Now, I'm gonna talk about a case study of a movie called king of Kong. It's one of my favorite documentaries of all time. It's an underdog story. It's, it's tension through and through. underdog stories are tension. It's David versus Goliath.

It's why we like underdog stories. And in this scene I'm going to introduce you to without doing any spoilers, I'm only gonna play scenes from the first act of the movie. It's about the world's greatest Donkey Kong champion, and he's getting challenged by a guy who's never competed in his life. you first get introduced to a character named Billy Mitchell and he's the villain of the story. He's the greatest Donkey Kong player that's ever lived. And check out how characters describe him.

Since I so called debuted on the scene at Life magazine in 1982. There hasn't been anybody who's played even close When Billy Mitchell walks into an arcade, you know, everything stops. There's electricity around Billy Mitchell, everybody wants to crowd around him. Everybody wants to see him. You know, everything about him is is perfect. You know, Billy is just that person, you know he wants to represent, you could hack into the machine and program it to play itself.

You couldn't even program it that well. There's a glamour to Billy. There's a special instability. He was the first he was the first great, great player. The fact of the matter is bill is the best classic arcade gamer of our era. Billy Mitchell, Primo joystick, dude, amazing and amazing and gun hulu's.

In the corridors singing the blues, a perfect game goes down. If I have all this good fortune, if everything's rolling my way, all these balls have bounced in my favor. Some poor bastard out there, who's getting the screws put to him. So who is Billy Mitchell? He is the greatest it's ever played. And I haven't cut out a ton of this.

But he's a guy who's like built an empire out of his success of video gaming where he's started a salsa company. He's got this perfect quaffed hair, and he's got this attitude and this confidence and this kind of arrogance, and he's kind of a prick. But the main takeaway is that Billy Mitchell is a winner. And how do they end that scene? This line is critical because it leaves an anticipation in your head, it leaves tension to form. He says, If I've had all this luck, if all these balls have bounced in my favor, there's some poor bastard out there who's really had the screws put to him.

Then the cue music, they leave some space for you to ruminate on that idea, and it makes you wonder who could they possibly be introducing. Now pay attention to the very first lines that get introduced when we meet counterpart, the challenger, Steve levy. You know right away who Steve levy is by the very first lines that come out of his mouth, check it out. Some poor bastard out there, who's getting the screws put to him. When I got laid off, and I had time on my hands, I was thinking, what can I do to kind of feel like I have control of something. So I looked at Twin Galaxies.

I just typed in Donkey Kong world record, and some spreadsheet came up and I saw what the score was. It was held by Billy Mitchell. And it was like 874,000 I go, Hey, I can beat that. Almost I mean, I Not the kind of work that's needed that I need him sitting on the couch in the arena. I don't need that what I need is him in the house helping me kids or need him being with the kids. So he would want to come out here and play and that would drive me crazy.

Because he's definitely OCD when he is obsessed on something he is so focused on I have to move. So then I dreamed of, you know, being a musician for a living. That's what my dream was. He was brought up to me that he was smart. He was an athlete, he was talented, and for whatever reason he could never get those to fit. Steve was one of the original starving grunge fans here in Seattle the start only people With his music, it's almost like he didn't want people to know he was doing.

He's a total paradox that way. Maybe a little social hang ups here and there that that haven't allowed him to be as successful on one hand as another end. We got through the state finals. And they've gotten fit. I've probably seen Steve with tears in his eyes more than any other guy No. Because of the frustration that would build them and half the time it was on the pitcher's mound.

He never has quite reached that Pinnacle, and never quite in any of his endeavors was regaled as the number one guy, the guy that was better than the rest, and was on top of the mountain. A lot of things in his life know They've just created Billy Mitchell, who's the biggest winner ever. And now they're going to create Steve weedy, who's never won anything in his life. He's also never competed at Donkey Kong. It's the kind of crazy that he would do this. But then they give you reasons to root for him.

They give you reasons to hope they give you bits of tension. They say, he's a genius. He plays all these songs on the piano. He was a famous athlete that couldn't actually make it past the junior round of college. He's a guy who's cried more times than I've ever seen. And they keep layering on the power of the possibility that this guy might actually have the tools to do this.

He might be a savant might be a weirdo. But they also leave doubt and say that he's a guy who's never figured it out. He's never gotten it all together. He cries all the time. He's never won anything. This is how they create the basis for an underdog story that is so fun to watch.

Notice any story that you find who is going against whom or what are the people up against, you'll notice the tension in everything. And also I want to point out something else we talked about earlier. The idea of tension is the opposite. sits opposing. So it's the act of being stretched tight, you have to have at least two opposing forces. But remember when I said you can pull out the rubber band in other ways, think about what Steve Wiebe his wife said.

So Steve Wiebe is on a mission, he's gonna go against Billy Mitchell. And that's the tension of the story. But all of a sudden wife comes in and she says, I need a husband, I need a guy. I'm not a needy person, but I need I need someone who's gonna actually take care of the kids and help me make food and do all this stuff. It's actually Steve leaves on a mission. And now this is pulling him in another direction, needing to be a good father on top of it all.

That's another thin layer of subtle tension that they're layering in. That makes it even more engaging. It makes you want him to win even more. There's a great scene I'm not going to show it here. But Goodfellas, it uses just about every element of tension in the scene where Ray Liotta has to pick up the drugs get the guns also make the pasta in time for tonight, and he thinks he's being chased by the cops the entire time. Check out the scene.

I'll leave a link to it. It is so expertly done and edited to create tension using all of the mechanisms I'm about to teach you in the next lesson. So let's go Learn how to create tension