Quotes About Storytelling

Anytime you look at someone in detail, you're putting the camera on that person. What I typically look for is one or two or three really strong characters who will hold the narrative throughout the work.

I love to dress up and create a narrative with my look.

I knew I wanted to write about a nanny, but it was difficult for me to find a narrative rhythm.

I think my narrative is actually pretty interesting if I step back from it and don't engage too much in it, personally or emotionally.

There's a certain joy in taking a dramatic narrative and then adding that element of horror to it.

The thing is about 'Vida,' we're telling a very simple family narrative. There's nothing fancy about it.

If you look at photojournalism, it's largely driven by current events... always chasing a crisis or disaster. I follow a narrative that is much looser than current events.

Writing for a film means the music has to serve the film, the narrative.

I think through humor you can get a point across better than through just a dramatic narrative.

What I'm really proud of Beyonce and Solange, they understand the importance of creating the narrative. It's all about the narrative and how you position yourself with your narrative.

The writing is only ever the attractive thing about a part. And also if all the elements within the writing come together - the character and the structure and the narrative - if they are all there then you become excited.

What's important is how the character drives the narrative.

Television has been breaking narrative rules.

I was an English-literature major, and that's all about stories and narratives.

These days we're all hyper-aware of the canonical way in which stories are supposed to play out - people are taught all about three-act scripting and where to put the reversal and all of that - and I think we can do more interesting narratives.

The reason why bookstores are going out of business in the States is that people just can't focus on longer narratives now - even narrative film is in crisis in many ways, unless it's an adventure film.

You can get good at finding access in the entertainment business. But the ideas, the narratives themselves, they are the only things that are going to be of any value.

Everybody has told the story of black people in struggle except black people. The black people in the struggle haven't had the means to tell the story historically. There were a million slaves, but you see very few slave narratives. And that is intentional.

Narratives are very important to me.

The narrator of a documentary often comes in at the last minute and takes some of the glory they don't deserve.

I always thought of documentaries as films through which you find your voice as a narrator.

We ended up with 19 hours of footage and had to narrow it down to an hour and a half. Our instructions were to film everything that came up, including the more mundane moments.

I will do almost anything for the sake of a joke or for the sake of someone's real belief in something to help tell a story. I will not do something shocking for the sake of being nasty. If it's not hurting anyone's feelings, I'm in on the joke.

When you cast someone like Natalie Portman, the character can't just be the love interest.