Shadowing Practice: Pixar in a Box: Story Structure - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Hi, I'm Kristen Lester, a story artist here at Pixar.
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Today we're going to talk about story structure, the way we organize and tell our stories.
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But before we begin, Have you guys heard the joke about the mushroom that goes to the discotheque?
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A mushroom walks into a discotheque and he walks up to a lady and he asks her to dance.
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She says, "Ugh, gross, no, you're a mushroom !" So he walks up to another lady and asks her to dance.
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Meh, I'm not interested.
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Lady after lady after lady.
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Rejected, rejected, rejected.
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Nobody wants to dance with him.
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Finally, the mushroom walks over to the bartender and he's so confused.
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He says, "I don't get it.
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Why does nobody want to dance with me?
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I mean, I'm a fun guy." See, this joke has a structure.
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It's got an opening, a buildup in the middle, and an ending, which is, you know, the punchline.
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That structure is a big part of what makes it funny.
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Structure is the answer to the question, what do you want the audience to know and when?
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If you get the order wrong, it can be a real problem.
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Check it out.
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Hey, can I tell you a joke?
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Alright, so there's this fun guy and...
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shoot!
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I messed up the opening!
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Okay...
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Can I tell you a joke?
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Alright, so there's a mushroom who walks into a discotheque, and then there's a bartender there.
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Ah, darn it!
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I messed up the middle!
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Hey, hey, hey, can I tell you a joke?
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Alright, so there's a mushroom who walks into a discotheque and there's a bunch of ladies on the dance floor.
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He asks them to dance and they say yes!
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Dang!
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Without conflict, joke over!
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Ugh!
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See?
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Structure is important.
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Just as structure is a big part of telling a funny joke, it's also essential to making a movie that has the emotional impact you want on your audience.
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Shhh!
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This is a great example!
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"Nemo !" In earlier versions of Finding Nemo, the structure of the story was very different than the final film.
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The director wanted to interweave scenes of Nemo's parents' lives before they had kids as flashbacks throughout the whole movie.
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So you would see them meet, fall in love, and eventually move into their house at the drop -off in little scenes throughout the film.
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"Oh honey, it's..." "It's beautiful !" The main story of Marlin
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and Nemo and their journey was pretty much exactly the way it is now.
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But with the flashback structure, it wasn't until the end of the film that you would find out that Marlin's wife Coral, Coral, look out! and all of her eggs were killed by a barracuda.
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When they showed the movie with this structure, They had one big problem.
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The audiences, well, they didn't like Marlon.
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Looking at their story structure, the team realized that in this version of the film, the audience didn't find out why Marlon was acting this way towards his son until the movie was almost over.
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So, they decided to re -edit the movie and remove almost all of the flashbacks, leaving only the scenes where Coral and Marlon's home is attacked by the Barracuda,
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killing Coral and all of her eggs, except for Nemo.
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They moved these scenes to the beginning of the movie.
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This change in the story structure changed the audience feelings about Marlin a lot.
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They knew right from the beginning how much Marlin had lost and how brave it was for him to go after Nemo.
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and they loved him for it.
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In the case of Finding Nemo, finding the problem was a matter of rearranging the story structure.
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Of course, all our movies are different, and their story structure challenges are too.
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In this lesson, we'll look at the many different ways we think about story structure here at Pixar, and you'll get to try out for yourself different approaches to structuring your story.
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Hmm, I wonder if I told the mushroom jokes and flashbacks.
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It'd be funnier.
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Probably not.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Pixar in a Box: Story Structure”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: structure, joke, mushroom, movie, Nemo. This video has 59 sentences and 682 words to shadow. The speech runs for 3:53. The speaker talks at a natural 176 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 82% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| mushroom noun | /ˈmʌʃˌɹuːm/ | Any of the fleshy fruiting bodies of fungi typically produced above ground on soil or on their food sources (such as decaying wood). |
| egg noun | /ɛɡ/ | An approximately spherical or ellipsoidal body produced by birds, insects, reptiles, and other animals, often housing an embryo within a membrane or shell… |
| bartender noun | /ˈbɑɹˌtɛndɚ/ | One who tends a bar or pub; a person preparing and serving drinks at a bar. |
| confused adjective | /kənˈfjuːzd/ | unable to think clearly or understand |
| lesson noun | /ˈlɛs.ən/ | A section of learning or teaching into which a wider learning content is divided. |
| gross adjective | /ɡɹoʊs/ | remarkably great, big, vast in an often unpleasant way; (of behaviour) Highly or conspicuously offensive. |
| honey noun | /ˈhʌni/ | A sweet, viscous, gold-colored fluid produced from plant nectar by bees, and often consumed by humans. |
| brave adjective | /bɹeɪv/ | Strong in the face of fear; courageous. |
| edit verb | /ˈɛdɪt/ | To change a text, or a document. |
| organize verb | /ˈɔɹɡənaɪz/ | To arrange in working order. |
| darn verb | /dɑɹn/ | To repair by stitching with thread or yarn, particularly by using a needle to construct a weave across a damaged area of fabric. |
| flashback noun | /ˈflæʃ.bæk/ | A dramatic device in which an earlier event is inserted into the normal chronological flow of a narrative. |
| barracuda noun | /ˌbæɹəˈkuːdə/ | Any large marine fish of the genus Sphyraena that have elongated bodies, a projecting lower jaw, displaying prominent fang-shaped teeth, and are aggressive… |
| buildup noun | /ˈbɪldʌp/ | An accumulation; an increase; a gradual development. |
| interweave verb | /ˌɪntəɹˈwiv/ | To combine (things) through weaving. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. |
| mess up verb | To make a mess of; to untidy, disorder, soil, or muss. |
| look out verb | To be vigilant and aware often as an imperative to alert a person to danger. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- He says, "I don't get it.
- Why does nobody want to dance with me?
- Hey, can I tell you a joke?
- Can I tell you a joke?
- Hey, hey, hey, can I tell you a joke?
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 12 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, didn't, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: mushroom /ˈmʌʃˌɹuːm/, flashback /ˈflæʃ.bæk/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like mushroom, egg, bartender.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.