Short Films and the Hero’s Journey

Pixar shows it’s possible to adapt the Hero’s Journey in short form storytelling.

In response to a recent post on Joseph Campbell — ”Every myth is psychologically symbolic” — Carlton Bell posted this:

I’m curious. How would you go about incorporating the hero’s journey into a short film? 15 minutes is hardly enough time I think to go through all the stages. I want to make a short film and having all the elements of traditional stories comes off as elusive when making a 15 minute film.

This is an example of how the conversation about the Hero’s Journey has gone off the rails — through no fault of Carlton’s. It’s just that over the years, a kind of belief has settled into screenwriting consciousness that the Hero’s Journey is comprised of 12 “stages” as if this is a mandatory type of thing, even some sort of predetermined paradigm.

It isn’t.

In fact, Joseph Campbell never intended for writers to use the Hero’s Journey as a blueprint for storytelling. Rather he came at it from the other direction: through a lifetime of reading tens of thousands of stories from around the world, he found this organic underlying nature of Story (in fact in his book “The Hero With a Thousand Faces,” Campbell details 17 narrative elements common to the Hero’s Journey).

Like Carl Jung, who was a huge influence on Campbell, he believed in the power of archetypes and how creative expression best derives from an artist’s unconscious self — dreams, fantasies, senses, feelings. Stories which reflect the Hero’s Journey do so organically because they reflect the innate nature of Story which people experience worldwide through their upbringing and the collective unconscious.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s more helpful for writers to think of the Hero’s Journey in terms of the meta take Campbell provides. Three movements:

Separation.
Initiation.
Return.

That not only completely aligns with Three Act Structure, it sets aside this notion which — again — has somehow taken root in Hollywood that we HAVE to use 12 stages in order to qualify as a Hero’s Journey.

This is ESPECIALLY true when it comes to short form storytelling as in the case of Carlton’s question: short movies.

When it comes to short form storytelling, nobody is better than Pixar (in my humble opinion). They produce a short film to accompany each of their feature length movies and that collection of movies (Vol. 1, Vol. 2) offers a wonderful education in storytelling.

Consider their 2016 short film Piper:

This is a classic Hero’s Journey in three movements:

Separation: Piper’s mother compels Piper to leave the comfort of home — where he is fed by his mother — to test out how to feed himself. Like many Hero’s Journey tales, this is a story about a youth transitioning into adulthood.

Initiation: Piper gets wiped out by a wave. His fears and anxieties are now elevated, making it harder for him to move forward. Then a Mentor figure shows up: A sand crab. Curious, Piper follows the crab, then gains ‘wisdom’: Piper can burrow himself into the sand when the wave comes and as a result see the world in a new light, opening up a new way to forage for food.

Return: Piper reconnects with his ‘tribe’ of birds, demonstrating his wisdom in action, embracing his inner sense of confidence as he’s armed with his newfound capability — he doesn’t have to run away from the waves (the tribe’s Old Way of Being, rather he brings back the ‘booty’ of what he’s learned, burrowing into the sand when the waves come). Everybody benefits and Piper is a transformed individual.

All of THAT in 4:15 (before credits).

That is a Hero’s Journey! Separation. Initiation. Return.

So Carlton, it’s not only possible to craft a Hero’s Journey story in 15 minutes, you can do it in 4 minutes!

Free yourself from this rigid notion that we HAVE to structure scripts according to 12 “stages” of the Hero’s Journey or, frankly, ANY other sort of paradigm.

If your story follows three movements as first detailed by Aristotle — Beginning / Middle / End — or articulated in his own way by Campbell — Separation / Initiation / Return — or Hegel — Thesis / Antithesis / Synthesis — or sonata form — Exposition / Development / Recapitulation — or your own computer keyboard — Ctrl / Alt / Delete — then…

You’re probably telling a Hero’s Journey story, even in a short film.