IFH 685: Learning Screenwriting Story Structure with John Bucher

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Today on the show, we have storytelling guru John Bucher, who is a renowned strategist, communicator, and cultural mythologist based out of Hollywood, California. Disruptor named him one of the top 25 influencers in Virtual Reality in 2018. “John Bucher is an influencer. He’s one of our most prolific contributors.” — HBO He is the author of six books, including the best-selling Storytelling for Virtual Reality, named by BookAuthority as one of the best storytelling books of all time. John has worked with companies including HBO, DC Comics, The History Channel, A24 Films, and The John Maxwell Leadership Foundation and served as a consultant and writer for numerous film, television, and Virtual Reality projects. Currently, he teaches writing and story courses as part of the Joseph Campbell Writers Room at Studio School in Los Angeles and at the LA Film Studies Center. He has spoken on five continents about using the power of story to reframe how products, individuals, organizations, cultures, and nations are viewed. John is a prolific writer. STORYTELLING FOR VIRTUAL REALITY Storytelling for Virtual Reality serves as a bridge between students of new media and professionals working between the emerging world of VR technology and the art form of classical storytelling. Rather than examining purely the technical, the text focuses on the narrative and how stories can best be structured, created, and then told in virtual immersive spaces. Author John Bucher examines the timeless principles of storytelling and how they are being applied, transformed, and transcended in Virtual Reality. Interviews, conversations, and case studies with both pioneers and innovators in VR storytelling are featured, including industry leaders at LucasFilm, 20th Century Fox, Oculus, Insomniac Games, and Google. A BEST PRACTICE GUIDE TO SEX AND STORYTELLING A great deal of storytelling in film and television involves narratives that include sexual situations and nudity. The increased amount of online and streaming content outlets has, in turn, increased the number of narratives that involve these once-taboo subjects. Often, even though directors and producers desire to handle such issues with professionalism, sets become awkward when producing these scenes. A Best Practice Guide to Sex and Storytelling serves as a helpful tool for guiding creators through these waters. MASTER OF THE CINEMATIC UNIVERSE Master of the Cinematic Universe is a guide to the future of transmedia storytelling. Content creators of every flavor are constantly needing to expand the mediums they can work in. This volume serves as a resource for using the timeless truths of story structure to craft established as well as up-and-coming short-form media formats. STORYTELLING BY THE NUMBERS Storytelling By The Numbers is a collection of essays and articles that John Bucher has written for LA Screenwriter and a variety of other outlets. All are meant to strengthen storytellers and scriptwriters. Bucher examines trends and tropes found in current film and television and uses these examples to demonstrate how and why they work as storytelling devices. Writers from any genre, working with any type of narrative, can find jewels of wisdom and applicable nuggets for their own ideas. The collection also features ten powerful writing prompts to assist writers in creating or developing a script idea from a single character. Enjoy my conversation with John Bucher.