234 | Why Fairy Tales Are The Foundation For Modern Storytelling (ft. Kelly Younger)

The Screenwriting Life with Meg LeFauve and Lorien McKenna

Meg LeFauve & Lorien McKenna

Tv & Film

4.8 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2025

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

JOIN TSL WORKSHOPS: https://tslworkshops.circle.so To say that Kelly Younger is a fairly tell expert is an understatement. He's built an entire career around his obsession with fairy tale principles, so much so that he's become a coveted story consultant, and a frequent writer for THE MUPPETS universe, with credits on MUPPETS NOW and MUPPETS HAUNTED MANSION. Younger has developed at Amazon, Apple, Hulu, Disney Studios, Paramount Animation, Warner Animation Group, DreamWorks Animation, Disney Originals, and has also consulted at Skydance Animation, in addition to Illumination on both SHREK 5 and PUSS IN BOOTS 2. So why would should we care so much about a centuries-old art form? Today, Kelly breaks it all down.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone, welcome back to the screenwriting life. I'm Meg LaFoofoeuf.
0:08.1	And I'm Lori and McKenna. And today we're excited to welcome industry veteran Kelly Younger
0:12.5	to talk about a timeless and foundational building block of Hollywood storytelling, fairy tales.
0:18.1	In addition to writing Candy Kane Lane, starring Eddie Murphy, he is the co-creator and
0:22.4	co-reator and co-EP of Muppets Now, as well as a co-writer and co-EP on Muppets Haunted Mansion,
0:27.5	a big favorite in my house, which earned four Emmy Noms, one Emmy win, and a PGA win for
0:33.4	outstanding children's programming. Kelly is also a valuable story consultant, especially in animated features, serving as a
0:40.5	four-year member of Disney's Animation Story Trust and a frequent participant in Pixar's Brain
0:45.3	Trust.
0:46.1	He's currently writing a new animated feature for Skydance and is a professor at Loyola, Maramount,
0:50.9	where he teaches a seminar in Fairy Tales.
0:58.5	Welcome to the show, Kelly. Thank you very much. I'm super excited to be here. Well, I'm so excited to dig into your brain and learn all about fairy tales.
1:05.2	But first, we're going to do adventures in screenwriting. We'll let Lorian go first. How was your week, Lorian?
1:12.8	My week was entertaining as always.
1:16.2	But lately as I'm doomscrolling on Instagram, I've been noticing all these astrological
1:21.8	things like Libra comes out of some dark time on November 19th. So I was like, I don't know what any
1:29.7	that means. I don't believe in anything. I believe in everything. So I was like, great,
1:34.2	that'll be my date. November 19th is the date when I come out of the bad times. And so I put
1:39.2	my, I like, well, that was my marker in the sand. And so I've been very focused on finishing this pilot I have to write. And I just finished act one. I'm very excited. That's 15 pages, everybody. 15 pages. So I have a deadline in two weeks that I've given myself and I've let everybody know so I will meet it. But the thing is that I realize I really love this project and I'm having fun writing it and I've let everybody know, so I will meet it. But the thing is that I realize I really love this
2:02.2	project and I'm having fun writing it and I love the characters. And I have an outline, but I'm also
2:09.5	allowing myself to discover the characters in each scene, which is helping me figure out how to move
2:15.4	to the next piece, which is how I used to write.
	...

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