Two fun examples of dialogue-less storytelling

Any day is a good day for zombies.

The best day for zombies will be when Left 4 Dead hits the PC. On that day I will be transported to Zombie Heaven.

Ironically, Zombie Heaven is right here on Earth: the Land of the Living. Where the warm-fleshed, juicy-brains-carrying humans are abundant and conveniently packaged into cramped apartment blocks with no exit strategies. Where humans fear the night and zombies do not fear the day. Where humans still believe a zombie holocaust can happen only on screen.

And so, I present for your viewing pleasure two animated short films featuring zombies. The stories have a beginning, middle, and end and are told completely without dialogue.

CHAINSAW MAID

Beyond the wonderful claymation, I love, love the Casio-quality sound effects in this one. And there's a chuckle early on that would feel right at home in any Wallace and Gromit move.

ZOMBIE ZOMBIE - DRIVING THIS ROAD UNTIL DEATH SETS YOU FREE

This delightful riff on Carpenter's The Thing is a music video from indy electro band Zombie Zombie. This is the film you wanted to make on your Super-8 camera back in 1982, but your older sister had already kidnapped your G.I. Joe figures, dressed them in Barbie hotpants, and arranged them at the table with the Troll Dolls and the My Little Ponys for a Sunday tea party. Or did that only happen to Steven Soderbergh?

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Andrew Stanton (PIXAR) - transcript - Keynote, Screenwriting Expo 5 (2006), Understanding Story: or My Journey of Pain

UPDATE, March 2012: New TED 2012 Talk by Andrew Stanton, covering much of the same material recorded here. READABILITY TIP: For easier reading and to prevent eye strain, narrow the width of your browser tab to reflow the text into shorter lines. I recommend a words-per-line count of 12 to 15. As soon as I found it on Google Video, I knew I would have to transcribe it. Here is all of Andrew Stanton's keynote from Screenwriting Expo 5 (2006). He named it: "Understanding Story: or My Journey of Pain." I have not transcribed the Q&A that followed the keynote. Perhaps I will tackle it one day. Not for a while -- this transcription consumed quite a few of my nights, and I'm happy to be done with it. And now that I can look at it from head to toe, I can see it was worth every coffee-fueled keystroke. With Stanton's experiences and lessons to guide us, we cannot fail to become better storytellers. Note: Andrew talks FAST, so this transcript ...

The 4-Act Story Diamond

Update: new version of the 4-Act Story Diamond graphic here . Update 2 (2023): Even more 4-act structure , courtesy of Stan Williams. I don't believe in the three-act screenplay story structure. It's four acts, plain and simple. I said so ten years ago on Jack Stanley's Scrnwrit list, and nothing has changed since. Four acts, no more, no less. I'm sorry those screenwriting gurus sold you on three acts and then five acts and then seven acts or -- what are we up to now? Nine? Twelve? Look, we're all grasping for the magic template that will reign in the chaos and tame our wild stories, so I don't blame you for listening to those guys. The four acts were there all along and the screenwriting gurus knew it, or at least sensed it. Certainly Syd Field knew it, although he failed to make a clean break from the dogmatic Aristotle three-act structure . I swear, if I hear once more that line about "Get your hero up a tree, throw rocks at him, then get him ...

4-Act Story Diamond v2

This model represents the Hero's Journey in four acts. It supplements my old story diamond. Click the image for a larger view. Discussion about the eight plot points is here .

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