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The Pixar Pitch!  Telling your Story Crisply and with Clarity in order to Compel Action

3/25/2013

13 Comments

 
Picture
The latest to explore the Pixar Pitch, is Daniel Pink in his new book "To Sell is Human" (see Book Reviews).  In order to move others, we need to become much better at clearly stating what it is we want and where it is we want people to go. Pink presents the Pixar Pitch as a prime tool in thinking about this. Pixar Animation Studios, starting with Toy Story, is one of the most successful studios in moviemaking history. Pixar has produced 13 feature films that together have grossed $7.6 Billion. Six of these movies have won the Academy Award for best animated film. And the company has amassed a total of 26 Oscars in all. 

How do they do it?

There are probably a number of interrelated reasons, but no one will discount the stories themselves. Pixar story artist, Emma Coats has cracked the code and argues that every Pixar film shares the same narrative DNA – a deep structure of storytelling that involves six sequential sentences:
1. Once upon a time there was …
2. Every day …
3. One day …
4. Because of that …
5. Because of that …
6. Until finally …

Take for example the plot of Finding Nemo. 
1. Once upon a time there was … a widowed fish, named Marlin, who was extremely protective of his only son, Nemo.
2. Every day … Marlin warned Nemo of the ocean’s dangers and implored him not to swim far away.
3. One day … in an act of defiance, Nemo ignores his father’s warnings and swims into the open water.
4. Because of that … he is captured by a diver and ends up in the fish tank of a dentist in Sydney.
5. Because of that … Marlin sets off on a journey to recover Nemo, enlisting the help of other sea creatures along the way.
6. Until finally … Marlin and Nemo find each other, reunite and learn that love depends on trust.

This six-sentence template is both appealing and supple. For it allows pitchers to take advantage of the well-documented persuasive force of stories but within a framework that forces conciseness and discipline.

Now, let’s bring this to a community example where you are seeking to dramatically improve early childhood reading outcomes. 
1. Once upon a time there was … an education crisis haunting our schools and communities across North America.
2. Every day … large percentages of our children were not achieving proficiency in vital literacy skills to the point that some in our community even doubted whether they ever could.
3. One day … we developed a simple and shared definition of what children had to know to be ready for school.
4. Because of that … our early childhood centers and parents became better at helping all children enter kindergarten ready to learn 
5. Because of that … teachers were free to work more on skill development for each individual child.
6. Until finally … every child, irrespective of ethnic or economic circumstance, became a proficient reader by the end of third grade.

The Working Differently communities -- like Erie, PA and Decatur, IL and Shelby, IN and Austin, TX -- have all made transformative progress on K-readiness.  In common, they were able to engage their entire communities (not just those in the early childhood sector) in the story of what is possible for all our children.  They knew intuitively how to give the Pixar Pitch!  You should try it for your collective impact vision.

To be tweeted links to my new posts -- blog, book reviews (both nonfiction and fiction), data or other recommended tools -- either go to Twitter.com and follow me @jcrubicon, or just go to my Home page and click on the Twitter button on the right, just above the tweet stream, and follow me @jcrubicon.
13 Comments
Michael Assad link
7/24/2013 11:41:48 pm

I saw Dan Pink speak in Orlando in May and he was great! I just finished going through the exercise for Agility:

Once upon a time people stopped reading magazines

Every day people would open their smartphones and chat with friends, play games and read news online

One day, a company called Agility launched a solution to help magazines integrate their content into the digital world

Because of that, people had a way to access their favourite magazines anywhere they were on any device!

Because of that magazines started to make up ground that they were losing on print sales and subscriptions

Until finally magazines rekindled and deepened their relationship with their audience by delivering their stories in new and interesting ways, without getting caught up in technology

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Clint Laskowski
10/17/2013 01:55:19 am

An interesting approach I've started to use to practice story telling is to think of a recent movie or TV show I've watched, and then try to tell it to myself as a short one or two minute story (usually while I'm alone, driving for example). Actually it is really a lot of fun and I think it is improving my story telling skills!

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Brent
11/15/2013 12:38:39 am

@Clint, great tip. Will try it out, thanks!

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عون التميمي
1/5/2014 05:34:55 pm

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Alan H Jordan link
10/10/2014 11:52:17 pm

I have been struggling with building a Pixar Pitch for a picture book that I wrote, The Monster on Top of the Bed.

This is what I've come up with after many revisions, but I'm still not happy with it. Suggestions for improvement will be appreciated.

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Suzy, who used to jump up and down on her bed having just a great time. This scared a young critter named Karrit who lived under Suzy's bed. Karrit heard Suzy do all sorts of nice things for people, and he wanted her to be his friend, but Suzy ate strange things like cakes made out of pans (pancakes) and the toes of toemays (tomatoes) and--could it be--he heard her talk about eating something truly horrendous.
One day Suzy told her mother that she was lonely and needed a friend. Because of that Karrit decided to visit Suzy, and Suzy got to meet him. At first Suzy was scared of Karrit. After all, he had red, scaly legs, and a blue nose, but he looked a little scared too. Suzy treated Karrit the way that she would want to be treated if she had gone to his house.
Suzy found out that one of the things that was scaring Karrit was that he didn't understand some English words, which made him wonder if Suzy ate dogs that were hot. Suzy figured out what was confusing Karrit, and was sorry that she had scared him. She went down to the kitchen and showed him a "hotdog" a "tomato" and a "carrot", which sounded a lot like Karrit's name. She made Karrit feel that she liked him, and that she wanted him to be happy. Because of that, the two of them played and got to know each other better. They played until one day they both realized that they didn't have to be afraid of each other, and that it was a mistake for each of them to thing the other was a "monster." Suzy and Karrit became best friends, and neither was afraid of monsters again.

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Alan H Jordan link
10/11/2014 12:41:51 am

Well, I've made a few refinements:

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Suzy, who used to jump up and down on her bed having just a great time. This scared a young critter named Karrit who lived under Suzy’s bed. But, Karrit heard Suzy do all sorts of nice things for people, and he wanted her to be his friend. Still, Suzy ate strange things like cakes made out of pans (pancakes) and the toes of toemays (tomatoes) and—he couldn’t believe it—he heard her talk about eating something truly horrendous.
One day Karrit heard Suzy tell her mother that she was lonely and needed a friend. Because of that Karrit decided to visit Suzy, and Suzy got to meet him. At first Suzy was scared of Karrit. After all, he had red, scaly legs, and a blue nose, but he seemed a little scared too. Suzy treated Karrit the way that she would want to be treated if she had gone to his house.
As they grew to know each other, Suzy found out that Karrit didn’t understand some English words. Suzy figured out what was confusing Karrit, and she was sorry to have scared him. She showed him a hotdog (she didn’t eat dogs that were hot) a tomato (she didn’t eat the toes of matoes) and a carrot (she definitely didn’t eat Karrits).
Suzy made Karrit feel that she liked him, and that she wanted him to be happy. Because of that, the two of them played. They kept getting to know each other better until one day they both realized that they didn’t have to be afraid of each other, and that it was a mistake for each of them to think the other was a “monster.” Suzy and Karrit became best friends, and neither was afraid of monsters again.

I'll probably be tweaking it more. Should you want to see the latest version, visit http://www.Monbed.com

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Stef link
2/9/2018 04:01:05 pm

Thanks this is awesome.

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Bart link
9/27/2018 02:49:49 am

I recently used this as an exercise for an Agile retrospective. team members basically had to write a pixar pitch-structured story, as it would have happened within 3 or 6 months from now. great format to introduce storytelling as a way of retrospection.

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Brian Bittick
11/20/2018 03:07:59 pm

Once upon a time there was a boy named Alexandros Kneomia who was, though he did not know it, from another world.

Every day he enjoyed life with his companions, but struggled with not knowing his past before them or who he really was.

One day he woke from what he thought was a dream but was actually him remembering his past from that other world.

Because of that a visitor from his past comes from that world to bring him back so that he can fulfill his role in saving that world.

Because of that the world he now calls home is thrown into cataclysmic chaos.

Until finally he is forced to leave the world he now calls home in order to save it and his own.

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maya
5/28/2019 10:36:36 am

do your best and makes proud us more

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Margaret Magombo
8/26/2020 01:49:57 pm

Great thing to use the storytelling tool. It wi'll assist me to write great blogs as I continue working with my community on different development projects.

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kashweka kalombo link
9/4/2020 03:43:48 am

This is great.

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Lawrence Bishop link
1/2/2021 12:04:08 pm

Great reading your post

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    Author

    Jay Connor.  In working with over 75 communities in North America, I came to a growing recognition of the need to develop evidence-based tools in order to achieve transformative outcomes in our community systems – most notably education.  This is a driving consideration in my work and in this blog. 

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