Quotes About Storytelling

I've ended up working with Disney a lot, which is kind of peculiar. In theater, I've done a couple of projects with them and written a couple movies and whatnot.

I didn't quite realise until we started to put together our first cut of 'Wonderstruck' how much time is spent with no words spoken whatsoever.

'Dragon Age' needs to have big story moments. It is a game about character first, and the party is an absolutely central part of that. I want to keep pursuing interactivity with the world: taking crowds to the next level or having things catch fire because you indiscriminately cast a fireball into a wheat field.

I write simply because I hear voices of people in my head who won't give me peace until I convey their stories to the rest of the world. Seriously. They've always been with me. While other girls played with dolls, and my brothers with Hot Wheels, I was busy traveling through space or traipsing through graveyards with my imaginary playmates.

Whenever people ask me what the story is for my next film, I won't tell and people feel it's because I'm being secretive or something, but it's actually because I'm ashamed to sum up a film in three sentences.

I enjoy collaborating with creative people and trying to get the best image possible to convey a feeling or story. Plus, I get flown all over the world to exotic places. How can you lose interest in that? It's a great lifestyle. I can take vacations whenever I want, and no two shoots are ever the same.

Whenever I start a book, I swear it's going to be a short one. But then it's, 'Who was his grandfather? And how did he get there in the first place? And what kind of animals is he chasing?'

And before I'd got to the end of the first paragraph, I'd come up slap bang against a fundamental problem that still troubles me today whenever I begin a story, and it's this: where am I telling it from?

The fact of storytelling hints at a fundamental human unease, hints at human imperfection. Where there is perfection there is no story to tell.

I'd waste a holiday trying to set a story in this new place I'd visit, whereas I would never write a story about Indianapolis.

One of my favorite actors is Paul Newman. He could tell so much with a single look, whereas some actors would need an entire five page monologue to give off the feeling of what he could say with just a single look.

We all now tell stories by cutting from one dramatic scene to the next, whereas Victorian novelists felt free to write long passages of undramatic summary.

What's great in theater is that you can sustain the arc of a character for a full three hours, whereas in film or TV, you have to create that arc in little pieces, and usually out of sequence.

Most of my films have a lot of character development and exploration, whereas in most horror movies the characters are just cardboard.

When I was at college, the idea of fashion was more immediate to me, whereas art photography, the depth of it, was a different thing. Storytelling - fanciful storytelling - can only be told through fashion photography. It's the perfect way to play with fantasy and dreams.

The great thing about being an actor in a film is that you're able to start knowing exactly where you're going to finish and really paint something in between. You can work to know the arc you need to build. Whereas in television, it is open-ended, and you're constantly guessing. There are pros and cons to both.

I love the interactive nature of theater. I just craved it. As much as I love working on a film or TV set, most of the storytelling happens in the editing, whereas when you're doing a play, the storytelling is in your hands as an actor.

Both are about telling stories and bringing truth to those stories. In most of my music it's firsthand experience, and some of the same rules apply in TV. The difference in music is the control, whereas doing this, it's someone else's words that you can play in your own way.

Most good actors you work with, they actually bring something to the creative process and to the script. They help shape the character with you. Whereas, some actors are so worried about their image and not about the character, it doesn't help the story.

I feel like with a movie you know your whole journey, and even though little minutiae might change, you're able to get a better idea of where you're going, whereas TV is engaging a different side of your brain.

Whichever character I'm using and wherever I am in my mind dictates what kind of story I'm going to tell.

The secret to the movie business, or any business, is to get a good education in a subject besides film - whether it's history, psychology, economics, or architecture - so you have something to make a movie about. All the skill in the world isn't going to help you unless you have something to say.

I think the name of the show, 'This American Life' - we named it that just because it seemed like it made the thing feel big. But we don't think about whether it's an American story or not. We happen to be Americans. I think for the stories to work, they have to be universal.

As a little girl, I didn't like stories about little girls. I liked stories about dragons and beasts and princes and princesses and fear and terror and the Four Musketeers and almost anything other than nice little girls making moral decisions about whether to tell the teacher about what the other little girl did or did not do.