Obstacles

now that we've thought about what motivates a character to act in the world let's flip things around and think about things that can stand in their way these can be referred to as obstacles obstacles can be anything a person a great distance or something internal like fear whatever it is an obstacle is something which stands in the way of a character and prevents them from getting what they want or need let's hear again from our story artists so they think about this so the core of storytelling is not only what's your character want and need but then what is standing in their way what's the conflict we have this expression that we create these characters we put them in a tree and we throw rocks at we make their life a little harder Marlon's obstacle would be his fear of the ocean he tells NEMA all the time you stay in the reef it's safe here and so in order to get back to me Mose yes to break everything that he's comfortable with but obstacles that were in Merlin's way from that point onward engineered to force Merlin out of his comfort zone in order to get to his son and reach a place where he could trust his son and Ichi Elliott the boy meets Ichi the alien and he wants ET to stay with him on earth but the obstacle is that ET is an alien he can't stay on earth he can't survive he's dying I think about what's the best way to make this character realize what they need to accomplish here at Pixar when we're creating these stories and making these films we go through iteration after iteration of what this journey could be for this character Pierre plays a part as an obstacle depending on the character a lot of times we try to screw it around our series and not deal with them so if you present a character it's a fear that they have to confront it's a very immediate fight-or-flight scenario that she's created and so it forces your characters your react when you're developing your stories you want to think okay what's the fun external you know what's the car chase what's the villain but more importantly how does that car chase and how does that villain reflect the obstacle inside the character and reflect all of their flaws and their shortcomings so those kinds of obstacles you put in front your characters because it makes them think about their wants and needs one of my favorite examples is from cars McQueen's primary want is to get to California and win the big race but when confronted by the obstacle of being stuck in Radiator Springs having to fix a road what he needs is to slow down enjoy the journey and make friends in the next exercise you'll have a chance to think about the obstacles characters can face and the choices they make in response