Inside Disney’s Animation Secrets: How Brandon Violette Crafts Stories That Come to Life
Ashley
Yeah, yeah, I think that is a good analogy. So, tell us about what you’re doing over at the Stories Series. You have your Stories Series podcast banner behind us. What is that all about and who is that for?
Brandon Violette
Sure. This, Story Series podcast started about a year ago, almost now. And I got to a point in my career where I felt like I had done enough to speak to the up and coming and mid-level writers, that I had had a variety of experiences where I could give back and I can talk to other people in the industry and put that through my own experience and, and, and kind of impart some of that to, to other people. And I think that that’s really valuable. That’s something I, so in a way it’s documenting my own learning and sharing it with people. So, that it started. So yeah, it started that way. And I have this, this kind of philosophy behind the Story Series where it’s for writers who break the rules. And I think that the rules and advice that you decide to take and the rules and advice that you decide to just throw away are what makes you uniquely you. It goes back to that just point of view and that’s a personal decision. And there’s no one way to do it in this industry. If there was, then there would just be, this is the way to do it, but there’s not. And so, I think having that like rule breaker mindset or just like counter thinking of like, everyone says to do it this way, but maybe I could skip a step. And just all that is, is very helpful. I’ll give you like a quick example of like when I was, and so back to university, I would say, I would send out query letters. So, I would, because I wrote feature specs at the time. I had feature screenplays that I wrote and just trying to get, get out there as a student, get circulated. And I would send query letters out to production companies or managers, whoever. And then I would keep a list, right? So, it’s like send 30 at a time. Here’s, I’m a film student. Here’s my two scripts. I’d love to send you one that kind of template. Right. And I would call to follow up like two weeks later and I would get one of two responses. People would either say, what was on it? And then they would like look me up on a computer and what, and then I would just tell them over the phone, like, oh, well, this is what was on it here with my scripts. And they would either say, oh yes. And that one, or we’re not interested. Or they would say, oh, we respond to every query letter. So, if you haven’t heard from us, you will. And then I started thinking, I don’t even have to send a query letter. I could just call the follow up on a query letter. I never sense. And then they would say, oh, uh, what was on it? And then I would just tell them right there over the phone. And so, I thought that was like a funny way to like, you’re just skipping a step, and you get information faster and you can make way more phone calls than you can mail letters. And so, and then you got to practice, you know, practice pitching over the phone. And so I just thought that’s kind of funny. And like, what else is like that? Where you’re told to do things a certain way. It’s important to do things that way. Just do, you know, follow the rules. But then as you continue on, you’ll find, I don’t need to do that. I don’t need to do that. And so, I just think having that kind of mindset, just as a creative person, it’s kind of baked into all of us. And so, it’s nice to just keep that flame alive, you know, and just kind of do some inventory every once in a while on what you’re doing. And like, maybe I don’t have to do it this way. I could try it this way.
