Video transcript

- Hi, I'm Valerie Lapointe and I'm a story artist at Pixar. I'm going to be your host for our first lesson on storytelling, designed to introduce you to how we tell stories at Pixar. Throughout the next six lessons you'll have a chance to create your own stories and you'll go from a rough idea to having real storyboards like we use at Pixar. Each lesson features Pixar story artists sharing their insights about the story development process. - My name is Domee Shi and I'm a story artist. - Hi, my name is Sanjay Patel. I'm an animator and storyboard artist. - I'm Kristen Lester. I'm as storyboard artist. - Hello, my name is Mark Andrews and I'm a director at Pixar Animation Studios. The goal of this video is to remind you that you already are a storyteller. It's something we do naturally, and start doing as children. To kick this lesson off, let's hear how some of Pixar's storytellers first started telling their own stories. - Out on the playground where you're making up stories or playing in the backyard where we're making up whole worlds. From then on I started drawing my own comic books and I would fake being sick to stay home from school so I could draw my comic books and come up with my stories. - What I did is I would take a drawing of Betty and Veronica that was in the comic books and I would trace it, and then I would draw fashion on them, and I did this thing called Betty and Veronica Fashions. Somewhere in my mother's basement there are thousands and thousands and thousands of these drawings of Betty and Veronica. - These poster assignments that my art teacher would give me in high school, and even in junior high school as well, they were always around a theme of American history, and so the idea of this kinda homework of doing American history in a visual form was the kinda the first avenue into telling stories in just one picture. - When I was really young I would draw pictures and I would show them to people and they would react, and I'd really like that. Like I'd love getting reactions out of people with the things that drew and the stories that I tell, and I wanted to get more reactions out of people so I drew more and more and more. - I have to say, like growing up I felt like I had no ideas, like I was just the most unoriginal, like, I always felt like artists have to have like these kinda waterfalls of ideas, endless amount of ideas, and I had like zero I felt. - So I get most of my stories and my ideas from my life. I think about a lot of stuff that's happened to me, like when was the last time I was happy? When was the last time I felt really sad? When was the last time I cried or got really angry? - Most of my stories originate from my own personal experiences, and I think there's a touchstone there that is very important to the storyteller to find because it makes us honest. I'm not just gathering kind of ideas and chucking them together and there's a story. No story comes ready made. - One way is that I think long and hard about my experiences in life and moments in my life where I've had what I kind of consider to be an epiphany. I have gained some sort of insight or learned something that I think is really important to share with the world. I think those are the kind of stories that are really fun because they only can come from you and your experience. Nobody else can have the same insights as you because they haven't lived the same life as you. - No two people will experience life the same, so no two people will tell a story the same way. Think of this as a superpower we all have, your unique perspective. Only you see the world this way. Now I want you to think about a memory you have. It can be your most embarrassing memory, a frightening memory, or a time you were very surprised. Whatever it is, it's a memory you remember vividly. In this first exercise you'll have a chance to express this memory in various ways.