Here at D-B Excel, 20 students have been given the opportunity to work alongside some of Pixar’s best to create story reels featuring their original ideas. The course, Story Xperiential, takes place over nine weeks.

Students have the chance to watch livestreams hosted by real people working at Pixar, such as Scott Morse and Esteban Bravo. Morse has worked on a number of movies in the art and animation department.

He has worked on movies such as “Brave,” “Cars 2,” “Turning Red” and “WALL-E.” Bravo worked in the art department for “Spies in Disguise” and directed the award-winning short film, “In a Heartbeat.”

“I think it is a great opportunity to learn how stories are made,” said Micah Lawson, one of the lucky students who is taking the course.

Every week during the live-streams, the hosts get to talk about anything and everything related to what they do working at Pixar.

The students taking the course can ask questions during the livestreams and receive advice on pursuing careers at Pixar in animation and storyboarding, and generally on how to improve their story building.

Every week, the participants are given a different assignment to complete. After submitting their weekly assignments, students will receive feedback from their peers and have the chance to check out other students’ submissions and leave feedback of their own. The first few weeks involve character design and fabricating a setting. The rest of the course consists of creating a plot and building the story. At the end of the course, students will end up with their short stories brought to life via a story reel.

As one of the students who was given the opportunity to participate in this course, I can say it has been extremely informative. It takes you behind the scenes of some of your favorite movies and allows you to see the process of how an idea becomes a film.

No artistic ability is required, as the whole course focuses more on the story-building aspect of filmmaking. Story Xperiential is one of the best ways to get a head start on learning about story building. Not to mention, taking this course would look great on your resume. All in all, Story Xperiential is an amazing opportunity to learn about the different aspects of animated filmmaking.

(As written by Grace Williams, DBE student, for the Kingsport Times News)