I've been thinking a lot about structure lately — how to organize a documentary that covers years of experience, multiple subjects, and a deeply personal subject matter. A friend recommended Dan Harmon's Story Circle, and it's changed the way I'm thinking about this film.
The Story Circle
If you're not familiar with it, Dan Harmon's Story Circle is a simplified version of the Hero's Journey — eight steps that map the emotional and narrative arc of any character-driven story. It goes like this:
- You — establish who the character is
- Need — something is lacking or desired
- Go — they leave their comfort zone
- Search — they adapt to an unfamiliar situation
- Find — they get what they wanted
- Take — but at a price
- Return — back to the familiar world
- Change — but fundamentally different
What struck me immediately was how well this maps onto the veteran experience. Service members leave, adapt to an entirely foreign world, find purpose and brotherhood and identity — and then return home to find that the familiar world has moved on without them. The circle doesn't close neatly. That tension is the film.
Staying Organized with Milanote
On the production side, we've been using Milanote to keep everything organized — notes, timelines, research, shot lists, and the story structure itself. If you're working on a long-form project and you haven't tried a visual organization tool, I can't recommend it enough. Being able to see the whole shape of something is different from reading it in a document.
A Big Thank You to the Crew
None of this happens without people. We've been lucky to work with an incredible crew — people who believed in this project enough to show up, to give their best, and to care about getting it right. You know who you are. Thank you.
More updates to come. We're deep in it, and it's starting to feel like something real.