Quotes About Storytelling

You don't get to know anybody in a movie until after it's over. You work less together in a film than you do onstage.

The way I think of my work is that I have to think up the way to tell a story, starting from scratch. The changes in the industry concern me in a general way because I think civilization is doomed.

People who work on soaps all the time understand the formula of how to do it.

If someone knows me and likes me or my work, they're more likely to allow me to tell their story. But it also cuts the other way.

One of the most intriguing things in management and in business is the role of storytelling - people need the anecdotes to do the work that they do.

But if I really want to produce my own work and tell stories, then I will

Well, I always talk about how I used to work at an insane asylum and stuff, which is true, but to be honest, I just make crap up more than anything else.

I love illustrating for other writers because I am given stories I never would have thought of, and my work as an illustrator is always in support of the story.

Your movie should lull people into a place of openness and vulnerability. If it is just a diatribe, it's never going to work.

If a scene doesn't work on three levels - it's not advancing the story, the characters, and telling me something new - then put it in the trash.

Since my adaptation of Ian McEwan's 'Atonement,' I get sent a lot of novels that people think will work as movies. So every now and then I make a point of sitting down and reading a couple of them.

I don't like nihilistic characters. As bad guys they're great, but as heroes they don't work.

Always, your work is the same: You have to tell a story, you have to make a character. It doesn't matter if there are thousands of dollars, millions behind it, or if there is nothing.

I think violence in movies, for it to work, you have to use it smartly. People get numb very fast. If you have too much violence in the beginning, it gets to a point where you don't feel it.

My work is basically images set to my particular voice. It's the way the images rhyme and the rhythm. It's a way of economical storytelling for me.

I want a body of work; I want a good story after a good story.

It's a challenge to work a character's arc into a format in which you only have a very limited amount of time to grow and develop a character.

There's always the question when you're making a documentary if the talking heads will work.

The problem with trying to make a film good and have it work for an audience is the problem of trying to tell a story well. The shape or the color of it doesn't matter.

I've always wanted to figure out how to do a walking story. I'd never figured out how to do one and have it work or be interesting or have anything that it's about.

Melissa [ Rosenberg] really has mastered coming from character. Everything radiates from the characters in this work. You don't feel like anything's imposed.

Horror is great storytelling with scary elements on top of it, but if you don't have great storytelling, you can have all the scares in the world, but the movie won't work.

Guillermo del Toro. He's in his pure artist's stroke. He's just hitting it out of the park. I would go anywhere to work with him. He's a real artist.

The stories tend to be what I work on when I'm stuck. Something will just pop into my head and I'll think that's more of a story.