Storytelling in the Era of AI

Andrew Gordon welcomes you and lays out the roadmap for the entire course, from Pixar's storytelling philosophy to hands-on exercises.

From a kid with a Tandy 1000 to animating at Pixar for 20 years. Andrew shares how a recruiter hired him over everyone else because he was the only person who told a story.

"If it ain't on the page, it ain't on the stage." Andrew unpacks Pixar's most famous mantra and why most studios fail at it.

Every rock thrown challenges a character's belief system and forces transformation. Andrew uses the Joker, Gravity, and CODA to show how obstacles hook an audience.

A Pixar director's golden rule: "Don't give them 4, give them 2+2." Using an example from Moonlight, Andrew shows why trusting your audience makes stories land harder.

Every character needs wants, beliefs, goals, and lessons, and they need to oppose each other. Andrew breaks down the formula using Monsters Inc., Up, The Incredibles, and Cars.

From New Yorker caption contests to Pixar's famous "What if?" pitches, Andrew shows where story ideas really come from, and why your own struggles are often your richest material.

Plot is what happens; theme is what it means. Andrew shows how Robert McKee challenged Pixar's own story team on the theme of Up, and introduces the "story engine" concept.

Inspired by Hemingway's "For sale: baby shoes, never worn," the class writes and critiques their own six-word memoirs. A small exercise that hits surprisingly hard.

The single sentence that captures your story's character, world, conflict, and transformation. In a live workshop, the class sees how one word can turn a boring synopsis into a story everyone wants to see.

Students pitch controlling ideas for films from Point Break to Gladiator, and Andrew coaches them on specificity, repetition, and hooking an audience in one sentence.

From Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey to Nolan's reverse-chronology in Memento, Andrew surveys the major frameworks and focuses on Robert McKee's as the one to know.

Andrew walks through the seven-step story spine using Finding Nemo and Up, showing how "once upon a time" through "since that day" maps to three-act structure.

The class builds a story from scratch in real-time. What begins as a chimp eating bananas turns into a tale of immigration, ambition, and regret.

Andrew closes the course with a challenge: storytelling is like sports or music. You only get better by doing it. Plus a preview of what's coming next.