Story Stripdown

The Accountant does something different in that it introduces a new character that's never been seen in a story before, and it does it efficiently in a tightly designed first act. It distills this new character to its essential elements, then layers them in little 90-second scenes to briskly flesh out this enigmatic original character. Find out how they did it, and apply the same concept to your next new character!

Ted is a raunchy R-rated comedy about a man and his foul-mouthed teddy bear getting up to absurd antics, but it's also the story of being stuck in that transition from boy to adult. Themes of Identity and Change are not uncommon in movies, and when done right, can really stick in your audience's mind. This week we look at how Ted tackles these themes, as well as Ghost in the Shell and Far Cry 3.

Halo: Combat Evolved puts together intense FPS action with an atmospheric story... and right smack in the middle of that campaign is a sequence that strips you of your bravado and dumps you into a crazy horror sequence. Tonal shifts in stories can be effective devices to shock the audience and highlight specific scenes, or even completely bait-and-switch a story into an unexpected direction. Let's look at how Halo and movies like From Dusk Till Dawn and Scream do it.

How To Train Your Dragon had a simple, but compelling idea at its heart: dragons make awesome pets. So the entire story is engineered around this key concept, and it's all the better for it.Other movies have good ideas, but dilute them with unnecessary subplots. Let's look at how movies like How To Train Your Dragon and Tokyo Drift keep their ideas pure.

A Goofy Movie was an underrated gem that got swept under the rug and forgotten by Disney fans. This movie serves as a case study for what happens when a good story is packaged for the wrong audience - in this case, a story about teen and parent conflict put into a cartoon that appeals to young children. Let's see where it went wrong, and how you can avoid a similar situation.