Pixar Storytelling
A #1 Amazon Bestseller, Pixar Storytelling is the first book to offer an in-depth analysis of the screenwriting techniques and patterns that make Pixar’s immensely popular films so successful and moving.
"This [Pixar Storytelling] should be in every writer / director / storyteller's library TBH."
- Travon Free, Academy Award Winning Writer and Director

Storytelling workshops
“We wanted a toolkit to make more powerful stories in wildlife documentary. Dean gave us a set of skills to find the heart of each story. The lessons were bespoke, focused, and fun. The whole production team learned and gained from the experience.”
- Peter Fison (Series Producer, BBC Natural History Unit (UK))

keynote - How pixar makes you cry?

A 60-90 minute keynote (including Q & A), going through Pixar’s core storytelling elements (Care, Ordeal, Transformation, Meaning). It is a useful skill-building event for managers, executives, marketers, leaders, and any one wants to become a better storyteller.
Dean Movshovitz
Dean Movshovitz is a screenwriter, speaker, and author, known for his #1 Amazon bestseller Pixar Storytelling: Rules for Effective Storytelling Based on Pixar’s Greatest Films, which has been translated into several languages and is taught on campuses worldwide. You can hire him to speak, enroll in his screenwriting classes, or sign up to his newsletter.
Articles
Does ELEMENTAL have all of Pixar’s classic storytelling Elements?
What is damnation, and why does Pixar include a unique version of it in nearly each of their films?
What do The Searchers, Joker and Young Adult all have in common, and why are we even talking about The Searchers, when Shane is right there and so much better?
The Grapes of Wrath tells the tragedy of a generation through one family. How does it achieve that? And what makes the character of Ma Joad so likeable and moving?
Some of the most memorable films are successful because they managed to flip their genre on its head. THE WILD BUNCH achieved this by attacking the assumed values of the western, creating a western unlike any one before.
How do you create suspense in a film that moves backwards? Nolan’s ingenious solution to that is what makes Memento so fascinating and effective.
The first film (technically last) on the WGA’s best screenplays list teaches us how to make even a Nazi into a sympathetic character, and why getting drunk can cause a lot of suspense.
You might not expect it from a relationship drama, but Baumbach employs a mechanism of Hitchockian suspense at a crucial moment in the story, and it surprisingly, perfectly fits into the story’s overall design and theme.
All Services
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Group Storytelling Workshop
(4-12 Participants). My favorite format. For a team actively working on artistic or corporate storytelling projects, this is the way to go. A half-day or full day of discussion and exploration, where we hone each participant’s project. Together, we will find each project’s essence, and work on how to express it for maximum emotional impact.
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Keynote - How Pixar Makes Us Cry?
A tight 60-90 minutes (including Q & A) going through Pixar’s core storytelling elements (Care, Ordeal, Transformation, Meaning), making them applicable and useful for any discipline, using examples from the Pixar films we all know and love. A useful skill-building event for managers, executives, marketers, leaders, and any one who is passionate about Pixar or wants to be a better storyteller.
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1-on-1 Coaching
Looking for continuing guidance on a project you’re working on? A private storytelling course, just between me and you? Whatever your storytelling needs are, I’m sure we can address them through these 1-on-1 sessions.
We consider betrayal to be a unique kind of sin: treason demands a harsh punishment, and we colloquially abhor those who “stab us in the back”. How does Pixar use betrayal to deepen their protagonist’s emotional arc?