When studios say “it's about the story!” everyone nods in agreement. But creating a story often remains a mystery for many people in computer animation, VFX, and games, because screenwriting is not their focus. Nevertheless, there is an expectation that everyone working on the project is familiar with: story structure.

This course is for programmers, technical artists, designers, and animators who want to know more about the universal elements of story: plot, characters, and story development. The course emphasizes story elements in context (theme, character, setting, conflict, etc.) and their relationship to classic story structure (setup, inciting incident, rising action, climax, resolution, etc). It analyzes conflict (internal, external, environmental), turning points, cause and effect, archetype vs. stereotypes, inciting incident, and how choice defines character).