Empire Podcast - Three Flavours Cornetto Triology special

The Empire podcasts are a wealth of information on film and television development, as well as being delightfully entertaining thanks to the characters in the Empire team. Their knowledge, humour and ability to put almost every actor, director, and writer at ease, always gets the best out of them.

This one here's a Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy special with Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright. Their work is testament to how important finding a writing partner can be to your work. Something magic happens whenever these guys get together, and the two share stories about how they met, how Spaced was developed and produced, and plenty of amusing on-set anecdotes from three of the best British comedies of the last decade. Interesting to hear how, before writing Shaun of the Dead, they read Syd Field's book 'Screenplay' and then would watch their favourite movies and match the story events to Syd Field's paradigm, and were surprised how many fit into the structure.

Andrew Stanton - The Clues to a Great Story

In his TED talk Andrew Stanton divulges what he believes are the keys to telling a great story, from the affirmation of meaning to knowing your punchline, the presentation is full of useful take-home information for all types of aspiring writer. And seeing as this is the man behind the likes of Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo, WALL-E and *ahem* John Carter, you know it's worth listening to.

A few choice quotes include, "Drama is anticipation mingled with uncertainty." This is Stanton quoting William Archer, a British playwright. "Make me care." Stanton explains how important it is for the audience to empathise with characters, and care what happens to them. The most poignant soundbite, however, is when Stanton states that the audience "Want to work for their meal, they just don't want to know they're doing it." This relates to Stanton's unifying theory of giving viewers 2 + 2, not giving them 4, because ultimately viewers want to put things together themselves. This is the essence of dramatic fiction, good writers show, rather than tell. And this is how we have different interpretations of stories, this is where our own imagination comes into play, and why audiences can have such different experiences of the same story.