 theory mentioned before in class and how people are natural problem solvers. Instead of giving the audience all the answers, they could instead try to out the pieces together themselves. Toy Story and Finding Nemo are some of Disney’s more unique movies and you can see how the creators tried to push the limits on what defines a Disney movie.
After watching Andrew Stanton speak, he taught me through telling his story that stories need to have layers, and that each layer should echo the theme, and that having a strong theme can tell the meaning of what the story is trying to say in a more moving way that the audience can relate to. In a story, the elements, and the order in which they are arranged, are designed. The story needs to be padded to make the story unpredictable. It is necessary to capture the central idea of the story, and to create suspense. And don’t be bound by the traditional story structure, think outside the box and you may get a better idea.
After listening to Andrew, my takeaways are that storytelling has a lot of layers such as timing and continuity. Also, it is sort of a pull and push game with the audience and the objective is to make them care while also stating certain details about the story at the right time. Catching your audiences attention should be the first goal you have when you begin to tell your story, whether it be a verbal one or a written one.
Also, there’s an infinite amount of ways to grab their attention, whether that be through visuals like how the Wall-e scene was played, or how Andrew started his story from the back end.
One takeaway I got from Andrew Stanton’s TED Talk is creating a story with multiple layers to keep the audience interested. You must pace your story correctly such that the audience constantly has something to work for. If a story is completely boring up until the very end where there is a big twist, the twist will have no effect since the audience didn’t care about the story much. There are many ways to create interest, such as the 2+2 method and sprinkling little bits of information evenly spread across the story.
Some takeaways from Andrew Stanton is an element of successful storytelling is keeping your audience engaged by throwing clues gradually. It was similar to what Andy mentioned previously with how you want to capture your audience’s attention by throwing a certain amount of hints each time, and Andrew calls this the theory of two plus two. He emphasizes the order in which you throw certain elements out is really what decides your story works out well or not. He says it’s this invisible application that keeps us attached to the story as the audience and that made me realize how in my short story, I need to figure out what I want to keep vague and detailed in order for the story to be predicable, but also surprising at certain parts.
Andrew Stanton’s TED talk, The Clues to a Great Story, gave different techniques in order to grab the audience’s attention when reading a story. Andrew first explained how a reader gets hooked to a story in order to explain the reasoning behind his technique. For example, one technique he talked about was working for your meal which means you want to foreshadow in a sense what the final result will be in the story.