About Time Review & Storytelling (w/ Shannon Burge)

Eli Price (00:00.53)
Hello and welcome to the establishing shot a podcast where we do deep dives and two directors and their filmography's I am your host Eli price and I am starting off this episode solo And it's a it's a special episode. We talked about the sugarland express last week and Next week. We're gonna be talking about jaws But we are taking a little break from our

Spielberg early Spielberg series and I am going to be talking today about a movie that I was asked to review from some of my supporters for the podcast now I do have some Support options if you want to get financially to the podcast. I would love that And you can find out how to do that on establishing shot pod .com one of the perks is

is that if you want to suggest a film that I review on the podcast, that I will do that. And so two of my supporters are my aunts, Renee and Shannon, and Renee, who I call Nene, is pet names for aunts. But she suggested, I think it was actually my cousin that told her to.

Suggest my cousin foster shout out to him suggested about time And so that's what I'm doing today, I'm gonna review about time a quick review of That and I'm actually bringing on my aunt Shannon Later in the episode to talk with me about storytelling so you can listen to this quick review

And stay tuned to that. We actually already recorded it and it's a great discussion. So yeah, stay tuned for that. And yeah, I was kind of glad that they suggested about time. I had never seen it before. So I was like, oh great, a movie I haven't seen. I get to see a new movie. That's always fun. And yeah, so this movie.

Eli Price (02:19.614)
I'm going to try to do, I'm so used to with our typical director episodes. They are very much spoiler talks and doing deep dives. And so I'm going to do my best not to make this too spoilery. So maybe you hear some things, you're like, man, maybe I should check this movie out. If I do have some, if I am going to say something that is a spoiler, a big spoiler,

then I'll try to warn you. But I'm going to try to keep it pretty vague and just kind of talk about generalities of the movie. But yeah, this About Time is a 2013 film directed by Richard Curtis. Richard Curtis is he also directed Love Actually, which is a pretty popular film. And then he's done a good bit of writing too for movies like Notting Hill.

Bridget Jones diary and to kind of bring it full circle He was a co -writer of Spielberg's warhorse. So he has done some work with Spielberg as well So yeah about time by Richard Curtis the the two kind of lead characters are Donal Gleason And yes, I did look up a YouTube video of how to pronounce his name before

Hopping on and it is Donald Gleason. That's how he says it anyways. And his kind of co -star in Rachel McAdams, who if you listen to my best of 2023 episode was one of my favorite performances, kind of supporting actress performances last year in Are You There? God, It's Me, Margaret.

But yeah, it's so you got Donald Gleason, Rachel McAdams, and then you have kind of like a lot of really great names. Tom Hollander, Margot Robbie. You got Vanessa Kirby is in here, a younger Vanessa Kirby. Yeah, so you got some really good names in here as kind of supporting parts. Yeah, so about time.

Eli Price (04:43.422)
is I feel like it's a fairly unique movie in that it kind of does some genre hopping. It kind of is this kind of soft sci -fi kind of feel because you learn very early on that the men in Donald Gleason's character's family, his name is Tim, you learn that the men in his family,

can travel backwards in time to any moment in their own life. And it's kind of like a, I guess, genetic thing for the men in their family. And so that kind of leads into him starting to kind of jump back and try to figure out if I make a different choice, will it take me down? Will it lead to another result in my life? Will it lead to something that I miss? And it seems like a lot of it is him.

kind of feeling out, I wish I would have made this choice. What would have happened if I did? So there's a lot of that going on, but it, it, it kind of takes some genre turns whenever he meets, um, the Rachel McAdams character, Mary. Um, it kind of turns for a while into, um, a bit of a rom -com with, with them to, uh, kind of falling in love.

you get, and as the movie progresses, it kind of turns more melodramatic and even a bit philosophical in the end and in his kind of approach to what Tim has learned throughout the movie. And so, yeah, I really kind of appreciated that it's not the typical time travel movie. It is.

very much kind of soft sci -fi in the sense of like this sci -finess of it isn't upfront and center. It's just kind of, it's more of like a plot point to be able to explore the things or a narrative device rather to explore the things that Richard Curtis is interested in exploring through these characters in their lives.

Eli Price (07:07.294)
And so I appreciated that aspect. I appreciated that it kind of took the risk of kind of doing some genre hopping. But even though if you kind of think about it, you can see those kind of genre hops. When you're experiencing the movie, it doesn't really come across that way. It's not these jarring changes in tone or anything. There's consistency through it. But yeah, so.

I guess I can kind of break it down a little bit. The performances I thought were really good. Donald Gleason and Rachel McAdams actually have surprisingly really good chemistry as the kind of romantic leads. I guess I was a bit surprised by that. It's one of those things where you're like, wow, that couple has great chemistry. I never would have guessed just by looking at them.

So that was really fun. It's always great when your drama rom -com can have characters with good chemistry. Bill Nye as Tim's dad in the movie is really good. He has some great kind of emotional moments with Tim that really, I feel like land, the performances really, really help that land. And then you have some kind of like funny supporting.

parts and a lot of the supporting parts are mostly just there for laughs, which is fine. I did enjoy the laughs that they brought. And so you really spend a lot of time with Donald Gleason's Tim. And so let's kind of talk about, I guess, like the filmmaking a bit. I would say.

Richard Curtis is one of those directors that doesn't necessarily like stand out as like, wow, the director is really doing something here kind of thing. He more is kind of out of the way. He he shoots very.

Eli Price (09:18.11)
I guess I would say it's very like, um, it's just not in your face directing and it's not also not, it doesn't feel like super calculated. He it's, it's like, he, he does exactly what needs to be done without getting in the way of the, the story being told or the performances. Um, it's very kind of just middle of the road, typical.

shots. And like, there are a few kind of moments that stand out. There's one moment where Tim has missed, he's kind of changed a decision he made. And he realizes he's missed out on meeting Mary and it kind of switches to this handheld camera.

feel, I don't know if he's actually using handheld, but it kind of has that shaky feel kind of like, you know, going backwards as Tim's walking down the street to kind of give that feeling of uneasiness. So there are some like little flares and decisions that he makes where you can kind of see, oh, he's making this choice as a director to kind of give you this feeling. But I would say those are few and far between.

And with a movie like this, that's probably for the best because it is the characters and the narrative that are really drawing you in. And not quite as much like the camera. You know, we've been talking about Steven Spielberg and, you know, he just has all sorts of like very interesting camera moves and that sort of thing that you notice and that really like add to the narrative.

This is a, this is just a sort of story that doesn't necessarily call for that, you know, and I don't think it's a flaw of the film that it's very like typical shooting, but, um, it, it definitely, it could be a flaw if it was bad and it's not bad. It's, it's well shot. Um, as far as the, the narrative goes or, or the plot, I guess you could say, I, I kind of enjoyed.

Eli Price (11:40.222)
The time travel -ness of it, I would say if there's anything that kind of holds me back from like being all in on the movie, it's maybe some of the choices that the narrative makes as far as it goes with Tim and Mary's relationship. You kind of see, you know, it's fairly early in the movie.

He meets Mary and then he kind of goes through these series of going back to try to, he, he learns more about her. He misses out on that initial meeting because he goes back and makes a different decision. This is a little spoilery, but you know, it's, it's pretty early on in the movie and he, he kind of does this like groundhog day ish kind of thing where he's learning.

things about her so that he can use it to reconnect with her and get back to that first connection they have that he ended up missing out on. And I don't know, there is that kind of thing in the back of your head the rest of the movie where you're like, oh, he's just never gonna tell her that their whole relationship is.

built on a series of lies. And there were a few times where I was thinking about that. And it is a little bit manipulative. And it doesn't so much explore the kind of selfishness in that with Tim. And I'll say this. That's a little quibble.

I think the movie might've been a lot better if it would've dealt a little bit with that. But to me, it ends up being a small quibble in the end. And the reason is because, for one, you do feel a true connection between Tim and Mary in that first meeting before he goes back and messes it up because he ends up being somewhere else at that time. And so, for one, you do have that sense of like,

Eli Price (14:05.438)
Okay, he really did have a connection with this person. He's not just like manipulating this person into liking him. He knows that she will like him. So there is that aspect. It doesn't necessarily excuse like the creepiness of pretending to be interested in things you're not. But it does like, it does allow you to move on quickly from those thoughts as you're watching. And, uh,

and they really do have good chemistry, so that helps too. But yeah, it doesn't explore the consequences of that, but it...

Again, it's a small global and another reason being, um, you know, it really moves on to it. It's just kind of interested in different things in it, in different, um, aspects of what these choices mean for Tim. Um, and so I don't know, like there's only so much you can cover in one movie and this movie is, uh, not.

not so much interested in that aspect of time travel, of those sorts of consequences, of the way those particular sci -fi time travel choices affect a relationship. It's just not as much interested in those aspects. And so because it's not, when you're actually watching the movie, you don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about that. Like I said, it occurred to me once or twice, but...

I moved on pretty quick as a viewer because it was moving in a different direction than that. Now, one of the things that I really loved about this movie, and I guess I'll kind of wrap up with this because to really get into a lot of it, I would have to kind of spoil where it goes.

Eli Price (16:16.126)
It does go in a direction and it does have some kind of moments where you're like, oh no, is he going to go back and do this? And this is going to change. And there are, there are some, the rules are pretty like loose through the movie. It's like, you can only go backwards in your timeline. Um, but I guess you can jump back to where you were when you went backwards is kind of a weird, I don't know. It does.

Like the mechanics of it don't make sense. I did see a review on Letterboxd. I think it was Elijah Davidson who has been a guest on the podcast. He said that this movie is not called about time travel. It's called about time. And that's what it's interested in. It's not really interested in the mechanics of time travel and following hard, fast rules. And I'm totally okay with that.

But yeah, it moves in a direction where you really do start exploring what time is and what time means and what the choices you make, what consequences the choices you have that the choices you make have. I got a little twisted there. And and to like. One of the things I really love is Tim, as you go through the movie really matures in.

being more and more okay with living with the choices he makes. And yeah, as you go through, it deals with that, with that maturing in life and it deals with how to deal with grief. It kind of goes through, I don't know, it ends up in a place without trying to not give so much away where...

You walk away from the film just wanting to go give everyone you love a hug because every moment is special in its own way. The hard moments, the great moments, the sad moments, they're all special in their own way. And this is one of those films that really drives that home. And I am a sucker for...

Eli Price (18:38.942)
a movie that makes you appreciate the mundane everyday parts of life. A movie, the Pixar movie Soul a few years ago did that and it's one of my favorite Pixar movies. I'm just a sucker for exploring that aspect of life, I guess, in a movie. But yeah, so I would definitely recommend this movie.

Um, I think I ended up giving it four out of five stars. So, um, really enjoyed it even with, uh, the quibbles that I talked about. Um, it's still really, really enjoyed it. It, um, it made me laugh a good bit. It, uh, it brought me to tears. It made me, um, I watched it with my wife and, um, you know, it, it just made me appreciate her and my kids and, um, and my family and my friends.

And so, yeah, it's a really good movie. I definitely recommend it. And yeah, I appreciate my aunts for recommending this movie. And again, if you want to recommend a movie for me to review, then you can support the podcast and I'll be happy to review a movie of your choice. But yeah, I think that's it for about time.

Go watch it. I I don't think it's streaming necessarily anywhere. You can rent it on the typical VOD platforms And I actually you can probably see it if you're watching on YouTube right here over my head You can see the barcode going across Rachel McAdams face because I checked it out at the library, which I always recommend Taking advantage of your local public library

for those sorts of things. But yeah, that is all I have for about time.

Eli Price (00:03.135)
Hi, we just finished, well, I just finished talking about about time and I have our guest with me today and it is a very special guest. It's my aunt. Her name is Shannon Burge, but I have since I was very little called her sissy. So that's what I call her. But yeah, but.

shannon (00:29.549)
Okay.

Eli Price (00:30.399)
For everyone else, she is Shannon. But yeah, I have her on today. We're gonna talk a little bit about storytelling. I think with just thinking about films, I mean, that's a huge part of the medium is telling stories, whether that's through the narrative or through the visuals and the sound.

all those aspects. But I will let her tell a little bit about herself and why maybe we'll get into why she's on with me to talk about storytelling. So yeah, why don't you tell everyone a little bit just whatever you want about yourself.

shannon (01:19.691)
I will. Lots of love for Eli because this is out of my comfort zone. But he is my nephew and he was my first niece or nephew and he gave me the name Sissy that all the rest of them do call me. So it's a sweet little name for me from him. So he may accidentally call me that during this segment, but I am Shannon Burge. I'm a media specialist in an elementary school and I

Eli Price (01:25.471)
You

shannon (01:49.195)
consider it to be the greatest job in the elementary school. I tell the students that every year that I get the, have the best job in the whole school. So like he said, it does tag along with movies because it involves all kinds of storytelling. Obviously that's the reason for movies, but about time is what he asked if I wanted to join with him today. And I said, no way, because I sobbed uncontrollably when I watched that movie.

And I tried to get my family to watch it with me and cry with me and they did not have the same feelings that I had about it. That one just, it really got me.

Eli Price (02:28.383)
Yeah, yeah, it um, I definitely had a few tears. I didn't sob. I have sobbed before watching the movie, but I did have some tears for this one. And yeah, you so I think I meant probably mentioned in the last segment, but my two aunts, Shannon, who I call sissy and then Renee, who I call nae nae.

because they both have kind of pet names. They are my supporters, two of my supporters from my podcast. And so they got to pick a film for me to review. So I'm actually really glad they picked that one because it was really good. But...

shannon (03:15.001)
I think Renee picked it and then she did not join in on the podcast.

Eli Price (03:18.591)
Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah, well, you can take that up with her. But yeah, so I wanted to ask just a few questions, just about, since you spend so much time thinking about stories, and especially in thinking about why stories are important for kids in particular. But yeah, so what...

shannon (03:26.377)
I'm going to go ahead and close the video.

Eli Price (03:48.191)
What does being a media specialist kind of involve and why is storytelling so kind of wrapped up in that?

shannon (03:57.704)
So depending on the level that you are at would also kind of be indicative of how much you do with different types of storytelling, like in an elementary school as opposed to a high school. So again, it's the greatest job at the greatest level because I get to be very involved in storytelling with students and I get to curate a lot of, curate all the books in our library, all the,

audiobooks, the print books, the digital books, if we have any movies, which you know that's kind of going a different way by streaming movies and all like that. So I curate all that to be part of the overall storytelling aspect of the library or the media center would have in the school.

Eli Price (04:53.439)
Yeah. So what, when you're, I guess, like, obviously I knew that that's why I brought you on, but what, what is it about? I guess, like when you go through and are kind of curating that, what do you, what do you look for? I'm just curious. I probably would have asked you this outside of the podcast because never really thought about it before, but what, what, and I guess what, like,

shannon (05:17.126)
Okay.

Eli Price (05:23.177)
influences do you take in when you're like thinking about what do we include? What books or what other sorts of media do we include?

shannon (05:31.11)
Mm -hmm.

Well, for a good story, I mean, I'll just tell you some aspects of a good story, first of all. And of course, you know, a well -developed character is going to be, you know, right there at the top because if the character is not well -developed, you're just not going to relate to the character and you're not going to fall in love with the character and feel like you're in that, you're either that character or right alongside that character because that's part of storytelling is that you want the audience to believe.

Eli Price (05:40.935)
Okay.

Eli Price (05:46.151)
Mm -hmm.

shannon (06:03.173)
in that character a good plot. Of course, you want it to have that good beginning, middle, and ending. You want it to have that climax. You want people sitting on the edge of their seat wanting more. I think that a theme or a message is very important to a story. Have a good moral to a story. That's a lot of storytelling that you want to do. You know, I consider like,

Eli Price (06:05.265)
you

shannon (06:33.348)
Aside from the, you know, we have almost 20 ,000 books in our library, aside from choosing those books, when I'm choosing books from those 20 ,000 that I'm going to read aloud, because I read aloud to my students every time they come to the library, when I'm choosing the book that I want to read aloud, that theme, that moral to the story is very important to me. What's going on that month would make me want to choose certain books.

And of course, you know, also like how the story ends. Also, you know, did you finish your book and go, why? I did not like that at all. Why did it end that way? And you know, sometimes you do that, but so a satisfying resolution to a story is also a good component to good storytelling. So that's some things to me that make a story really well developed. And...

Eli Price (07:30.143)
you

shannon (07:32.557)
intriguing makes me maybe want to read that aloud to my students. I guess that's really, I don't know if you want that kind of answer or if you're wanting something more about why we choose the books we choose in the library, which is to me separate from what makes a good story.

Eli Price (07:48.027)
Yeah, no, no, that was good. Cause I think that really kind of answers pre answers the next question I had about storytelling. And I'm sure that like, is a.

Eli Price (08:09.247)
The printer just started printing all of a sudden and I don't know why.

Eli Price (08:19.007)
It's printing stuff I tried to print yesterday but it wasn't connecting and now it's decided to print.

shannon (08:24.354)
Hehehehehe

Eli Price (08:27.615)
Uh, well, okay. No, it finished. I was thinking at first that Robin had printed something and I was like, why she wouldn't know. She wouldn't do that. She knows that I'm in here, but I looked at it as stuff I tried to print yesterday. Um, but that's fine. I'll just, I can edit all this out. Um, okay. I'm going to start back.

shannon (08:29.41)
Did it turn off?

Oh.

Eli Price (08:56.927)
No, that, I mean, that's really kind of going ahead to the next question I had, which was what makes a good story. And I'm sure that really has a lot to do with the books you do choose is, um, you know, just kind of like, I'm guessing with that many books, you obviously don't read all of them, but you probably take into account, Oh, this author will get all the books by this author or, um, yeah, series or.

shannon (09:03.795)
Thank you.

shannon (09:08.065)
Yeah.

shannon (09:21.227)
Finish your series.

Eli Price (09:25.145)
recommendations probably from other media specialists and.

shannon (09:26.4)
We have professional journals that we can read reviews about them. So yeah, we consult all those things.

Eli Price (09:32.573)
Yeah.

Yeah, really, that's really cool. Yeah. And really like that's, um, that's probably something that like you do like that's something I do with movies as I like take in, I listened to like other podcasts and I, you know, read certain critics and stuff and they make lists that they recommend. And so you kind of like, you kind of do this, a similar thing. You can do a similar thing with movies. Um,

shannon (10:04.224)
sure.

Eli Price (10:04.639)
for yourself. But yeah, I don't know how many movies y 'all are watching in the library. Probably not a lot. Maybe, I guess y 'all probably do every once in a while. I remember when I was in elementary school, I think we watched something once in the classroom of the library.

shannon (10:25.023)
There's a few times that it calls for it, but again, you know, and it used to come from the library where we've put the VHS and the VHS player and all that, but we still have the VHS player. So, and DVD players in there, but they're just not used as often anymore in the library or in my classroom.

Eli Price (10:33.887)
Yeah.

Eli Price (10:43.197)
Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, reading out loud. Reading out loud is what you want to do in the library anyway. So.

shannon (10:51.87)
Well, the library, we don't really don't play them, but we have the control for them to play into the classroom. Yeah, so that's more what I was meaning. They're just not even used that often in the classroom anymore. Maybe just, right.

Eli Price (11:00.511)
Right, okay, yeah, that makes sense.

Eli Price (11:07.423)
Yeah, I probably just not much time for it. Yeah. I guess like building off of that, what, because I'm sure a lot of the audience either has kids or, you know, we'll have kids one day. What do you find that kids look for in stories?

shannon (11:25.502)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (11:33.055)
Is it basically the same thing you already laid out or are there things you've noticed that kids gravitate towards?

shannon (11:39.709)
I think probably in their subconscious they are looking for those things that I just laid out. They just don't realize it. They don't name it those things necessarily yet. I mean given an assignment what's the theme of the book they'll go look for the theme them but just to say oh I'm gonna go get a book that has a theme about friendship they don't necessarily do that. But I mean a huge

Eli Price (11:45.407)
Mm.

shannon (12:04.986)
huge market right now in elementary and middle and even high schoolers is graphic novels. So when you say what do they look for? Well, I'll tell you exactly where they go first in our library is to our graphic novel section. So they are looking for, of course, at a young age, the pictures because the pictures tell the story to we have a number of books that are wordless picture books that.

Eli Price (12:26.749)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (12:33.439)
Yeah.

shannon (12:34.639)
you know, the pictures telling the story. So similar to a movie, you're getting that picture that's telling the story. So the pictures, I think they're probably, and then once they graduate past that picture storytelling, they're going to go more for, of course, when a child moves on from picture books, they get real excited. They come in and I'm reading chapter books now. So it's always fun to watch them move from one to the other. And of course, then I go into saying picture books are for everybody.

Eli Price (12:37.311)
Mm -hmm. Right.

shannon (13:04.219)
They're on every level. But they do like, then they like are looking for certain, children are looking for certain things in books, like the character that, you know, some of them want to read about animals. Some of them want to read about, really like a genre that a lot of them are, besides the graphic novel, they want fantasy. That's a huge...

Eli Price (13:04.319)
Yeah.

Eli Price (13:09.647)
Thank you.

you

Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (13:25.159)
Mm -hmm.

shannon (13:32.763)
genre section in our library. So they're looking for things like that, different genres and characters and pictures.

Eli Price (13:38.911)
Yeah.

Eli Price (13:42.783)
Yeah, I guess graphic novels are kind of just like one step away from a movie. It's just doesn't have the sound.

shannon (13:51.738)
and you know good old Captain Underpants it is a little movie back in the back with that flipporama he has in it. Dad Filkey puts the flipporama at the back. Those pages always get torn because they it makes it look like a movie.

Eli Price (13:54.463)
Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Eli Price (14:04.371)
Yeah, that's true. Yeah. That's cool, though. I think even like thinking to like watching silent movies, you know, the the picture alone, you know, you're talking about some of the picture books or graphic novels just have the picture, they tell the story with just what the visuals. And, you know, I think I really like

have enjoyed some really good silent films that are able to make you laugh and cry and fill all the emotions and have character development and plot and all the things you're talking about are speaking towards things that were happening at that time in society. And some are still relevant, all without exchanging any dialogue. Maybe like,

shannon (14:43.865)
Mm -hmm.

shannon (14:59.353)
didn't.

Eli Price (15:00.411)
a few dialogue cards that pop up, you know? But yeah, it just like, I think it just goes to show that storytelling can happen through so many different mediums, whether it's words on a page or, you know, even I guess paintings sometimes can tell stories or, I don't know, I just think that's cool.

shannon (15:13.77)
Okay.

shannon (15:26.348)
Yeah, our speech language pathologist at school loves to get the wordless books to use with their students for language development. To tell what's going on. Yeah.

Eli Price (15:31.679)
Hmm.

Mm hmm. That's cool. Yeah. And it, I think it too, um, it helps them. It seems like it helps. Like when I read wordless stories, like with my kids, uh, especially, you know, Ezekiel, my five year old, it's, um, it kind of helps them to notice.

I guess, like emotions and notice, like those sorts of things, not by like verbal cues, but by visual cues. And I think that's cool too. Something that it's kind of teaching kids subconsciously.

shannon (15:58.711)
you

shannon (16:04.371)
And then I can relate it to real life.

Eli Price (16:13.811)
Right. So like when I give them a look, who knows what I mean? So my next question that I'll go into is why do you think stories are so vital for kids? Why do kids need stories? Yeah.

shannon (16:18.935)
Yeah.

shannon (16:32.055)
and storytelling.

Well, they play, I think stories play a crucial part in development for children through, you know, it fosters creativity. Even reading stories, listening to storytelling, and then them getting to take part in storytelling themselves.

Eli Price (16:48.619)
Mm -hmm.

shannon (16:59.829)
So they are learning morals through storytelling. It helps with their cognitive development. You can go on and on with it. Foster a love of reading or of literacy. Just a bond or a connection with characters.

Eli Price (17:10.023)
Yeah

Eli Price (17:19.903)
Mm -hmm.

shannon (17:21.685)
If you're reading a book from another culture, you get that cultural development or understanding. So lots of different, I mean, seriously, I don't think that society could be society without storytelling. Storytelling predates us, so.

Eli Price (17:40.025)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's goes back to pictures on cave falls. Yeah. Well, I think like a big thing is we tell stories so that we can understand ourselves and understand the world around us. I think that's, I think like when you boil it down to like, just like the core reason why I think that's.

shannon (17:47.733)
with things. Yeah.

Eli Price (18:08.991)
Probably it is so that we can just understand life. Trying to make sense of it. Yeah. Um, cause that's one thing that like, I really believe in, in watching films is that it helps you to like learn about yourself because when you're reading, when you're reading a story or watching a movie or any sort of thing like that, where you're taking in a story.

shannon (18:14.652)
Make sense. Yeah, make sense.

Eli Price (18:37.247)
A lot of times you, you kind of unconsciously take down your like emotional walls that you have up, um, because you're in an, you're in another world. Um, so you don't have to have your, you're not in the real world. You don't have to have your walls up, but a lot of times it, because you take those walls down when you're in a story, it can, it can show you like the way you react to things can like show you things about who you are.

shannon (19:06.203)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (19:06.911)
that, you know, couldn't happen maybe in the real world. Right. And I think that's a big thing, but also it can. I think, you know, there's a famous critic, a movie critic named Roger Ebert, and he has a really well -known quote that he just said that movies are empathy machines. And I think you can, you could probably say that about books or.

shannon (19:12.275)
when you have those walls up. Yeah.

shannon (19:20.85)
For sure,

Eli Price (19:41.991)
But they teach you, I think, also about other types of people. You can build empathy for a sort of person that you may never meet, that maybe lives on the other side of the world, that lives in a totally different situation than you, that you'll never meet anyone like that. But you can still build empathy for that sort of person.

I just think that's really an incredible part of storytelling too, an incredible like aspect of it. So I guess like a lot of our listeners maybe don't have kids, but storytelling is I think vital for adults too. How would you think that translates from?

childhood to adulthood, why would you say stories are still important? I mean, we've kind of been touching on.

shannon (20:42.033)
you

I was about to say, oh, we sort of just said that, you know, as far as building up walls or tearing down the walls while you're engrossed in the movie or the story. It allows you to connect and reflect on yourself. Again, you form that bond with the character. I know I just finished watching a series that I've watched multiple times down to NABBY. And...

Eli Price (20:47.505)
Yeah.

Eli Price (20:56.389)
Mm -hmm.

shannon (21:15.363)
Every time I finish that series, I just have this like letdown moment for days. I'll just be like, oh, I'm not a part of the Crawford family anymore. So you do, you get to be in this other world for a while and it's just kind of an escapism, I guess, from reality. So, and that's important for adults to have.

Eli Price (21:25.599)
Mmm, yeah.

you

Eli Price (21:38.553)
Yeah.

shannon (21:44.439)
you know, some escape from the mundane life every day. Yeah. And the mundane. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that one really does. That one really does. I know. Well, you know, I told you if I needed to talk about it, I'd have to watch it again. And because it's been a

Eli Price (21:50.363)
Yeah. Cause it's hard, but also you can watch movies like about time and they teach you, wait, there's, there's amazing things about the everyday life too. Yeah. Um,

Yeah, I don't want to make you sob on here, but.

shannon (22:14.126)
since I've watched it and it would just bring all the tears again. So I think too, and this is probably true with storytelling also, which again, movies are storytelling, like with about time, the stage of life I'm in right now with adult children who are embarking on careers themselves. They just finished college. They had just graduated college when I watched that. And

Eli Price (22:14.663)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (22:31.813)
Mm.

shannon (22:41.995)
you know, they're gonna end up getting married soon. And so I think just having all that too brought about all the tears, you know, maybe I wouldn't cry cry this hard now. I don't know. But I think that storytelling is vital for storytelling for children, you know, when you walk into an elementary school, you fully expect to see storytelling taking place.

Eli Price (22:50.307)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's a, that's a really cool point too. Yeah. That's.

Eli Price (23:09.503)
Mm -hmm.

shannon (23:10.477)
When you walk into high school you might not expect to see that or even in middle school you might not expect to see that but everybody likes to have stories told to them. You know you like to whether it's with an actual book being held up and showing you pictures which everyone really does enjoy or just having the story told aloud orally everyone does enjoy that.

Eli Price (23:20.101)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (23:24.103)
you

Eli Price (23:34.567)
Yeah. Yeah. I've, I'm surprised sometimes that like it's fun to sit down with kids and read a picture book, especially like if it's a well written book with good illustrations. Um, but yeah, it, it is, you know, I think another cool thing about story is just thinking about from kids to adults, it's stories.

shannon (23:45.601)
Okay.

Eli Price (24:02.071)
speak in different ways at different points in your life, like you were saying. So, you know, a movie might speak to you differently watching it as a teenager and watching it as, you know, you know, 30 something where I am and, you know, getting ready to marry off your kids where you are, you know, it's, it can be the same exact movie or story or whatever, but it speaks to you in different ways. Um,

shannon (24:18.75)
you

Reddit.

shannon (24:30.647)
Okay.

Eli Price (24:31.975)
And that's another just really dynamic, I guess, aspect of stories and why they're important, too. And I guess on that note, too, sometimes they show you, oh, I'm not the only one that feels that way.

shannon (24:40.771)
Yeah, sure.

shannon (24:52.138)
And that's a big deal for storytelling with children. When we're doing a lot of storytelling, we're trying to develop that sense of empathy. So, you know, if you know that some bullying is going on with a child, then you might go pull some books about kindness and read with a child and talk about, you know, why.

Eli Price (24:56.263)
Yes.

Eli Price (25:14.373)
Mm -hmm.

shannon (25:20.01)
why is this character acting like that and how could that character have reacted instead? So, I don't remember why I said that, but.

Eli Price (25:30.055)
Yeah, no, that's good. On that note, just kind of like a last question as we're wrapping up, do you have any like really cool anecdotes of how you've seen a story kind of change a child or see like a change in them because of a story or a series they've read or something like that?

shannon (25:52.969)
Well, I will say as the media specialist that when adults come into the library they always want to tell you, do you know what book I loved as a child? And we just celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday on Read Across America Day. And so I had our local high school is right across the street and we had 32 high schoolers come across to read to our elementary students. And so they met in the library before they went out into all the classrooms and they went to the shelves.

Can I show you what my favorite book was? So it's always fun to hear that. So some other anecdotes aside from getting to hear what people's favorite books are. I have a little student at school. She is in first grade right now. And I don't know that this one, this is not gonna say it really changed or anything, but this little girl when she was, she was either four.

Eli Price (26:25.927)
Mm -hmm.

shannon (26:47.112)
or she may have been five, I think she was just four when she had open heart surgery, but she loves bats. And so word got out that she loves bats and she's just adorable. But so she comes into, and I have to set aside, she knows where the bat section is. Her kindergarten class loved bats somehow because she did. They were always checking, and now her first grade class is the same way. They're all like.

Eli Price (26:55.111)
Okay.

Eli Price (27:13.529)
you

shannon (27:15.943)
where are the bat books? We want to learn more about bats. So every time a new book that has a bat in it comes in, I'm like, let me set this aside for her. And she just is thrilled about it, but she can tell you all about bats. So she likes fiction and nonfiction, especially the nonfiction about bats. Another, oh, this is a cute book. It's called Waiting for Mr. Schloth by Katie Hudson, I believe.

cute little story I just read with first grade and it's about a little girl and she has a pet sloth and they're gonna go swimming together. Well, she was ready to go but as you can imagine the sloth was not being a sloth as he is. So it goes through this whole process, the story and how she reacts out in the anger towards the sloth because she's having to wait on him. And then the story turns around, she realizes,

you know how angry she got and how she didn't even get to enjoy what time they had because she was so worked up about how long it was taking him. Then the end of it the author put a list of things that you can do while you would have to wait. And you know it told things like counting backwards or it just gave all these suggestions and it was just a great tool for working with first graders. You know little six -year -olds on how...

Eli Price (28:34.187)
Yeah.

shannon (28:40.294)
Now you're not always gonna get to do what you wanna do right when you wanna do it. So it was a great way to work towards that. And there was a couple of students in some of those classes that really needed to work on that. So it was a good lesson for all, but especially some. And they would, you know, then you can remind them, hey, remember that story we read? And then I'm gonna tell you about a fifth grader who this student,

Eli Price (28:45.551)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (28:54.567)
Ha ha.

Eli Price (28:58.245)
Yeah.

Eli Price (29:03.311)
Mm -hmm.

shannon (29:10.18)
I knew that this student likes reading and I know that this student reads with her parents, but I could never get her beyond like some earlier chapter books, even though she's well past that in her reading ability. She just kept wanting to read some early chapter books, which is fine too. You know, you can read on whatever level you want to, but I just always wonder why. Well, I was trying to teach our students a new program we had that...

Eli Price (29:32.935)
Mm -hmm.

shannon (29:39.62)
is a digital reading log and through that I was reading aloud a chapter book from the Land of Stories series by Chris Colfer. I think Chris Colfer and it's great storyline and I just read the prologue of it which took about 10 to 15 minutes and through that read aloud of that I was like and so boys and girls that's when I finished that and it got to this.

Eli Price (30:00.805)
Mm -hmm.

shannon (30:09.156)
climactic partner.

And he turned and said, Snow White. And I looked up and that little girl's eyes had bugged out of her head. And I'm like, OK, so we're going to stop it there. And here's how we do the digital reading log. And I knew I was hanging on. I left and right and apart. And I knew I was doing that. But we were talking about the digital reading log at that point.

As soon as I said, all right, so you all are going to get started with that on your own book, she jumped up out of her seat and came straight to me and said, can I please check that book out? So I got so excited. She completed that entire series in like a very quick, quick time frame and has already started it again. And I was just like, yes. Because I got so excited that she was hooked on reading and the land of stories there.

Eli Price (30:41.479)
Ha ha ha.

shannon (31:00.808)
you know, they're about three or four hundred pages each, so it was exciting to see her excited and she would come in and say, do you have the next book Miss Burge? Is it checked out? Can I get it? So those are just a couple of different things that that I love. There's just so many different ones, but different, different excitements or I don't know, sometimes it's.

Eli Price (31:03.535)
Yeah.

Eli Price (31:14.855)
Yeah.

shannon (31:27.553)
some of them are sad. 

Eli Price (31:59.207)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um, well, those are all really cool stories. The, the moral of this episode is tell stories to your kids and read stories and watch stories yourself. Um, yeah. Well, uh, I appreciate you coming on. Um, and, uh, yeah, you as a, you're the first podcast supporter to join me. So.

shannon (32:13.821)
That's right. Everybody loves a good story.

shannon (32:28.712)
Yay!

Eli Price (32:28.935)
Um, yeah, if, if, if you're out there and you want to support the podcast, if you do, you're welcome to pick a movie for me to review. And if you want to come on, you can, uh, uh, you know, you, you said you didn't want to come on, but you did because you love me. So.

shannon (32:46.688)
I survived it. Yep. I survived it. I did it for you. I'm used to talking to children all day, not adults.

Eli Price (32:53.079)
Wow.

Eli Price (32:57.287)
Yeah, well, it, you know, it's, it is what it is. Well, I appreciate you coming on and we're gonna wrap it up. If you, like I said, if you do want to support the podcast, you can go to establishing shop pod .com and, and click the donate in the menu and see the different tiers there that you can support at.

And please go leave a rating and review on Apple and Spotify. If you haven't done that, it just takes a minute and it helps the podcast a ton. But that's all we have for this week. Until next time, I've been Eli Price. And for Shannon Burge, you've been listening to The Establishing Shot. See you next time.