From a writer's standpoint, each character and story presents its own unique challenges and delights. I'm deeply curious about all of my characters, and I love peeling away their layers to see what's underneath their skin, or secreted deep within the...
I love studying folklore and legends. The stories that people passed down for a thousand years without any sort of marketing support are obviously saying something appealing about the basic human condition.
The two have to go hand in hand - the atmosphere and the music. I actually get rather worried if I can't see the music first. There always needs to be a mood, a feeling, a story, even if it is abstract. There's got to be a narrative to guide things b...
I don't listen to a lot of new stuff. I just like the old stuff. It's all quite dramatic and atmospheric. You'd have an entire story in song. I never listen to, like, white music - I couldn't sing you a Zeppelin or Floyd song.
I think with drama, at least for me, my process, there's a lot of thought. I do a lot of back story. I listen to a lot of music. I'm very committed to a process when it comes to drama, but with comedy, I think it's really about letting loose.
What I'm trying to do is find either existing properties or come up with properties or angles or stories which will create music drama. It's my obsession and most of all I would like to remain working in theatre. I think it's very much alive.
Music is very nebulous, and you can conjure up a lot of moods with music. But lyrics - they're a lot more tangible. They're much more specific. And you want to say something meaningful and creative and artistic and that tells a story and that takes p...
I loved fantasy, but I particularly loved the stories in which somebody got out of where they were and into somewhere better - as in the 'Chronicles Of Narnia,' 'The Wizard Of Oz,' 'The Phantom Tollbooth,' the 'Dungeons & Dragons' cartoon on Saturday...
Women now influence the majority of consumer purchases. It is women's votes that will secure victory at the next election, hence the altogether delicious spectacle of Messrs Brown and Cameron vying to tell stories about broken nights and childcare as...
Had Elizabeth Bennet known how wildly Darcy's heart beat for her, 'Pride and Prejudice' would barely have made it into a short story. Their torturously slow-burning romance is a classic example of how men and women still struggle to communicate the m...
Matthew Wiener on 'Mad Men' writes the entire series before they start shooting, and if you have that, then what you can do with character and story is not at all unlike what you can do in a novel.
I've been writing for as long as I can remember, and reading even before that. My mom still has stories that I wrote when I was in kindergarten. I was a reader and a re-reader. That's the main reason I became a writer.
With female-oriented movies, unless it's something like 'Bridesmaids' or a romantic comedy, you've got to really worry about your opening weekend. And I'm always telling stories about women, not younger women, and it's just a much tougher audience to...
I really unfortunately don't have tons of hilarious Sundance stories, because really I am not the biggest fan of hanging out, but the reason why is because I never go see other people's movies and I think that's the way to do it.
I'm a Hollywood kid, and I know that there are only so many stories. Only so many tales around the campfire that we have to tell. Then we have to regurgitate them. Our grandparents' movies were all remakes of silent films - we forget that, but it's t...
I'm very opinionated about movie musicals when they're adapted from live shows. You'll sit still for a three-minute song in a theater. But in movies, a glance from someone's eyes will tell you the whole story in a few seconds.
Bernadette: [after Felicia tells Bernadette about her ABBA story] What are you telling me? This is an ABBA turd?
Ben Fong-Torres: [reading William's story] "I'm flying high over Tupelo, Mississippi... with America's hottest band... and we're all about to die." - Dark, lively.
Alice: [after the Walrus and the Carpenter] That was a very sad story. Tweedle Dee: Aye, but there's a moral to it. Alice: Oh, a very good moral, if you happen to be an oyster.
Senior Ed Bloom: I've told you a thousand facts, Will, that's what I do. I tell stories. Will Bloom: You tell lies, Dad.
Al Stephenson: I think that, uh, little story has considerable significance; but I've, uh, I've forgotten what it is.