[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]
Film Courage: What if you were writing a story and it doesn’t have love in it and it doesn’t have death in it?
Is that a story?
Stuart Acher, Filmmaker/Teacher: Yeah.
Hard to invest in that story.
But because love comes in so many forms. Right?
Love is hate.
They say you can’t hate someone unless you love someone.
Film Courage: Yeah, I’ve heard that.
Stu: I remember meeting this forensic pathologist once, crime scenes, murders, terrible stuff.
Story Questions book — Now on Payhip here!
And they said when there’s a crime committed, it’s usually for money or love.
Those are the two reasons.
So whoever loves in the situation or hates, right?
Whoever has an emotional investment or there’s a money investment, those are the suspects.
I think it’s the most human form.
I think that actually translates to what you’re saying, to a good story.
Meaning I do think there’s a story worth telling, there’s a plot worth telling, but not a story worth telling without some sort of emotional investment, whether it’s love or hate or jealousy or something?
I mean, then you’re just having a plot.
How do you intelligently design a story?
It’s my eyes in as I say.
The character, who is your eyes into the story, is always number one.
Who’s that person?
That person should be either polar opposite or reflection or conflicting of that idea of the main thrust of the story so that they’re connected in some way.
But, I guess my process is something that titillates me and makes me go, Hmm.
Then I go, What world is this in?
You develop a world…(Watch the video interview on YouTube here).
About:
Stuart Acher is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker, writer, director and editor whose career spans scripted features, television, documentaries and emerging forms of AI-assisted filmmaking. His work includes the award-winning feature #Stuck, Mantervention, His Fatal Fixation, and directing for the Syfy/Netflix series Z Nation. His early short Bobby Loves Mangos caught the attention of Roger Ebert at Sundance, helping launch Stu’s career and leading to a development deal with DreamWorks.
STU + WHO? brings Stu’s career strangely full circle: a movie begun by two young filmmakers willing to crash the Emmys to get a shot, and finished twenty years later with essentially the same philosophy—use whatever tools you’ve got, find a way through the door, and make the movie. More recently, Stu wrote and directed TCL Studios’ Next Stop Paris, an early generative-AI narrative film built around human performances, and has become an active filmmaker and educator working at the intersection of traditional filmmaking and emerging technology. He teaches AI filmmaking at Emerson College Los Angeles and develops projects through Stupendous Films Inc.
WATCH ‘STU PLUS WHO?’
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