'Toy Story 5' Director Reveals His Writing Secrets (Andrew Stanton Interview)

This episode is presented by Wispr Flow, a tool that turns voice notes into clear writing. I use it every day and recommend it to every writer I know. Try it for free at ref.wisprflow.ai/howiwrite Andrew Stanton was the second animator at Pixar, and he has been working there for 30 years. If you want to know how Pixar runs, this is your guy. He has directed movies like Finding Nemo and WALL-E, and he's the director of Toy Story 5. I had to ask him, "What have you done at Pixar to keep that quality bar so high? It's hit after hit, appealing to both kids and adults. How do you achieve this consistently?" That's what this episode is all about. 00:00:00 Introduction 00:00:34 Don't write down to kids 00:03:50 How to get useful feedback 00:04:52 Writing WALL-E 00:11:53 Make failure feel safe 00:17:09 Pixar's work culture 00:18:53 What makes good dialogue 00:22:02 Lessons from silent films 00:23:48 How WALL-E came to life 00:25:58 Lessons from Steve Jobs 00:28:47 Lessons from John Lasseter 00:30:47 Do all good stories already exist? 00:34:56 How to keep the audience hooked 00:38:51 What makes an ending land 00:40:40 Why wonder matters 00:42:50 The 22 Rules of Storytelling myth 00:43:23 Every story needs change 00:47:40 Just write the bad sentence 00:51:45 Inside Pixar's Brain Trust 00:56:18 The impact of AI in animated movies 00:58:04 Andrew's book recommendations About the host Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible. Follow me Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... YouTube:    / @davidperellchannel   Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2DjMSbo... X: https://x.com/david_perell