How Pixar Tells Stories That Work for Everyone

Never Write Down to Children

Pixar doesn't create separate content for kids and adults. Instead, they write stories they themselves want to see, blending sophisticated adult cinema (Lawrence of Arabia, Pulp Fiction) with the wonder of childhood entertainment (Sesame Street, Bugs Bunny). Kids are naturally skilled at reading tone, gesture, and body language—they'll understand truthful storytelling without explicit explanation.

Test Screenings Reveal Truth in Silence

Pixar learns more from observing audiences during screenings—watching them laugh, lean forward, and react—than from post-movie Q&As. Parents often worry content is too dark or difficult, but their children consistently disagree. The filmmakers trust behavior over words: 'Tell me what you do, not what you say.'

Every Story Needs a Premise (Theme + Structure)

Inspired by Lajos Egri's 'The Art of Dramatic Writing,' Stanton believes every story should distill into a single sentence: character + conflict + conclusion. For Finding Nemo, it took three years to land on 'Fear denies a good father from being one.' This premise then guides every creative decision—what to keep, what to cut, what to rewrite.

How to build a story premise

Character Spine: The Core of Every Character

Every character has a 'spine'—the fundamental way they're wired that drives all their behavior. Michael Corleone's spine is 'to please his father,' which persists even after his father dies. Wall-E's spine is 'to find beauty.' This spine informs how a character opens a book, gets out of bed, or responds to conflict.

One-Liner Character Essence

Just as stories have premises, characters need one-liner descriptions. Wall-E's is 'irrational love defeats life's programming'—this single phrase captures his essence and guides performance, animation, and dialogue choices.

Screenplay Format as a Storytelling Tool

Screenwriting has strict formatting rules (scene headings, action lines, dialogue), but these can be weaponized. For Wall-E, Stanton broke formatting rules inspired by Walter Hill's Alien script, using left-justified, short lines to control reading rhythm. This forced readers to slow down and savor moments rather than skim to dialogue—mirroring how the film itself should be paced.

Good Dialogue Comes from Fear of Great Actors

Stanton's approach to dialogue: 'Fear of a really good actor saying it out loud.' When you hear Tom Hanks or Ellen DeGeneres perform your words, you instantly know if they ring true to character. Dialogue must feel idiosyncratic to that specific person—their quirks, idioms, and speech patterns.

Writing Is Rewriting (The 7th or 8th Draft Rule)

Stanton rarely gets a premise right on the first, second, or even fifth try. Usually by the seventh or eighth attempt, the right answer emerges. He constantly oscillates between two modes: analyzing what he's written (finding structure and meaning) and jamming freely (playing without overthinking). Both are essential.

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typical drafts before nailing a premise

Stanton's experience with story development

Finish the Sentence: Embrace Bad First Drafts

Stanton's mantra to other writers: 'Just write the bad sentence.' You don't get to the good sentence until you've written the bad one. Pressure is off knowing the first draft will be imperfect. Commit to looking bad at your job for a while—that's how you reach excellence. Waiting for perfection is 'whistling on the steps of Carnegie Hall.'

Silent Films Taught Pixar Economy of Expression

Stanton studied Chaplin and Keaton films extensively while developing Wall-E. Silent cinema proved you can convey sophisticated subject matter with minimal title cards—just gesture, expression, and timing. This inspired confidence that Wall-E could tell a complex love story with almost no dialogue, relying entirely on visual and sonic language.

Animation's Advantage: Refinement Over Spontaneity

Live action captures spontaneous moments—a broken light, a found prop, an actor's improvisation. Animation works in slow motion: separate meetings with lighting, props, and actors; files combined weekly; endless refinement like a word processor. This allows fixes even near release, but sacrifices real-time discovery.

Trade-offs between mediums

Drama = Anticipation + Uncertainty (William Archer)

The best definition of drama: 'anticipation mingled with uncertainty.' Every beat should make the audience wonder what happens next—not through mystery alone, but through how dialogue, action, and pacing pull them forward. The goal is to keep viewers so engaged they never look away.

The Cable Car Metaphor: Staying Clamped

San Francisco cable cars clamp onto a chain moving beneath the street. Storytelling works the same way: there's a chain of engagement running through your story, and your job is to keep the audience clamped to it. If they unclamp—if the story loses momentum—they're lost. The goal is to stay clamped from start to finish.

The Beach Ball Analogy: Where Does Engagement Drop?

Imagine a beach ball thrown into a concert crowd. Everyone watches the ball, not the stage. The moment the ball disappears, people check their watches. Stanton constantly asks of other films: 'When did the beach ball drop? Why did it drop? When should it have appeared?' This is his diagnostic tool for engagement.

Change Is the Umbrella for All Drama

Nothing stays the same—rocks grow moss, characters shift perspective, scenes cut to new locations. Change can be massive (a barracuda attack) or subtle (an eye shift, a pause). The absence of change kills drama. Stanton quotes Egri: 'Even a rock changes.' Constant, purposeful change keeps the cable car clamped.

Stories Already Exist—You Uncover Them

Stanton believes great stories aren't invented; they're discovered. Michelangelo said the statue is already in the marble—he just uncovers it. Stanton uses an archaeological dig metaphor: you choose where to dig (that's your credit), but you have little control over what emerges first. Your job is to dig aggressively, assemble the bones, and be willing to pivot when the skeleton reveals itself to be different than promised.

The Pivotal Nemo Prologue: Trusting the Uncover

For Finding Nemo, the barracuda attack on Nemo's mother was originally scattered throughout the film, dulled down. Lee Unkrich suggested making it the prologue—a dark, intense opening. Stanton resisted ('That's killing Bambi's mom at the top'), but they tried it as a file. It worked: the tragedy gave such empathy to the father that all the complaints about him disappeared. The 'wrong' notes people wanted fixed were actually right.

Pixar's Structural Advantage: Late-Stage Pivots

Most studios lock in a story early and commit. Pixar structures production to allow major story shifts even in the 11th hour. If they discover the 'dinosaur' they've uncovered is a Stegosaurus, not a Tyrannosaurus Rex, they have the 'fortitude and temerity' to shift the entire story to match. This requires both courage and a production pipeline designed for it.

The Perfect Ending Formula (Aristotle)

An ending should be 'surprising in the moment, but inevitable in retrospect.' You don't see it coming, but once it happens, there's no better answer—'Of course it had to be that way.' This balance is extraordinarily difficult. Stanton is more impressed by quiet endings (a pause, a sigh) that resolve inner conflict than by plot twists.

Brain Trust Origins: Five People in a Room

The Brain Trust started as five specific people (John Lasseter, Joe Ranft, Pete Doctor, Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich) who made Toy Story together. When Pixar scaled to make multiple films, they kept meeting as an advisory group—like doctors consulting on each other's patients. The name stuck, but the methodology mattered more than the roster.

Brain Trust Breakdown: Why Small Is Essential

The Brain Trust worked brilliantly with five people—everyone was involved, everyone spoke. Once it grew to 10+, it became a club; people performed, hid, felt judged. Stanton realized it lost its power. He now advises filmmakers to find their own small brain trust: fewer than six people who make you smarter, inspire you to redo your work, and tell you hard truths kindly.

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ideal brain trust size

The tipping point where a group stops working

Constructive Criticism as Inspiration

The goal of a brain trust member isn't to tell someone what they're doing wrong—it's to inspire them to redo their homework. How do you criticize in a way that makes someone want to get up and try again? That's an art in itself. A good brain trust member spots problems but frames them as invitations to solve them better.

Steve Jobs: The Widest Thinker

Stanton describes Jobs as the 'widest, farthest thinker' he's met—always thinking another mountain range beyond where others stop. Jobs had patience for the right answer and would sit in silence, often with hands in Namaste position, until the room reached clarity. He didn't try to do Stanton's job; he protected the filmmakers' autonomy while pushing them further.

John Lasseter: The Natural Entertainer

Lasseter had an instinctive gift for what audiences wanted—a natural-born entertainer with an entertainment filter. Everything he touched became more entertaining, even if broken. The early Pixar brain trust (with Lasseter at the head) collectively had an 'entertainment green thumb'—a superpower that made every project more engaging.

The Beatles Analogy: Write for Yourself

Stanton compares Pixar's approach to the Beatles: they weren't writing pop tunes they thought would sell; they were writing songs they wanted to hear. If they rocked out, audiences rocked out too. This removes the pressure of chasing trends and instead focuses on authentic, high-quality work.

Inspiration Requires Time and Repetition

Stanton doesn't wait for lightning-bolt inspiration. Instead, he captures ideas immediately (iPhone notes, Google Docs) and lets them sit. Ideas that stick—that keep returning days, weeks, or years later—are the ones worth pursuing. He values things that naturally recur over fleeting interests.

Deadlines as Fuel

Stanton needs deadlines to commit. Self-imposed deadlines are harder than external ones, so he uses a trick: promise someone else a delivery date. His sense of duty to others kicks him into gear. This external accountability transforms vague inspiration into concrete work.

The Evolution from Planning to Improvisation

In his 20s and 30s, Stanton needed rigorous planning—books, outlines, cards on walls—to prove he could write. Now, after 30 years, he's moved toward walking into the grocery store without a recipe and grabbing items off the shelf. He has the tools ready if needed, but he's discovered that the challenge itself has shifted from 'Can I do this?' to 'What new way can I discover?'

Wall-E's Genesis: Futility and Loneliness

The Pixar brain trust brainstormed subjects for films. One idea: a robot movie. They imagined the loneliest scenario—a trash compactor robot alone on a planet of garbage, unaware its job is futile. The working title was 'Trash Planet.' The core was personifying futility and loneliness.

Romance as the Solution

When Pete Docter moved on to Monsters Inc., Stanton couldn't stop thinking about the trash planet. He and John Lasseter believed it should be a romance: another robot arrives, they're opposites, conflict emerges. Visually, Wall-E is a box, EVE is a circle—tension in form itself.

Buddy Movies Need Opposing Agendas

Stanton learned from Toy Story that buddy movies require two characters with opposing beliefs or goals. They don't need to be 100% opposite, but conflict is essential—otherwise there's no drama. Wall-E and EVE embody this: his mission is to stay and compact; hers is to find life and return to the ship.

Wonder as the Core of Great Stories

The greatest stories evoke wonder—they make you humble and appreciative of existence itself. Wonder can come from smelling a baby's head or surviving a near-fatal crash. Stanton always seeks to convey wonder through a new perspective, starting as simply as a children's movie about a deer in the forest (Bambi).

Anthropomorphism: The Juice of Connection

Humans instinctively respond to infant babies, puppies, and kittens—we can't help but project emotion onto them. Stanton wanted to capture that 'juice' in film: characters that invite audiences in through their form and expression. Even talking cars in commercials trigger this response when done right.

Stories Must Incorporate the Human Condition

Stanton isn't interested in stories that don't engage with deeper human truths. Even a story about a fish (Finding Nemo) must explore real human turmoil—in this case, parental fear and overprotection. The fantastical setting is just a lens to make the human truth more accessible.

AI as a Tool, Not a Replacement

Stanton sees AI as the latest iteration of automation—like previous technologies, it can free artists to be more artistic. He has no interest in speaking to anything but another person. AI is both impressive and scary, but the real question is whether humans will learn to use it wisely or burn themselves.

Technology Doesn't Matter; Story Does

Ten years ago, you could visualize almost anything your brain imagined—it just cost money. Today, technology is cheaper and faster. But if you don't like what you're seeing, that's not the technology's fault. It's the eye of the beholder (the artist) who decided not to show it. You can't blame the tool anymore.

Foundation Books: Egri and Truby

Stanton recommends two books for aspiring screenwriters: 'The Art of Dramatic Writing' by Lajos Egri (for premise and structure) and 'How Not to Write a Screenplay' by Sam Truby (for formatting and page-turning mechanics). These provide the foundation before moving to content.

Content vs. Telling: Both Matter Equally

After mastering craft, the question becomes: what do you have worth telling? But Stanton has realized that 'the telling is just as important as the content.' How you tell something often matters more than what you're saying. A bad joke told well beats a good joke told poorly.