Recordings

Build a Storyform in the Storyform Builder and see how structural choices connect across the Four Throughlines. Jim Hull explores Change and Steadfast Main Character Resolve, the relationship between Objective Story and Main Character conflict, and a How to Train Your Dragon example.

Jim Hull and Dramatica co-creator Chris Huntley test spoken story development in Story Guide and Narrova, moving between Plot, Theme, and Dramatica Theory. This early Beta working session shows the conversational workflow and its rough edges.

Tour Story Guide, Narrova, Subtxt, and the Storyform Builder, then see how the Storyforms Gallery and Theme Browser connect Dramatica Theory to practical story development.

How certain do you have to be before you take revenge—and what would it actually resolve?

In Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident, a chance encounter brings former prisoners together around a man they believe tortured them. Chris Huntley, Jim Hull, and the Dramatica Users Group examine how that shared search for certainty connects to Vahid’s personal struggle and the film’s unsettling ending.

The discussion works through the Four Throughlines—Objective Story, Main Character, Influence Character, and Relationship Story—and tests those choices in the Storyform Builder and Theme Browser. It explores Knowledge and Thought, Truth and Evidence, and why achieving the Story Goal can still leave the Main Character’s personal anguish unresolved.

Recorded September 8, 2026. Full-film spoilers, including the ending.

This Introduction to Dramatica lesson explains Character Resolve as the Change or Steadfast dynamic between the Main Character and Influence Character. It distinguishes personal resolve from Objective Story Outcome and shows how both characters can learn while only one changes the essential approach under pressure.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie. Recorded August 11, 2026.

An Introduction to Dramatica lesson explaining Main Character Resolve: whether the Main Character changes their central approach or remains Steadfast.

In this Dramatica Users Group session, we develop a complete analysis of The Ballad of Wallis Island—examining its Storyform, Throughlines, character dynamics, Drivers, Signposts, thematic conflicts, and the tension between fantasy and fact.

Part of the Introduction to Dramatica series. Explains Universe, Physics, Mind, and Psychology as the four broad areas where conflict can arise in a complete story.

This Introduction to Dramatica lesson explains the Relationship Story perspective.

The video shows how the relationship between Main Character and Influence Character creates its own line of conflict and meaning, helping writers keep the bond itself distinct from either person's individual perspective.

Replay available on our YouTube channel.

This Introduction to Dramatica lesson explains the Influence Character perspective.

The video shows how the Influence Character applies pressure to the Main Character by presenting an alternative way of approaching the story's central inequity, helping writers keep influence distinct from opposition, advice, or simple supporting-character behavior.

Replay available on our YouTube channel.

In this Dramatica Users Group session, we work through F1 The Movie and test how the film's racing spectacle organizes into a complete narrative argument.

The conversation follows the Objective Story pressure around competition, team performance, and risk, then looks at how personal drive, mentorship, and second chances shape the larger Storyform. If you joined us live on June 9, 2026, this is the full recording. If you missed it, this is the complete walkthrough.

This Introduction to Dramatica lesson distinguishes the Objective Story from the Main Character perspective.

The video shows why the external conflict everyone can observe is not the same thing as the personal point of view through which the audience experiences the story, helping writers keep Dramatica's structural perspectives clear.

Replay available on our YouTube channel.

This Introduction to Dramatica lesson explains why a complete story needs four distinct Throughlines.

The video introduces Objective Story, Main Character, Influence Character, and Relationship Story as four perspectives on the same central inequity, giving writers a compact way to see why a story can feel incomplete when one perspective is missing or blurred.

Replay available on our YouTube channel.

In this Inside Narrova recording, we look at the Relationship Story Throughline as its own source of dramatic pressure inside the Dramatica Narrative Platform.

The walkthrough focuses on the bond between Main Character and Influence Character, showing how Narrova helps writers keep relationship conflict distinct from personal change, influence, and the larger Objective Story problem.

Replay available on our YouTube channel.

This Introduction to Dramatica lesson separates the Players audiences see from the Perspectives that carry a story's structural meaning.

The video shows why a character's visible role is not always the same thing as the point of view or function they represent inside the Storyform, helping writers avoid flattening Dramatica into character labels alone.

Replay available on our YouTube channel.

In this Inside Narrova recording, we look at how Story Drivers move a plot from one Signpost to the next inside the Dramatica Narrative Platform.

The walkthrough follows an adventure story example through Objective Story Signposts and Driver moments, showing how Narrova helps writers connect structural theory to practical story development.

Replay available on our YouTube channel.

In this Inside Narrova recording, we look at how Players connect to Narrative Functions inside the Dramatica Narrative Platform.

The walkthrough shows how Narrova helps separate visible story participants from the structural functions they carry, so writers can reason about character movement, Objective Story pressure, and the deeper Storyform without flattening everything into plot summary.

Replay available on our YouTube channel.

This Introduction to Dramatica lesson gives new writers a quick orientation to Dramatica as a model of complete story structure.

The video frames Dramatica as a way to understand how plot, character, theme, and emotional meaning work together as one coherent argument.

Replay available on our YouTube channel.

In this Dramatica Users Group session, we work through Thunderbolts* as more than a team-up film. The conversation looks at how the story pressures damaged people into contact with one another, then tests whether that pressure organizes into a complete Storyform.

We track the Throughlines, examine the ensemble's shared crisis, and look at how recovery, identity, and mutual responsibility shape the film's argument. If you joined us live on May 12, 2026, this is the full recording. If you missed it, this is the complete walkthrough.

In this Dramatica Users Group session, we take apart The Secret Agent scene by scene and test how the film’s tensions organize around objective conflict, personal pressure, and the relationships that give the story its shape.

The discussion tracks the Four Throughlines, evaluates the Storyform, and looks closely at how suspicion, responsibility, and competing loyalties drive the narrative forward. If you joined us live on April 14, 2026, this is the full recording. If you missed it, this is the complete walkthrough.

Some films move like a chase. Others move like a reckoning. One Battle After Another keeps asking what happens when political pressure, old loyalties, and unfinished history refuse to stay in the past.

In this Dramatica Users Group session, we work through Paul Thomas Anderson's latest film as more than a conspiracy thriller with art-house texture. The conversation digs into how the story organizes generational fallout, competing allegiances, and the lingering force of prior choices into a narrative argument that feels both expansive and deeply personal.

We look at the Throughlines, test the Storyform, and follow the way consequences echo through every relationship on screen. If you were in the room Tuesday night, this is the recording. If you missed it, this is the full breakdown.

Train Dreams lingers with a life shaped by work, grief, and the long passage of time. In this Dramatica Users Group recording, we follow the film’s patient, episodic movement and ask whether its accumulating losses form a single argument—and where Robert Grainier’s inner experience meets the story’s larger historical pressures.

Rather than treating the film’s quietness as an absence of structure, we map the Four Throughlines, test candidate Storyform choices, and examine how memory, isolation, and a changing landscape do the dramatic work. The session preserves both the strongest readings and the questions that remain.

Beneath its revenge-thriller surface, Man on Fire asks what it costs to become another person’s last line of defense. This Dramatica Users Group recording follows John Creasy’s bond with Pita and the escalating conflict around them, separating the film’s emotional charge from its structural machinery.

We trace the Four Throughlines, examine the pressures created by kidnapping, guilt, trust, and retaliation, and test how the relationship at the heart of the film supports its larger argument. This is the group’s full Dramatica walkthrough.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of Trading Places. Recorded December 9, 2025.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of Prisoners. Recorded November 11, 2025.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of Sinners. Recorded October 14, 2025.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of The Boy and the Heron. Recorded September 7, 2025.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of Companion. Recorded August 12, 2025.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of Wicked. Recorded July 8, 2025.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of The Wild Robot. Recorded June 10, 2025.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of The Holdovers. Recorded May 13, 2025.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of A Complete Unknown. Recorded April 8, 2025.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of The Penguin (Season 1, Episode 4). Recorded February 11, 2025.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of The Long Kiss Goodnight. Recorded January 14, 2025.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of I, Robot. Recorded October 8, 2024.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of The Odd Couple. Recorded September 10, 2024.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of Oldboy. Recorded August 13, 2024.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm. Recorded July 11, 2024.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of Everything Everywhere All At Once. Recorded June 11, 2024.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of Past Lives. Recorded May 14, 2024.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of The Music Man. Recorded April 9, 2024.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. Recorded March 12, 2024.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of Oppenheimer. Recorded February 13, 2024.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of Barbie. Recorded January 9, 2024.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of CODA. Recorded November 8, 2022.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of Space Sweepers. Recorded October 11, 2022.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of Cyrano de Bergerac. Recorded September 13, 2022.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Recorded August 9, 2022.

Dramatica Users Group analysis of The Mitchells vs. The Machines. Recorded June 14, 2022.