How to Make Great Stories

In this Andrew Stanton keynote, the speaker opens with a joke and tells his audience that "story telling is joke telling." The writer of Toy Story, Finding Nemo and Wall-E talks about the importance of good story telling, the ability to connect with ourselves and others through stories.

One of Stanton's focal points is making an audience care, giving them a reason to be emotionally, artistically or aesthetically involved within the story. Part of making the audience care is by making them "work for their food." People are born with a variety of problems and it is the "well organized absence of information that draws" people in. The equation Andrew Stanton uses to describe this two plus two, not four. By presenting people with enough facts so that they may themselves draw out the significant conclusions makes the story an absorbing experience.