Day 1: Finding Nemo

As a kid, my favorite thing to do was to make up stories. I loved going outside and pretending I was someone completely different, off on an epic adventure across the yard. When I grew up and realized I had to get a career, after a lot of thinking and trying things I've decided I want to be a storyteller. Be that through making movies, writing books, being an artist, whatever. I'll figure that part out later. But first I want to build my storytelling skills. First I need to practice the basics.

I've made it my summer project to read a good screenplay every day from the internet movie script database. I'm also taking a couple classes this summer so I may not have time *every* day, but I'm certainly going to try. The best way to motivate myself is to take the full plunge! So I'm going to blog about each screenplay here, to sort out my thoughts about each one and to make sure I actually do it. If nobody reads this, I don't actually care. It's more for myself than for anyone else.

Here's how this is gonna go down: I'll post the armature (in the best way I can phrase it--often times, the armature is more of an idea than a specific sentence, so I may give several sentences), the seven steps, and my overall thoughts. I likely won't be able to do this every time, because it does actually take a little bit to type up, and life gets in the way sometimes.

So let's get started!

Finding Nemo

Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson, and David Reynolds, 2003

Brian McDonald has highly recommended this movie, and so has the TA of my Story for Animation class. So today I sat down and actually read it. And I gotta say, it really is brilliant. Every single thing that happens is incredibly focused on the armature. Every single scene shows something significant for Marlin, who slowly learns to trust others and let go of his fears, and Nemo, who learns to be brave and take control of his life. It's a beautiful transformation to read through scene-by-scene.

Armature: People cannot protect others forever. Or, parents cannot always be there for their children. Or, a healthy relationship comes from trust.

1) Once upon a time, Marlin the fish was highly protective of his son Nemo due to the rest of his family being killed long ago.

2) And every day, Marlin warned Nemo about the dangers of the ocean and watched over his every move.

3) Until one day, Nemo defies his father and races out to open sea to rebel against him. He gets caught by divers and is taken far away.

4) Because of this, Marlin races after Nemo, but loses him and meets Dory. The two try to search for Nemo but have no direction. Meanwhile, Nemo is placed in a fish tank in Sydney and treated as a brother by the other fish.

5) Because of this, Marlin and Dory eventually find an address and start heading to Sydney to find Nemo, now with a direction. Marlin slowly learns to trust Dory and receives advice from others about good parenting. Meanwhile, Nemo learns bravery by helping the other fish attempt to escape the tank,

6) Until finally, Marlin finds Nemo just after he escapes. The two get caught up in a net again, but this time Marlin trusts Nemo to be brave and tell the others how to escape the net (i.e. by swimming downwards).

7) And ever since that day, Marlin has let his fears go and Nemo has had the space to explore the world on his own.

This is quite the touching story. And one I really connect with, to tell the truth. I love the contrasts between Marlin's parenting style and the others who send their kids off to school on the first day, and then with the chill turtle Crush and his son. Crush's parenting style was the direct opposite of Marlin's, which made it really entertaining to read. 

I think my favorite parts of this screenplay, though, are Marlin's interactions with Dory. Dory is a pretty brilliant tool to completely transform Marlin into someone new: her short-term memory means she's patient, carefree, and flexible. She has nothing to lose, so she does things spontaneously and happily and lets go of worries and rules. She's the opposite of Marlin, but she doesn't get hung up on his attitude because she forgets about it every scene. Marlin finally learns to respect her after her just-go-for-it attitude gets them out of every single dangerous situation they get in, which is actually pretty amazing.

I'll end this post with my favorite bits of armature in the script:

NEMO
Wow. How many times have you tried to get out?

GILL
Aah, I've lost count. Fish aren't meant to be in a box, kid. It does things to 'ya.

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CRUSH
Curl away, my son. Aw, it's awesome, Jellyman. Little dudes are just eggs, leave 'em on the beach to hatch, then coo-coo-ca-choo, they find their way back to the big 'ol blue.

MARLIN
All by themselves?

CRUSH
Yeah.

MARLIN
But-but-but dude, how do you know when they're ready?

CRUSH
Well, you never really know. But when they'll know, you'll know, you know? Ha.

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MARLIN
No. I promised him I'd never let anything happen to him.

DORY
Huh. That's a funny thing to promise.

MARLIN
What?

DORY
Well, you can't never let anything happen to him. Then nothing would ever happen to him.