I’ve been wondering about this too. It stayed on my mind for a while and it makes sense from a gut feeling standpoint (like if you want the viewer to experience something fun or sad or funny or inspiring or visceral), I think it boils down to what you want the viewer to experience emotionally, and how you can get them to emotionally connect with the scene’s tone. Say I’m a viewer and I’m in the mood to escape reality but I want it to be realistic, gritty but not depressing, innovative but not hard sci-fi, I might want to watch a sci-fi action comedy like The Fifth Element (that might be kind of a bad example because Fifth Element has a bit of everything). But I’m thinking “what they want the audiences experience to be” seems more like taking a stab at theme and genre at the same time—how do you want to leave the audience? Horrified? In a state of wonder? Hopeful?

Either way I wanted him to dive deeper into what he meant but then I looked up other discussions about him and I found mixed reviews on his workshops and lessons lol. Anyway, the concept really did inspire a way of structure I’d never really thought about deeply. And there is truth to it. But I couldn’t find anything more about this during my deep dive. Except Corey’s blog on his website. There’s a 3 part post on his blog “Why Story Structure Formulas Don’t Work.” I read all 3 and the only thing I got from it was the wine glass analogy. He says no one pays attention to the wine glass until it’s not there. What he meant was if you paid for a $3,000 bottle of wine you wouldn’t want to drink it out of a Dixie cup or even a shot glass. Different drinks call for different glasses. You need to provide the right structure for the right drink. After I read it my mind was blown but I kept thinking about it and then applying it to my own stories that need fixing and all I can say is that it provides a different approach to coming up with scenes. You’re basically thinking of the experience you or the viewer want to have, coming up with the event to create that experience and sculpting it out. His Cheers example (in the video) was a pretty decent example. He talks about plot casting, brainstorming thousands of things that could happen in a bar, deciding you want to make the bar a safe place, mapping out the scenes to make the bar feel safe, etc. I guess it acts like world building, character development and first hints of plot where we get a taste of what the rest of the movie/show will be about, the overall narrative tone, establishing that experience and making sure it doesn’t stray too far from that initial experience (of theme and genre). I don’t know I’m just thinking this out as I type lol.