Breaking the Rules with Pixar: Dean Movshovitz’s Take on Pixar’s Storytelling Success and Narrative Techniques

Hello. Welcome to Tuesday's of more see where we share in insights from great thinkers. I'm Adam Morrissey. Today, I'm thrilled to be joined by Dean Mapshovitz. Dean is a screenwriter and the author of the number one Amazon best selling book, Pixar storytelling, rules for effective storytelling based on Pixar's greatest films. Dean, thanks for coming on the show today. My pleasure. Happy to be here, Adam. I'm excited to have a a conversation on storytelling lessons that are applicable to anyone regardless of how they're telling stories. So I'm curious, what initially got you interested in Pixar enough to write a book on what, we can learn from the way they tell stories? You know, it was kind of by accident. It was very serendipitous, but also in retrospect, it felt kind of years in the making and and something I was working towards without knowing for a very long time. I was living in New York at the time, and I had a very good friend named Norma Rose, and we worked together on these YouTube videos about Pixar, about storytelling in Pixar's movies. And they did pretty well. So we tried to figure out what's next. And eventually, we landed on that I would write a book and sort of start by self by publishing through him with him. I eventually got the rights back to own it fully. But it sort of happened like that. You know, step by step, we tried this one thing. We got good feedback for it. Then we went to a next step, to write the book, which was a pleasure to write. Like, I sat down, watched the movies a million times, cried a million times. It it was a great experience. And and it was only after it started to come out, and I thought about it, then I sort of did some lectures about it or whatever. And it was like, oh, I've been you know, when I started to like movies and film, my mom bought me Syd Field screenplay at eight in in eighth grade. And a neighbor gave me Robert McKee a year after that, and I've been reading screenwriting books and screenwrites screenwriting theories and Roger Ebert. And it was always a passion of mine since I was a kid. And on the flip side of it, I always found myself a bit of an orphan with my cinematic taste because in film school, everyone was very art house y and anti Hollywood and stuff like that. But then I also don't love all of Hollywood. Right? I always wanted, you know, the great action movies or the great franchise stuff or the rom coms or whatever to have a soul and a meaning and a heart to them. And Pixar is the perfect example of that. You know, there are these immensely mainstream movies that everyone can connect to, that everyone likes, but they they don't dumb themselves down. They don't cheat. They offer you some complexity. They talk about meaningful things, challenging things. Right? Pixar makes you cry. Coco makes you call your grandparents. Finding Nemo, I grew up with a single mom who maybe was a bit overprotective at times. And I remember the first time I showed her Finding Nemo, and and and Marlon says, you know, I promise I wouldn't let anything happen to him. And Dory says, well, that's a stupid thing, then nothing will happen to him. And I just hear my mom gasp on the couch in the dark because it because it hit her a certain way. So I think Pixar is really the embodiment of what I think mainstream entertainment or mainstream art should be. Yeah. The founder of Pixar said, when art and technology come together, magical things can happen. Yep. What, what what initially I mean, you I mean, that's so strange to me to hear that, you know, you you hear a lot it's like Steven Pressfield, for instance, will talk about the battle of resistance. Like, the great works, like, somehow are the pain the the hardest and most painstaking. Like, it so it surprises me a little bit that writing this book was easy and enjoyable because it doesn't always seem like do what? It doesn't seem it doesn't always seem like when you hear, like, the what the process looks like for creation. It doesn't always seem like that. So I'm intrigued. It was the gift of ignorance, anonymity, and low expectations. I at the time, you know, I I was sort of very very much starting out. I I didn't think anyone would read it in the beginning. And so I had this freedom. Right? Whenever I sit down to work on a screenplay now or I'm working on a new book now, there's these expectations that you really wanted to sort of live to a certain standard or whatever. And back then, I felt like I had nothing to lose. You know? And there was something very freeing about that. The second it came out, you know, we even I think it's sort of first year, I I issued a newer, better version, better edited version. You know? I I improved on it later. But, that first version that came out was very, very was written from a very free, curious, I'm doing this because it's fun and interesting, and people seem to like the sort of thing I did kind of place that you can't always tap, when you have big expectations from a project you're working on. You you mentioned in the book how, you know, the Pixar's success is boiled down to the decisions they make. If you had to summarize the key elements of their formula, what would it be? So I I'd separate here, process and craft. Right? The process Pixar have is is very unique compared to sort of other studios. They have a very collaborative environment. If you read Creativity Inc at Catmull talks a lot about a culture that allows failure. You can have bad ideas. You can go back to the drawing board. There's a famous story about how Inside Out had fear as the main antagonist in the beginning. And even though they started to animate parts of it, they eventually switched back and and the cost of time and money changed it to make sadness the main antagonist. So they seem to have a very open culture that allows, a plethora of ideas to compete and and to eventually pick the best one and to change course. And that's another key element. Right? They have these meetings at very early steps and and very often throughout. And it's a lot easier to fix problems when you find them early. When you're working on a script, you know, it's easier for me to fix a two page synopsis of a story than a hundred twenty pages of of screenplay. It's also either to find the issues sometimes. And and also you don't fall in love. Like, it's not as written in cement or in stone, in the earlier sort of document. So when you have people checking you, challenging you, discussing you earlier, you have more chances to fix more things with less cost. Emotional cost, time cost, money cost. So that's one part of it. You know, that's the famous brain trust, right, to sort of weigh in on how they develop things. On the craft side, their formula and I don't love the world I don't love the word formula because even Pixar and and we'll get into sort of what defines them. They have almost every one of the rules is violated in one of their movies. Right? One of the core things about Pixar we all know is how much the lead character changes. Right? Woody accepts that Buzz might be a favorite toy or that Woody won't always be Andy's favorite toy. In Toy Story three, he even picks a new owner. Marlin learns to sort of let go a little, let Nemo have a little more fun. But WALL E doesn't change. WALL E is kind of the same throughout. Everyone changes around him. But while he's a protagonist doesn't have that big sort of emotional value arc that we used to think we used to to assume or expect from other Pixar protagonists. So does that make it a lesser movie? Of course not. I think I think they have these Stephen King is a great metaphor for this. He talks about how writing craft and all these writing rules and and all of those things are like tools you have in a toolbox. He talked about it as uncle. And you carry that toolbox with you. And when you need to fix something or make something, you take whichever tools you need. So I like to think of it sort of that way. But if I were to talk about their formula, I would say it's balancing a few very different things that serve very primal needs we have. Right? So on one hand, you have this very big adventure, always. A lot of conflict. Everything's kind of epic. You're immediately rooting for someone, and you get all these exciting moments and suspenseful moments and all the things we know and love. Then and I think this is really something that takes our sort of we take it for granted granted right now, but they always have a really good buddy story. A bonding story, I call it, in the book. You have these two characters who have very good reasons not to like each other. I think that's what they do really well. Because we've seen buddy movies. We've seen it, you know, in cop movies or in rom coms. And it always feels a little contrived or a little surface level. This one goes by the book and this one's wild. But if you think about Woody and Buzz, they really negate each other's identity. Right? Woody is telling Buzz that he's not an astronaut. He's a toy. You can't you can't live with that. Right? You can't hang around with someone who keeps telling you you're not what you are. And on the other hand, Buzz took away, the most important thing in Woody's life. Right? That would be like, you know, it's difficult staying friends with someone who who stole your wife or or whatever or took your job. So it's really these big, big things that you can't just overcome. And the only way they eventually collaborate is through a discovery. Right? It's after Buzz tries to fly and falls, and after Woody is sort of stuck in in Sid's room, and he's like, you know what? He is a better toy. Like, this Andy is right. I won't always be the coolest, biggest toy. And only after they each have this own discovery within themselves can they work together and go do what they need to do and get back to Andy? Which I think, you know, you talked in the beginning about how to to make storytelling applicable to our personal life. And I think sometimes a lot of times we tend to assume our conflict, our problem, our enemies outside, and sometimes there are. There is evil and enemies in the world. But I think a lot of times, there's also some inside work we need to do. Like, often, external conflict is a call to adventure and something that maybe we need to solve within ourselves. The term you used was multilayered storytelling. Adventure Mhmm. Life or death action, interpersonal stories of bonding, and inner struggle. One thing that just clicked for me when you're talking about breaking the rules, I was thinking about the, interpersonal bonding and inside out. In this case, it's not even interpersonal bonding between you two humans. It's the main character and her emotions. Right. Right. My, I have a mentor who talks about this concept of, creating versus making. And the way he draws the distinction is in the creation process, there's an additional element of discernment, and you wait until the fruit is ripe to pick it. So when you were sharing, you know, you have to know the rules. You have to have your toolkit, and then, you you know, that's, like, this the science, I suppose. And then the art portion is knowing which one to apply and when. I think it's one of the one of the most frustrating things about writing, and I think about both, you know, if you're looking at academic or nonfiction writing and you're looking for these insights at which shower or which walk or after reading which book or which biography or watching which movie, you will be you'll get the trigger for that one missing piece that sort of elevates everything. I think there are ways to to give yourself better odds, I think. I think that's the key. And the key is to keep feeding your it it's it's twofold. One is you need to keep feeding yourself with ideas and stories and stuff that are like what you're doing and different from what you're doing and challenge your belief and confirm your belief. But then the flip side of that is clarity. In a fictional story, let's say it's about theme. Right? If you know what you're trying to say, right, or as one of my writer friends like to say, if you know what you want people to argue about in the car on the way home, it makes everything a lot easier. Right? Because you know suddenly you know what's relevant, what's not relevant. What might help you get there and what might might not help you get there. And I think that's another thing PIX Pixar are are really, really good at. Right? They have these crystalizing moments at the end of most of their movies, and and you sort of can go back and see how the entire movie served to get us there. And it's not all you write. You write like a bridge. Right? You start a little bit here and a little bit here and slowly maybe connect the ending and the way there, and then you change here and tweak the ending. But once you find what you want that to be, it's easier to build towards that. Right? If you want to end Toy Story three on Woody realizing they need to find a new owner, there's a way to build towards that. If you know how you wanna end Coco, right, with that heartbreaking moment of in singing to remind you know? And some sometimes there are accidental joyful discoveries, but I think when you're talking about theme, Inside Out is the best example of that. Right? All of Inside Out is about accepting our less pleasant feelings and giving them a room and a stage in our life. And once you know that's what the the movie is about, the story is about, then you know what its climax has to be, and you sort of know what Joy needs to go through to get there. And you can sort of know what needs to happen to Riley to to force everyone to get there. So I think having clarity about the sort of overall goal of what you're trying to make or what you're trying to convey. And this is true for any kind of story, not just a movie, you know, a pitch or whatever. Even when you're sitting with a friend in a bar and they're telling you, you won't believe what happened to me last night or you don't know what happened this weekend, there is usually one thing they're trying to say. And it could be anything from the world is unfair to I'm so cool to whatever. But almost every story, definitely every good story, has some kind of top mission. And the more you as a storyteller, as a creator, as a communicator knows what that is, the easier it is to build towards it and the easier it is to make those discerning decisions you mentioned, on the way there. Yeah. No. You're describing something I think a lot about is I think in any creative expression, whether writing or even in business, one of the key pieces is sitting with the problem for as long as it takes to emerge, which I think is one of the most painful, painstaking things. But to your point, there's some things you can make it do to make it easier on yourself. Have a clear vision. Probably as part of that, like, knowing why you're doing this is another big thing and in using those as a way to make decisions. You know that most good stories revolve around watching a character struggle outside of their comfort zone in Pixar movies, for instance. And it also seems true of the creative process, like, even if we know what we want, you know, life or in this case, the Pixar movies can throw the exact opposite at them. And you talk about the concept of inner struggle. Why do you think these Pixar concepts resonate so much with audiences? Well, I mean, discomfort is is not just essential. I think we all know part of life. No one, if you ask them to describe your life, would say, oh, I was born. I went to school. I went to college. I started a job. I got my job. Married. Died. No one lives life that way. We all know. We've all experienced some kind of struggle, some kind of discomfort along the way. So I think a story without that immediately is false. We we wouldn't believe it. I mean, there are, I'm sure, you know, film buffs in the back, you know, listening can point some exception to this rule sort of like I talked earlier. But usually, especially when you're watching something for entertainment, almost all entertainment, every every sports game is based on conflict. Right? You can define conflict as two people who want different things and are fighting for it. Two different things that can't coexist. Right? Two teams wanna win. They can't both win. Done. So we need that kind of, sports game for some entertainment. But when you're talking about emotional thematic stories, for them to ring true, there has to be discomfort. And I think also on a technical level. Right? Take Ratatouille, and I and I use this example in my book. A rat who wants to be a chef, who's a great cook, that's a beautiful idea. It's a lovely idea. If that rat is just doing it in the sewer for their rat friends, it's it's a short or it's cute or it's fun. Maybe it could be a children's book. You don't have a a story there. Right? When he's trying to do it in a French gourmet restaurant, he's risking some he's risking his life. Right? He's in danger. And he needs to be very, very smart and clever on how to execute it. So you suddenly get scenes, story, conflict, which for a writer crafting a story, it makes your life a lot easier. But I think what Pixar does exceptionally well is they create discomfort that is I I call them tailor made catastrophes. Right? The same bad thing could happen to me and you, and it would affect us very differently. We might not even mind it. Or I mean, obviously, if we're talking about, you know, catastrophes, then everything kind of feels the same. But, some things don't hit us the same way. And Pixar finds really the the discomfort that threatens their lead character's identity the most. In the prologue of Finding Nemo, he says he promises, you know, Nemo, I'll protect you, Nemo. And then he fails at it. Inside out in the beginning, we sort of hear Joyce say, I'm not sure what Sadness does in headquarters, what her job is. Tough luck because now Riley's just gonna be sad after moving to San Francisco, so you better figure it out before everything collapses. So and that's the second part of it. They create discomfort or these tailor made catastrophes that offer both the threat of destruction. They have to be powerful enough to threaten the complete destruction of some part of the character. Example, Joy figures out what is Sadness' role in headquarters, maybe things will be better. Maybe she'll become better at her job. Maybe Riley's life will be better. So you what they do really in a way that's that's exceptional is finding these discomforts that are a threat and an opportunity at the same time. And when you're talking about interchange, the sad part of it is interchange is hard. No one no one likes change. No one likes to grow. Nothing meaningful comes easy. You know, gyms are empty on the second week of January. So if you want for a character to choose to grow, to choose construction, you need to make them very uncomfortable. You need to it's like addicts who, you know, addicts know they have a problem for a while. They don't usually seek help or they often don't seek help until they hit a certain rock bottom. That's what a lot of them say. And and that's it's the same thing that picture does in their movie. They need to hit rock bottom. Right? Joy needs to be in the memory dump about to fade away. Riley's emotions need to have a frozen control panel that's unresponsive for them. You know? You need to push them to the extreme for them to have for them to the smell this part of their personality. Yeah. Do you know there's a a Japanese word? I don't know what the word is in Japanese, but it means crisis and opportunities simultaneously. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. Well If they were to get a tattoo Yeah. That that's it. I would get. When you're describing the Pixar methodology, I think a little bit about Joseph Campbell's hero's journey. In a lot of screenwriting, that's one, like, one of the most famous standards. How does Pixar's model map to the the hero's journey, and where does it differ? I mean, they definitely do owe a lot to Campbell. I think most, commercial stuff owe a lot to Campbell. But it's worth thinking about, you know, if Star Wars was really the big, big Campbell invasion to Hollywood, and Disney adopted a lot of it as well in the early nineties. And I think I don't remember exactly when Vogler, Christopher made his book, which is sort of Joseph Campbell's screenwriters, the hero's the writer's journey. Then the question to me is what exactly Pixar did that movie before that didn't. And I think one of the things interesting about about, Campbell is he he talks a lot about mythology. He takes a lot of it from mythology. And, and that relates to a lot of people ask me what's the difference between Disney and Pixar. And it's kind of the same point, which is if in every story, right, every character exists on a spectrum. On one hand, you have the kind of characters you find in mythologies and fairy tales. Pure archetypes. Right? We don't know a lot about Achilles. Right? We know about his heel. We know he's a great warrior. Hercules, okay, we get a bit of a backstory, you know, with his dad and he's strong. But again, he's not super complex, especially not in the sort of diluted versions of anthologies we have, sort of, in pop culture. If you look at The Lion King, all of Simba's problems, you know, come from being a prince. He's not that further complicated. He's not grounded in reality the way Pixar characters are. So Disney is still like so what Pixar did in the nineties with Toy Story is they just took their characters a notch or two towards the other side of the spectrum. Right? So if here we have archetypes, here we'll have verisimilitude, a character who you can't even pitch him down. You just have a bunch of small details about what they did today and what they bought in the grocery or whatever. And and Pixar just moved a notch or two on that spectrum to give us characters who have a little more of a mundaneness to them, who aren't as strictly defined by their archetype. You know, if you think about Woody, yes, he's a sheriff and he's a leader, but he's a lot of other things too. Right? He's nervous. He's, he has maybe done a bit of a crush. He's jealous of someone. And if Simba's conflicts are, jeez, how do I fight the murderous uncle who killed my father and and get back the kingdom. Woody's conflict is very similar to a a kid whose parents come back home with a younger brother or sister or someone who in an office who just lost a big promotion to someone they don't like. Right? There's something about it that is much more relatable and grounded in our world. And the other part of it, at least with Disney, is Pixar's characters are often adults. Disney's often were were children or teenagers. Pixar's characters are adults. They often are overlooking a kid, whether they're actual parents or or sort of parents stand in, like toys or emotions. And that let us get a lot more into the complexities and sort of deeper emotional factors, deeper conflicts that the adults have that children don't always have. And that is just another level of complexity away from Campbell's sort of mythology level things. And then you get the additional stuff that Pixar uses like the bonding story. Right? Campbell doesn't he has these archetype of characters in me along the way, but there's not that sort of insistence on a psychological bonding story. What they do keep there's two crucial things that they keep, that I think are great deal of what sort of holds everything together. Campbell emphasizes so much how in the end of the journey, the hero comes back and and everyone benefits from it. He comes back with the elixir of life, and almost every Pixar movie has a moment like that. It could be at the end of Monsters Inc, where all the monsters are no longer scary. They're sort of doing these famous comedy gags. It could be at the end of Up where you see sort of, Carl and Russell together, looking cars playing, and suddenly we see a family that we didn't see in the beginning. It's very, very clear in Wall E where everyone comes back to Earth and you see them putting the fan in the ground for the first time. So that's one piece of Campbell, that Pixar haven't just kept kept but really made a defining part of of their stories. And, you know, if you talked earlier about self growth and self change, I really sort of see the five steps in Pixar movies that are also existent in in, in Campbell's stuff, which is a flaw, a problem. For Campbell, it might be famine. Right? He always uses these sort of hunter gatherer examples. But in QuickSort, it could be a widower a widower a widower without meaning in life. Right? And then a call for adventure. That's in fix or speak. That would be the discomfort we mentioned and that opportunity for construction and destruction even if you don't know it yet. A journey. And in the end, you get sort of the, well, I'm moving ahead. In the middle, the whole point of the journey the whole point of every journey, right, is to learn something you didn't know, to get a discovery. Campbell calls it, you know, the enormous cave or meeting the goddess. He has sort of all all these names for it. In picture itself, it is very simply a discovery that often, whether intentionally intentionally or not, happens in a cave or something like a cave. Inside out, Joy sort of finds that memory that makes her see sadness' contribution when they're in the memory dump, which is kinda cavey. In Coco, Miguel realizes that Hector is actually his great great great ancestor when they're literally in a cave. Woody and Buzz learned sort of the moments I mentioned earlier stuck in Sid's room, kind of a cave. So you have that psychology or that sort of undercurrent or or collective subconscious or whatever you wanna call it, even in Pixar movies. But at the most basic level, it's a flaw, a call for adventure that is related to the flaw, a journey that leads you to a discovery. And then in the end, you wanna have a moment of transformation. That's the climax of the interchange we were talking about. And, I mean, a Vogue, Campbell sometimes called it a death and resurrection. Pixar will also usually have a kind of life or death moment around there. But I think more more crucially is is this moment of of deep transformation. And I would say to anyone who wants to tell a story, if you have those five beats, you have most of what you need. Everything around it is more sort of embellishment, conflict, charisma. There's a million, you know, tricks and tips to how to make something more compelling or more interesting. But those five big moments are sort of what creates meaning Yeah. What creates a character arc. What makes, storytelling so meaningful to you? To me, it's it's really you know, we we're with storytelling since we're since we're kids. Right? Fairy tales, the stuff parents tell us when we go to bed, and and we consume now all the time. You know, we have commercials telling us stories to buy things we don't need. We have the news. We have we're surrounded by it all the time, whether you wanna call it locker room talk or a boozy brunch. We are constantly telling each other stories. And I think stories are just like any other diet. You gotta watch what you consume, and you wanna make sure you're consuming stories that have a positive nutritional value. Because every story, like we said, right, we said every story has sort of this top level goal. Every story promotes a value. Everything I had a teacher who said ninety percent of what anyone says is there to prove that they're right. And really, when you said they're right, they're living their life the right way. And if we are not vigilant, then we may take in stories that promote stuff we don't believe in. We may let other people convince us that they're right without challenging them because that is both the charm and the danger of story. The story can wrap up a point of view in a way that's very, very easy to consume. You know, spoonful of sugar, and suddenly you're you're taking in something that you didn't necessarily sign off on on or that if it were put boldly, you wouldn't necessarily agree with. And I'm really fascinated by the idea of how stories and especially if we're talking about Pixar or Disney, stories that define generations. Right? How they affect us? How do they shape a world? How do they shape a person? Go to every family, go to every couple, and and sort of ask them, what are the stories you repeat? What are those sort of core, whether it's fairy tales or stories from your own life? You know, what are the stories you tell on dates to tell people who you are? Right? And think what are you actually saying? What are the actual core values, these stories in these many communities, they're building their life around, their world their worldview around. And and I think that's something we wanna be very careful with and very aware of, because, they might end up defining how we see the world, which ends up defining how we live our lives. Yeah. I had a a guest a year or two ago now probably, is a p was a PhD in mythology. And his comment was we don't live in reality, we live in our stories and the stories we tell ourselves and about the world. So I think it's really powerful to think about those fully and be weary of the things we let in. One thing I think is fascinating I'd be curious to get your input on is just how different cultures tell different stories. Like I in the last couple years I've gotten more into international films and it's been it's been really interesting to see how the French films are you know all about you know, art and but there are a lot of poetry in there, romance. I love the Italian movies, Beauty, interpersonal relationships, the pursuit of meaningful life. I think there's a lot of wonder in there. But then you go and watch something like, Amores Perros, from Mexico, and you're like, man. This stuff is hard. It's challenging. It's street gangs. It's dogfighting. It's back stabbing. I just think it's so fascinating. What do you think about when you think about how different cultures tell stories in different ways? I mean, specifically with film, which is probably what I feel most comfortable talking about because I don't I wouldn't wanna talk about literature or mythology because I just don't know that much about different cultures. With film, some of it is a result of economical models and, mainly that. Like, a a lot of European films, and and in in Israel as well are funded by the government. Not in a, like, propaganda way, just in terms yeah. Yeah. But that's there are film funds that sort of partake, and they're run by, film scholars, filmmakers. And they just think it's important to support the arts, like PBS here, if I get it right. So that gives you a little bit more of a of a freedom because you're not so beholden to making a lot of money or making so much of your money back. Right? So you can experiment a little bit more. And they all have, you know, personal studios and and private equity and all of that stuff as well. But, just having that part of the film industry gives you, the freedom to try these sort of very different things. And sometimes you might get a surprise hit, and sometimes you might flop, and sometimes someone's first movie is you know, they're still finding their voice, and then the next one is a hit. So something about that gives you more of that freedom. I'm not gonna get into a a history lesson, but a lot of the French new wave and the talent sort of neorealism of the fifties and sixties was a response to World War two and a lot of political stuff that happened at the time. And while we're at it, one of the criticisms, I often hear around that sort of three act structure, the Joseph Campbell structure, is there something about it that is very, sort of capitalist? Right? You go getter. You need to change the world. You need to you can do whatever you want. You just need to go on a journey and make a discovery. And And while I don't I see that I don't agree with it fully because I think it's it's just sort of a good mentality to have as a person, but I see their point. I see there there is a point in that. It's sort of there's something very individualistic about that structure. Yeah. And and and I think Pixar does a good job of subverting that a little bit. And and this reminds me, it's a little bit tangent of of what you asked, but I'm gonna go there. So there are two in film theory, they often say, you know, wait. There's two kinds of genres. There is, expulsion genres, where there's a threat to the community and we gotta get rid of it. So horror movies, thrillers, some westerns maybe. And then there are union movies where there's a care in the community and we need to heal it. Family dramas, rom coms, stuff like that. And as you can tell, even from the examples, there is more emotion in the second one. And Pixar have the big often, they might have a villain that you need to quote, unquote expel, but it also make sure to give a lot of real estate to the community building aspects, whether it's the bonding or the, self growth. And I think it's a big part of where their sort of, emotion comes from. So, yeah, with film, I think a lot of it is, financial. I think some of it comes back from the deep sort of wells of mythology everywhere. But I think Campbell's whole premise was that, you know, at the end of and at the end, it's all kind of the same story. Right? That was his whole point, that he sort of and I had a teacher who said every story is the same story, which is a stranger comes to town, which has some truth to it. I think and, you know, if I I was just reading this this week this week about someone saying that they feel like we've gotten such a lot of movies in the past decade or two. Like, we're having more TV and films than ever before, and maybe that's starting to make us jaded. Like, nothing feels as original as before. But I also feel like that's always been the case. We are just kind of telling variations on the same thing. And what differentiated is the cultural context of where it comes from. Then often, the sort of specific point of view of the filmmaker, you know, you mentioned Amor Amor Pareos. Part of that is Inarritu, who has a very clear point of view on the world. So he has a very clear style. Right? You can tell the same you know, take the same story and give it to Tim Burton or or, the Coen brothers. Right? Then you'll get two completely different stories. Yeah. I wanna talk about so many movies right now. One that stands out to to me and just just hearing from your story, are are you a fan of, like, cinema, cinema Paradiso? Yeah. Of course. Yeah. How can you not? I love, I love what the Italian folks do. You were talking about when we were talking about craft earlier, one of the stories I was thinking about, and I too have to read Roger Ebert movies because some of these movies are so great that I don't fully understand what's going on in them. But in, Dolce Vita, for instance, you talk about the the hero's journey. The main character in that movie never gets out. He never he he wants to leave the high society, and he goes through the revolutions of the hero's journey, but he doesn't get out. And if you if you haven't read Ebert's review of that, it's really amazing. What he does is he evaluates his relationship with the main character across three phases of his life. When he was younger than the main character, he thought he was really cool. And when he was about the same age as the main character, he was like, oh, okay. I get it. And when he was older than the main character, he actually has pity for him. So I think it's amazing what films can do and how they change over time based on where we're we bring so much to what we consume. So it's amazing to see how it changes. And then, to to kind of wrap what you're saying, I think was really cool, is a lot of writers give people the heroes they need at a given time or the heroes that they think they need. One of the greatest hat tricks you can do as a as an artist or as a storyteller is and I think stand up comedians also do this a lot. You wanna articulate something that's on the tip of everyone's tongue. Right? I remember when the dark night came out, a big part of its appeal was that it felt like it was about terrorism. You know? It was one of the best, representations of of terrorism online. And I just read a review today of this upcoming movie called Civil War by Alex Garland, which, should be a pretty pretty tough viewing here. And this is very off topic, but people talk a lot about German expressionism in the years before World War two and how sort of the the morality and even the cinematography in those movies sort of gave a voice or gave a visual, representation to what people felt was happening, was brewing under the surface. But you talked about the Dolce Vita, and and it reminded me that one of the three tweaks on the hero's journey is turning it into a tragedy. And really how the definition of a tragedy is someone who doesn't change in time or changes in the wrong way. Right? It's joy. Well, the reason I I have to give that expression is because I think for a lot of people, their biggest fear, and I think in some regards, my biggest fear, if fear is not figuring out what your contribution is, is it in time to make it? You know, my, my one of my mentors says the goal is to learn the lessons with still time to apply them. So I think in many regards, that's, you know, most people's biggest fear. I think one of the beauty of movies is they push things to the extreme. And if I'm now putting on a sort of a a a therapist hat, I would say, in real life, usually, either there's more time or the results aren't as catastrophic. Right? The whole point the whole point of that, discomfort or the tailor made catastrophe is to push characters to a corner. Right? Figure this out or you will lose everything. That's what happens to to characters in Pixar movies often. In real life, usual usually, not for everyone. It's a slightly privileged thing to say. You you usually get more chances like that, And usually, your misconception, right, isn't as catastrophic as it is for Joy or Woody or or or whatever. Usually, it's it's holding you back. You're not reaching your full potential. Right? It's not usually as catastrophic. Yeah. Totally. One would hope. Do you do you have a dream project? My so I have two dream projects that come to mind. One is, the book series I'm working on right now, which I, will keep under wraps. I won't say exactly what it is, but it is about movies. It is about storytelling. It is a a nonfiction book, but it's very different from Pixar storytelling. Like, it's not a textbook. It's it's something else. And the other one is I really wanna do a sort of HBO prestige miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's It. Something more character driven and less horror movie than, the two movies that came out, which were great. I love them, but I love the book so much, and I wanna do something that's more more character has more of the character sort of details and quirks that that are so rich in the book. Awesome, man. Well, Dean, you can that you just couldn't do in a two two feature movies. Yeah. And, yeah, hopefully, you can paint that with a little more color and a little more nuance like the Pixar folks do. You've been really gracious with your time. Before I let you go, I I wanna hear you ended Pixar storytelling with such a powerful story from, Monsters University? If you wouldn't mind, what is that story, and and what can we learn from it? So I I feel like Pixar has two movies that tell the opposite stories. They have Ratatouille and Monsters University. And Ratatouille is about this individual with a dream that everyone's selling and they can't do, and he proves all of them wrong. And he does it because he's excellent at what he do and what he does. And Monsters University has the opposite story. It's about someone who has a big dream, and everyone tells him you can't do it. And in the end, after after he tries everything, he realizes that he can't do it. If you for people who don't remember, it's about Mike Wazowski, who's basically a cute eye voiced by Billy Crystal, who dreams of being a scary monster and to scare kids. And people are telling me, you're just not scary. And I think, you know, we live in a culture that so glamorizes chasing your dream and pursuing your dream and never give up. And and in many ways, that's great because it's very empowering, and it sort of fuels innovation and and artists and creativity. But the dark side of it is that it can make people feel very, very, very bad if they don't achieve their exact dream. And Monsters University is one of the few mainstream, especially family friendly for kids mainstream example they can think about that talk about failure, that talk about not getting your dream. But the beauty of it and why I think it's it's still inspiring and it plays fair, Mike Wazowski, he doesn't solve his problem. He doesn't become a scarer and scares people. He doesn't figure it out. He pivots. And he becomes and the movie becomes the best coach there is, the coach for a scare. Right? Instead of being a football player, he'd be a football coach in one of the top NFL teams. And one of the best in the game, like, in in, you know, in, in entrepreneur terms seem to be, like, an elite performer. And I think that is so inspiring because I think so many people can get so blinded by their dream or what they think their dream should be. And Monsters University tells us very kindly and compellingly that, it may not be what you end up doing, and that's okay. You can use what you learned on your journey. You can use the skills you picked up to become great at something else or to become to have a meaningful life as something else. And when you think about Mike, what he really carries and what carries him through is sort of this can do attitude he has. Right? He's always figuring out the next thing. He's always looking how to do something productive, and he's so driven by his passion for scaring. Just figures out the right way to do it. And it reminds me of a quote that I won't get into the whole context of where it was told, but I was very moved when I heard it, of someone saying, there are many paths to my happiness. And I think that's what Monsters University really tells us. And to be clear, it's not a message about quitting. Mike doesn't quit when they tell him he's not a scare or when he fails with the competition. He only pivots when he realizes beyond any doubt after trying the best he could on his even on his own, that this is not where his future is, and he finds a different way to generate meaning. And I think that is very inspiring and very important and might help take the load off some people's back. Yeah. Beautiful, man. Well, I appreciate you so sharing that story and sharing all the lessons of the the Pixar book. I think that one in in in particular showcases how applicable these lessons are regardless of what you're doing. Absolutely. Okay. Dean, thanks again for coming on the show. For anyone that hasn't looked into it, definitely check out Pixar's storytelling. Dean, what's the best way to keep up with you so we can, follow on on, the new series? I would, sign up to the newsletter on my website, Dean Malzovitz dot com. You can see there about, new articles. You can see there about upcoming courses that are gonna be launched in the next few months. And just keep track of any more announcements or more articles about and stories in general. Great, Dean. We'll have links to that on in the show notes, and thanks again for coming on the show. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Thank you for listening to Tuesdays with Morrissey. That episode was with Dean Mishovitz. Dean is a speaker, facilitator, and the author of the book Pixar Storytelling. What I enjoyed about the episode is just how we can take the Pixar storytelling lessons and apply them to our own lives. Also, how it can impact how we view and watch movies and evaluate stories. If you enjoyed the show, share it with a friend, and I'll see you here next time. Thanks.