Today we watched a short animation about a mechanical gorilla who climbs to the top of a tower, fighting off helicopters as he goes and finds a banana attached to a sign at the top. Just before he grabs it he sees a female mechanical gorilla. He picks the banana, holds it out to her, then eats it himself. So the female gorilla punches him off the building.
This was the first event, we constructed two more.
One student used Chekov's "gun on the mantle" principle perfectly in his two events.
"The gun that is placed on the mantle in the first act must be shot in the third act."
In the second event the gorilla is climbing up the tower to apologize to the female, but she takes the sign and hits him back to the ground.
In event three the gorilla makes it to the top of the tower to find the female gorilla being attacked by the helicopters. He jumps in and saves her. They fall in love. Etc.
This student used everything that had been introduced in the first event: the sign and the helicopters. (The banana had already been used.) A perfect application of the "gun on the mantle" principle.
Remember, good storytellers are like Native Americans cleaning buffalo, not a single part should be wasted.
