Treasure Hunt: Following the Clues to a Great Story

I have magically found my way back to one of my favorite things to study: storytelling. I know this seems like an unusual topic to study, after all, as humans, storytelling is practically a part of our DNA, right? Certainly! However, crafting a truly exquisite story requires some effort. Writer and director Andrew Stanton made some excellent points that all aspiring writers should take the time to listen to in a TED talk entitled “The Clues to A Great Story.”

Whether we want to admit it or not, we love stories that make us care – and stories that make us “work for our meal,” as Stanton puts it. What does this mean? We want to be caught up in a story, caught up in a movie. I don’t know about you, but part of the movie experience for me is playing detective: What is going to happen next? Who is the true villain here? Is he going to live?

In the Network: Connecting With the Industry

 I am sure that you have heard the saying, “It’s all about who you know,” and if you are anything like me, you retaliate with “Yea, yea, I know, but where do I meet these people I need to know?” Good news! I have finally figured out the elusive secret to this question: industry events! As a filmmaker, currently living in Orlando, FL, it seems that I am a bit disconnected from the film industry in my day-to-day life.

The Art of Story

It is likely that we have all been to a movie in the past month or two – right? But how many movies have left you feeling as if the last two and a half hours of your life (and $20 of your hard earned cash) has just flushed down the toilet?  Why is this? Bad stories. Without question, the most important part of any great movie is a captivating story, a compelling script. However, we seem to be at a point in the history of cinema where anyone can call himself or herself a writer, and they indeed can write, but they are not producing great stories by any stretch of the imagination.

I personally have fought this battle many times: the battle of developing a story that is enthralling. It is no easy task by any means, and I will forever be in the process of perfecting my craft as a storyteller. There is a fundamental force of screenwriting that many young screenwriters are often forgetting. Every story must contain a beginning, middle and an end. If you were to ask any learned screenwriter what the most critical element of writing a good movie was, they would answer you according to the Robert McKee creed: Three-Act Structure. I am not the first to notice the increasing number of movies that are lacking in story structure these days, Spielberg has said, “People have forgotten how to tell a story. Stories don't have a middle or an end any more. They usually have a beginning that never stops beginning.” I do not know about you, but a never-ending beginning is not something that I enjoy, I want to see stories go places! And so does Robert McKee (portrayed by Brian Cox) in "Adaptation."

The Faces of Leadership

We seem to live in a day and age where everything appears to have many different faces, and leadership is no different. Look at some of the individuals at the forefront of their fields and rarely will you see two who are just alike. As one whose career is centered in the world of entertainment, I tend to gravitate toward leaders within the arts. However, take a look at Jay Z, Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett and you will see several very different leadership styles.

Despite the differences in many individual approaches to leadership, there are two different paths that almost every great leader can be tied back to in one-way or another: servant leadership or power-centric leadership. In reading both John C. Maxwell’s Developing the Leader Within You, focusing on servant leadership and influence, and Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power, focusing on how to gain power in a more self-centered approach, it has become abundantly clear to me that while learning how to utilize both types of leadership it crucial to being an effective leader, we each tend to connect more with one view than the other.