Keynote: The Art and Science of Storytelling: How to Shape Your Ideas to Stand Out in the Modern Age of Mass Media and Entertainment
Location
West Reading Room, North
Start Date
27-9-2025 10:30 AM
End Date
27-9-2025 12:00 PM
Description
Stories are as old as time. From the earliest cave paintings to modern movies, human beings have had a desire and a need to tell stories as a way to share experiences and insights and to explore the depths of our psyches. This presentation is for anyone with a story to tell -- whether as a movie, steaming series, novel, video game, anime or any other story form. How do you tell your story so that it rises above all the noise and finds an audience to embrace it? There is no magic formula or secret recipe that guarantees your story will be good (that's a product of talent, skill, and many unmeasurable things), but there is a timeless, tried-and-true mythic structure to storytelling that can help pave the way. It is the foundation upon which all stories are built. Without it your story will crumble, but with it you'll have the potential to build a story that reaches the stars.
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Keynote: The Art and Science of Storytelling: How to Shape Your Ideas to Stand Out in the Modern Age of Mass Media and Entertainment
West Reading Room, North
Stories are as old as time. From the earliest cave paintings to modern movies, human beings have had a desire and a need to tell stories as a way to share experiences and insights and to explore the depths of our psyches. This presentation is for anyone with a story to tell -- whether as a movie, steaming series, novel, video game, anime or any other story form. How do you tell your story so that it rises above all the noise and finds an audience to embrace it? There is no magic formula or secret recipe that guarantees your story will be good (that's a product of talent, skill, and many unmeasurable things), but there is a timeless, tried-and-true mythic structure to storytelling that can help pave the way. It is the foundation upon which all stories are built. Without it your story will crumble, but with it you'll have the potential to build a story that reaches the stars.
Comments
Craig Titley
Craig Titley is a feature film and television writer/producer whose credits include the first live-action Scooby-Doo movie (shared credit with James Gunn), Cheaper by the Dozen, and Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief. He most recently wrote the Ancient Aliens movie in development at Legendary Pictures and a modern adaptation of the classic Quatermain adventure novels. To date his movies and their sequels have earned nearly a billion dollars in worldwide box office receipts.
In television, Titley worked with George Lucas and Lucasfilm Animation, penning episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. He was a writer/producer on the NBC super-hero series The Cape and an Executive Producer and writer on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. He is currently developing a series for NetFlix and the producers of Stranger Things.
Titley is a graduate of Eastern Illinois University (with degrees in both English and Business Management) and spent countless hours in the stacks at Booth Library, which he considered his second home at EIU. He also received his MFA in Film Production from the University of Southern California’s Peter Stark Program, and is currently completing a Ph.D. in Mythological Studies.