I rarely watch a movie without identifying at least one scene that will work as a story. There is always a scene you can adapt for some future date when you are hunting for a story.

Epic – the movie – is all about the story! Or I should say: stories. There are many stories interwoven in this movie. It is based on children’s book author Bill Joyce‘s The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs. Actually the story isn’t even close. There are leaf men…and bugs…but that’s about all the new story has in common with the old one. Bill Joyce won an Oscar last year for the animation put out by his studio Moonbot, located here in my hometown. It makes it easier to live in Shreveport, La. knowing that he lives here too!

Watching the movie in 3D lifted me into a green, growing micro world with blooming flowers and speeding hummingbirds ridden by leaf men and leaf women in tiny saddles. It was fun. Moonbot’s animation team loves to dance with realism enough that fantasy is visceral and sensory.

This little video about our night is my latest attempt to play with digital storytelling. I made it on my iPhone using iMovie over two hours this afternoon. Tell me what you think!

Have a look at the characters, here: