The Nobodies By John Truby

“The Nobodies” is a short film that seems to follow the basic steps of John Truby’s The Anatomy of Story. Though the film follows these steps, I don’t think it’s a good story. Before Dusty and Greg ever meet each other, we recognize that they have the same desire in life. The have a longing to be loved, have attention, and to sing. Although Dusty is married, he still doesn’t feel like he is fully loved. Greg on the other hand, is single and is looking for love. Something all people desire in life is affection, love, and intimacy. Dusty’s opponent in this story happens to be his own wife, as well as his insecurity and fear to sing. We are introduced to his fear to sing when he gets on to the stage and can’t get a sentence out of his mouth, causing the audience feel bad for him. When he goes home and sees
his wife on television making fun of him we all have even more sympathy for him. During the scene when he is trying to get Amy’s attention to show her an old photo but instead is ignored, we can see the sadness on Dusty’s face. Also, as Dusty goes to sing with Greg outside of the girls house Amy doesn’t follow but just begins to walk inside and leave him. The camera is pointing at Amy and so far away from her that we can feel the distance that Dusty feels from her. Unlike Dusty, Greg isn’t insecure about singing. We know this because he sings to the girl he likes outside of her house. Greg’s dream is to be a singer, so this means that whatever keeps him from accomplishing that dream is his opponent. This happened to be his job as the mail delivery man. He gets fired from his job and now he can go for his dreams, which is interesting because technically his opponent is helping him without knowing it. As Greg walks into the back yard to give Dusty a mail delivery, Dusty is singing the same song that they will both end up singing at the end of the short film.
It’s almost like telling us their destiny and telling us what is going to happen. As Greg walks into the backyard, Dusty can not see him and continues to sing the part of the song but can’t finish the verse. Greg hears this and completes the verse for Dusty. The director is showing the audience that Greg is going to complete Dusty, the same way that he completed his song. They both have the same desire and this is why they stick together through the film. After the guys find each other and realize they both want the same thing, they make a plan. Their plan is to rehearse their song and to sing at the open mic night. After discussing what they want to do for the night it shows both Greg and Dusty in the same shot and they look like they're scared and nervous for the night. Having both the characters in the same frame shows the audience that they are in this together. Greg shakes his head in uncertainty as the camera is close to his face causing an intimate moment for the viewers to connect with both of
them. Dusty begins to sing for the very first time and the camera is right in his face. He is about to go into this battle of overcoming his fear and insecurities. We share this special moment of him singing to an audience for the first time, causing the viewer to root him on and feel happy for him. As he finishes his verse, we are shown a shot of the MC nodding his head as if he is surprised of how good he is. This is an important shot for the film because it shows that Dusty is a good singer and is getting noticed for it. The song they are singing is a mix of Dusty’s song he made and the song Greg sang to Julie. This shows, again, that they complete each other and help each other in multiple ways. After they overcome their weaknesses and sing to the room full of people, we see it was just a dream. This makes the viewer very sad because the whole film we have been rooting for these two guys and wanting to see them succeed. After they're out of the dream, we get a close up of Greg looking down, and it’s the rose. The only other time we see a close up shot of the rose is when he was at Julie’s house and the rose is sitting on his amp as he picks it up. The director showed us this to give us a sense of hope for the two characters. Maybe her brother gave it to her and she came to listen or she stopped by and left it there. We don’t know exactly how it got there and it leaves the viewer confused and not sure what to think, leaving us with many unanswered questions. I don’t think it was a great story, and not because it didn’t follow the steps. I agree with the majority of Truby’s steps to a good story, but I believe it is more than that. I think a great story is one that leaves you inspired, excited, emotional, and connects to the viewer. People like to see a story where our hero is an overcomer, a character that has to rise above to achieve their goal. We love seeing this because we look at ourselves as the underdog. This story left us confused and not fully satisfied. I would of liked to see a better ending where Dusty rekindles his fire with Amy and Greg begins to spark something with Julie. The story did fulfill all seven steps but didn’t seem to move me, like other great stories have done before. A great story isn’t just filling in all the steps, but it is what’s inside of those seven steps.