YT YouTube2Text

YouTube2Text → Transcripts → The clues to a great story | Andrew Stanton | TED

The clues to a great story | Andrew Stanton | TED — Transcript

by TED · 2,798 words · 415 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

Open in transcriber Summarize with AI Download SRT/VTT

Full transcript

0:15A tourist is backpacking
0:17through the highlands of Scotland,
0:19and he stops at a pub to get a drink.
0:21And the only people in there is a bartender
0:23and an old man nursing a beer.
0:25And he orders a pint, and they sit in silence for a while.
0:27And suddenly the old man turns to him and goes,
0:29"You see this bar?
0:31I built this bar with my bare hands
0:33from the finest wood in the county.
0:35Gave it more love and care than my own child.
0:38But do they call me MacGregor the bar builder? No."
0:41Points out the window.
0:43"You see that stone wall out there?
0:45I built that stone wall with my bare hands.
0:48Found every stone, placed them just so through the rain and the cold.
0:51But do they call me MacGregor the stone wall builder? No."
0:54Points out the window.
0:56"You see that pier on the lake out there?
0:58I built that pier with my bare hands.
1:00Drove the pilings against the tide of the sand, plank by plank.
1:04But do they call me MacGregor the pier builder? No.
1:08But you fuck one goat ... "
1:11(Laughter)
1:22Storytelling --
1:24(Laughter)
1:26is joke telling.
1:29It's knowing your punchline,
1:31your ending,
1:33knowing that everything you're saying, from the first sentence to the last,
1:36is leading to a singular goal,
1:38and ideally confirming some truth
1:41that deepens our understandings
1:43of who we are as human beings.
1:46We all love stories.
1:48We're born for them.
1:50Stories affirm who we are.
1:52We all want affirmations that our lives have meaning.
1:54And nothing does a greater affirmation
1:56than when we connect through stories.
1:58It can cross the barriers of time,
2:00past, present and future,
2:02and allow us to experience
2:04the similarities between ourselves
2:06and through others, real and imagined.
2:09The children's television host Mr. Rogers
2:12always carried in his wallet
2:14a quote from a social worker
2:17that said, "Frankly, there isn't anyone you couldn't learn to love
2:20once you've heard their story."
2:22And the way I like to interpret that
2:24is probably the greatest story commandment,
2:29which is "Make me care" --
2:32please, emotionally,
2:34intellectually, aesthetically,
2:36just make me care.
2:38We all know what it's like to not care.
2:40You've gone through hundreds of TV channels,
2:43just switching channel after channel,
2:45and then suddenly you actually stop on one.
2:47It's already halfway over,
2:49but something's caught you and you're drawn in and you care.
2:52That's not by chance,
2:54that's by design.
2:56So it got me thinking, what if I told you my history was story,
3:00how I was born for it,
3:02how I learned along the way this subject matter?
3:05And to make it more interesting,
3:07we'll start from the ending
3:09and we'll go to the beginning.
3:11And so if I were going to give you the ending of this story,
3:14it would go something like this:
3:16And that's what ultimately led me
3:18to speaking to you here at TED
3:20about story.
3:23And the most current story lesson that I've had
3:26was completing the film I've just done
3:28this year in 2012.
3:30The film is "John Carter." It's based on a book called "The Princess of Mars,"
3:33which was written by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
3:35And Edgar Rice Burroughs actually put himself
3:38as a character inside this movie, and as the narrator.
3:41And he's summoned by his rich uncle, John Carter, to his mansion
3:44with a telegram saying, "See me at once."
3:46But once he gets there,
3:48he's found out that his uncle has mysteriously passed away
3:52and been entombed in a mausoleum on the property.
3:56(Video) Butler: You won't find a keyhole.
3:58Thing only opens from the inside.
4:01He insisted,
4:03no embalming, no open coffin,
4:05no funeral.
4:07You don't acquire the kind of wealth your uncle commanded
4:09by being like the rest of us, huh?
4:12Come, let's go inside.
4:33AS: What this scene is doing, and it did in the book,
4:35is it's fundamentally making a promise.
4:37It's making a promise to you
4:39that this story will lead somewhere that's worth your time.
4:41And that's what all good stories should do at the beginning, is they should give you a promise.
4:44You could do it an infinite amount of ways.
4:46Sometimes it's as simple as "Once upon a time ... "
4:50These Carter books always had Edgar Rice Burroughs as a narrator in it.
4:53And I always thought it was such a fantastic device.
4:55It's like a guy inviting you around the campfire,
4:58or somebody in a bar saying, "Here, let me tell you a story.
5:01It didn't happen to me, it happened to somebody else,
5:03but it's going to be worth your time."
5:05A well told promise
5:07is like a pebble being pulled back in a slingshot
5:11and propels you forward through the story
5:13to the end.
5:15In 2008,
5:17I pushed all the theories that I had on story at the time
5:20to the limits of my understanding on this project.
5:23(Video) (Mechanical Sounds)
5:53♫ And that is all ♫
5:58♫ that love's about ♫
6:04♫ And we'll recall ♫
6:09♫ when time runs out ♫
6:17♫ That it only ♫
6:24(Laughter)
6:26AS: Storytelling without dialogue.
6:28It's the purest form of cinematic storytelling.
6:30It's the most inclusive approach you can take.
6:33It confirmed something I really had a hunch on,
6:35is that the audience
6:37actually wants to work for their meal.
6:39They just don't want to know that they're doing that.
6:42That's your job as a storyteller,
6:44is to hide the fact
6:46that you're making them work for their meal.
6:48We're born problem solvers.
6:50We're compelled to deduce
6:52and to deduct,
6:54because that's what we do in real life.
6:56It's this well-organized absence of information
6:59that draws us in.
7:01There's a reason that we're all attracted to an infant or a puppy.
7:04It's not just that they're damn cute;
7:06it's because they can't completely express
7:09what they're thinking and what their intentions are.
7:11And it's like a magnet.
7:13We can't stop ourselves
7:15from wanting to complete the sentence and fill it in.
7:17I first started
7:19really understanding this storytelling device
7:21when I was writing with Bob Peterson on "Finding Nemo."
7:23And we would call this the unifying theory of two plus two.
7:26Make the audience put things together.
7:28Don't give them four,
7:30give them two plus two.
7:32The elements you provide and the order you place them in
7:35is crucial to whether you succeed or fail at engaging the audience.
7:38Editors and screenwriters have known this all along.
7:41It's the invisible application
7:43that holds our attention to story.
7:45I don't mean to make it sound
7:47like this is an actual exact science, it's not.
7:50That's what's so special about stories,
7:52they're not a widget, they aren't exact.
7:55Stories are inevitable, if they're good,
7:57but they're not predictable.
7:59I took a seminar in this year
8:02with an acting teacher named Judith Weston.
8:05And I learned a key insight to character.
8:07She believed that all well-drawn characters
8:10have a spine.
8:12And the idea is that the character has an inner motor,
8:14a dominant, unconscious goal that they're striving for,
8:17an itch that they can't scratch.
8:19She gave a wonderful example of Michael Corleone,
8:21Al Pacino's character in "The Godfather,"
8:23and that probably his spine
8:25was to please his father.
8:27And it's something that always drove all his choices.
8:29Even after his father died,
8:31he was still trying to scratch that itch.
8:35I took to this like a duck to water.
8:38Wall-E's was to find the beauty.
8:41Marlin's, the father in "Finding Nemo,"
8:44was to prevent harm.
8:47And Woody's was to do what was best for his child.
8:50And these spines don't always drive you to make the best choices.
8:53Sometimes you can make some horrible choices with them.
8:56I'm really blessed to be a parent,
8:58and watching my children grow, I really firmly believe
9:01that you're born with a temperament and you're wired a certain way,
9:04and you don't have any say about it,
9:07and there's no changing it.
9:09All you can do is learn to recognize it
9:12and own it.
9:15And some of us are born with temperaments that are positive,
9:17some are negative.
9:19But a major threshold is passed
9:22when you mature enough
9:24to acknowledge what drives you
9:26and to take the wheel and steer it.
9:28As parents, you're always learning who your children are.
9:31They're learning who they are.
9:33And you're still learning who you are.
9:35So we're all learning all the time.
9:38And that's why change is fundamental in story.
9:41If things go static, stories die,
9:43because life is never static.
9:46In 1998,
9:48I had finished writing "Toy Story" and "A Bug's Life"
9:50and I was completely hooked on screenwriting.
9:52So I wanted to become much better at it and learn anything I could.
9:55So I researched everything I possibly could.
9:58And I finally came across this fantastic quote
10:00by a British playwright, William Archer:
10:03"Drama is anticipation
10:05mingled with uncertainty."
10:07It's an incredibly insightful definition.
10:10When you're telling a story,
10:12have you constructed anticipation?
10:14In the short-term, have you made me want to know
10:16what will happen next?
10:18But more importantly,
10:20have you made me want to know
10:22how it will all conclude in the long-term?
10:24Have you constructed honest conflicts
10:26with truth that creates doubt
10:28in what the outcome might be?
10:30An example would be in "Finding Nemo,"
10:32in the short tension, you were always worried,
10:34would Dory's short-term memory
10:36make her forget whatever she was being told by Marlin.
10:38But under that was this global tension
10:40of will we ever find Nemo
10:42in this huge, vast ocean?
10:44In our earliest days at Pixar,
10:46before we truly understood the invisible workings of story,
10:49we were simply a group of guys just going on our gut, going on our instincts.
10:52And it's interesting to see
10:54how that led us places
10:56that were actually pretty good.
10:58You've got to remember that in this time of year,
11:011993,
11:03what was considered a successful animated picture
11:06was "The Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast,"
11:09"Aladdin," "Lion King."
11:11So when we pitched "Toy Story" to Tom Hanks for the first time,
11:14he walked in and he said,
11:16"You don't want me to sing, do you?"
11:18And I thought that epitomized perfectly
11:20what everybody thought animation had to be at the time.
11:23But we really wanted to prove
11:25that you could tell stories completely different in animation.
11:28We didn't have any influence then,
11:30so we had a little secret list of rules
11:32that we kept to ourselves.
11:34And they were: No songs,
11:37no "I want" moment,
11:39no happy village,
11:41no love story.
11:43And the irony is that, in the first year,
11:45our story was not working at all
11:47and Disney was panicking.
11:49So they privately got advice
11:52from a famous lyricist, who I won't name,
11:54and he faxed them some suggestions.
11:56And we got a hold of that fax.
11:58And the fax said,
12:00there should be songs,
12:02there should be an "I want" song,
12:04there should be a happy village song,
12:06there should be a love story
12:08and there should be a villain.
12:10And thank goodness
12:12we were just too young, rebellious and contrarian at the time.
12:15That just gave us more determination
12:18to prove that you could build a better story.
12:20And a year after that, we did conquer it.
12:22And it just went to prove
12:24that storytelling has guidelines,
12:26not hard, fast rules.
12:28Another fundamental thing we learned
12:30was about liking your main character.
12:32And we had naively thought,
12:34well Woody in "Toy Story" has to become selfless at the end,
12:36so you've got to start from someplace.
12:38So let's make him selfish. And this is what you get.
12:41(Voice Over) Woody: What do you think you're doing?
12:43Off the bed.
12:45Hey, off the bed!
12:47Mr. Potato Head: You going to make us, Woody?
12:49Woody: No, he is.
12:51Slinky? Slink ... Slinky!
12:55Get up here and do your job.
12:57Are you deaf?
12:59I said, take care of them.
13:01Slinky: I'm sorry, Woody,
13:03but I have to agree with them.
13:05I don't think what you did was right.
13:07Woody: What? Am I hearing correctly?
13:10You don't think I was right?
13:12Who said your job was to think, Spring Wiener?
13:17AS: So how do you make a selfish character likable?
13:19We realized, you can make him kind,
13:21generous, funny, considerate,
13:23as long as one condition is met for him,
13:25is that he stays the top toy.
13:27And that's what it really is,
13:29is that we all live life conditionally.
13:31We're all willing to play by the rules and follow things along,
13:33as long as certain conditions are met.
13:36After that, all bets are off.
13:38And before I'd even decided to make storytelling my career,
13:41I can now see key things that happened in my youth
13:43that really sort of opened my eyes
13:45to certain things about story.
13:47In 1986, I truly understood the notion
13:50of story having a theme.
13:53And that was the year that they restored and re-released
13:56"Lawrence of Arabia."
13:58And I saw that thing seven times in one month.
14:01I couldn't get enough of it.
14:03I could just tell there was a grand design under it --
14:06in every shot, every scene, every line.
14:08Yet, on the surface it just seemed
14:10to be depicting his historical lineage
14:13of what went on.
14:15Yet, there was something more being said. What exactly was it?
14:17And it wasn't until, on one of my later viewings,
14:19that the veil was lifted
14:21and it was in a scene where he's walked across the Sinai Desert
14:24and he's reached the Suez Canal,
14:26and I suddenly got it.
14:33(Video) Boy: Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!
14:46Cyclist: Who are you?
14:50Who are you?
14:53AS: That was the theme: Who are you?
14:56Here were all these seemingly disparate
14:58events and dialogues
15:00that just were chronologically telling the history of him,
15:03but underneath it was a constant,
15:05a guideline, a road map.
15:07Everything Lawrence did in that movie
15:09was an attempt for him to figure out where his place was in the world.
15:12A strong theme is always running through
15:15a well-told story.
15:18When I was five,
15:20I was introduced to possibly the most major ingredient
15:23that I feel a story should have,
15:26but is rarely invoked.
15:28And this is what my mother took me to when I was five.
15:34(Video) Thumper: Come on. It's all right.
15:37Look.
15:39The water's stiff.
15:45Bambi: Yippee!
15:57Thumper: Some fun,
15:59huh, Bambi?
16:02Come on. Get up.
16:04Like this.
16:24Ha ha. No, no, no.
16:27AS: I walked out of there
16:29wide-eyed with wonder.
16:31And that's what I think the magic ingredient is,
16:33the secret sauce,
16:35is can you invoke wonder.
16:37Wonder is honest, it's completely innocent.
16:39It can't be artificially evoked.
16:41For me, there's no greater ability
16:43than the gift of another human being giving you that feeling --
16:46to hold them still just for a brief moment in their day
16:49and have them surrender to wonder.
16:51When it's tapped, the affirmation of being alive,
16:54it reaches you almost to a cellular level.
16:57And when an artist does that to another artist,
16:59it's like you're compelled to pass it on.
17:01It's like a dormant command
17:03that suddenly is activated in you, like a call to Devil's Tower.
17:06Do unto others what's been done to you.
17:09The best stories infuse wonder.
17:12When I was four years old,
17:14I have a vivid memory
17:16of finding two pinpoint scars on my ankle
17:19and asking my dad what they were.
17:21And he said I had a matching pair like that on my head,
17:23but I couldn't see them because of my hair.
17:25And he explained that when I was born,
17:27I was born premature,
17:29that I came out much too early,
17:32and I wasn't fully baked;
17:34I was very, very sick.
17:36And when the doctor took a look at this yellow kid with black teeth,
17:39he looked straight at my mom and said,
17:41"He's not going to live."
17:44And I was in the hospital for months.
17:47And many blood transfusions later,
17:49I lived,
17:51and that made me special.
17:54I don't know if I really believe that.
17:57I don't know if my parents really believe that,
18:00but I didn't want to prove them wrong.
18:03Whatever I ended up being good at,
18:06I would strive to be worthy of the second chance I was given.
18:10(Video) (Crying)
18:23Marlin: There, there, there.
18:26It's okay, daddy's here.
18:29Daddy's got you.
18:34I promise,
18:36I will never let anything happen to you, Nemo.
18:40AS: And that's the first story lesson I ever learned.
18:44Use what you know. Draw from it.
18:46It doesn't always mean plot or fact.
18:48It means capturing a truth from your experiencing it,
18:51expressing values you personally feel
18:54deep down in your core.
18:56And that's what ultimately led me to speaking to you
18:58here at TEDTalk today.
19:00Thank you.
19:02(Applause)

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of The clues to a great story | Andrew Stanton | TED by TED, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 2,798 words across 415 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

What you can do with it

Use the transcript to take notes, quote the speaker, build a study guide, generate a summary with ChatGPT or Claude via the YouTube Summary tool, or export it as a timed subtitle file with YouTube to SRT. You can also re-open it in the transcriber to choose a caption track available on the video.

Free YouTube transcript tool

YouTube2Text is a free YouTube transcript generator — no signup, no daily limit. Paste any YouTube link and get the full transcript instantly, with timestamps, click-to-jump, caption language selection, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.