The Art of Not Being Boring

Ever had that moment where you're staring at a blank document, three coffees deep, wondering if you can pass off your creative block as "minimalist art"? Trust me, I've been there. As someone who's survived screenwriting boot camp with the legendary Bertram (yes, that's his actual name), I've learned that proper storytelling is about as straightforward as teaching a cat to fetch – theoretically possible, but bound to leave you with some scratches.

Let's get real about storytelling in motion design. You might be thinking, "I've got my fancy transitions, my bouncing circles, and enough After Effects plugins to make Adobe's servers weep – isn't that enough?" Well, my technically gifted friend, not quite. While we're all out here trying to be the next Saul Bass (guilty as charged), I've discovered that the real magic happens when you stop obsessing over fancy transitions and actually learn to tell a story.

Through my journey of embarrassing first drafts and coffee-fueled epiphanies, I've distilled storytelling into three fundamental principles that transformed my work from "things happen in sequence" to "holy cow, people actually care about this."

First up: Your character needs to want something. And when I say want, I mean want it like a toddler eyes that last cookie – with the intensity of a thousand suns. Without desire driving your story, you're basically creating a very expensive screensaver.

But here's where it gets interesting – and this is the part that blew my mind during those late-night writing sessions – your character also needs something they don't even know they need. It's like me and therapy (spoiler alert: I needed it). This creates that delicious dramatic tension where the audience is screaming "JUST HUG IT OUT" while your character's off trying to conquer the world.

The third ingredient? Obstacles. Lots of them. Think of yourself as the universe's bouncer, and your character is trying to get into the most exclusive club in existence. These can be physical barriers, emotional walls, or other characters (because let's face it, people are the worst obstacles of all). The key is to be ruthless. Most writers fail here because they're too nice to their characters – like proud parents at a school play, they want to protect them from harm. But drama needs conflict!

Let me give you a real-world example: my film "Juno & Sensei." On the surface, it looks like just another dance film with some fancy effects. But dig deeper, and you'll find it's actually about an aging dancer whose ego is bigger than his talent. He wants to be the perfect mentor but needs to learn to step aside. Classic want versus need, wrapped in a pretentious art film wrapper. Beautiful!

Here's the real magic: once you've got these story beats sorted – your wants, needs, and all that bouncer business – you've built yourself a proper playground. Now you can go absolutely mental with your visuals, your moments, your transformations, all your creative madness... but it actually means something. It's not just cool stuff happening – it's cool stuff happening for a bloody good reason.

Want to dive deeper into this storytelling malarkey? Grab "Anatomy of Story" by John Truby. It's thicker than my accent and twice as useful. Because at the end of the day, mastering storytelling is like gaining a superpower – except instead of flying or turning invisible, you get the ability to make people care about things that never actually happened.

And isn't that just a bit magical?

P.S. If anyone asks what you learned today, just say "conflict is king" in a posh accent. Works every time.