Jonathan Shapiro Quotes

I have these huge black foam boards on the wall, and tacked to them, I have these white punch cards with my story ideas, scenes and notes.

There is no difficult moment working together because when we start a new project, Dante starts to make all the sketches and I can see the vision of the movie and then I start my job.

I come in. I'm going to sketch, I'm going to drape, I don't know what I'm going to do.

Once I'm given an idea for a story I have a million ideas on how it should be illustrated, but I don't have a big shoebox full of unfinished ideas.

All my work begins with drawings.

Well, I get my subject on Wednesday night; I think it out carefully on Thursday, and make my rough sketch; on Friday morning I begin, and stick to it all day, with my nose well down on the block.

I start with an idea in my head. I sketch it out quickly as a line drawing, using pencil. It never comes out quite right - usually a bit better than my mental picture.

I keep a composition book with me at all times to write rhymes, to write down ideas, write down my thoughts, you know just so I don't forget any ideas.

Always write your ideas down however silly or trivial they might seem. Keep a notebook with you at all times.

I love jotting down ideas for my blog, so I doodle or take notes on all kinds of stuff that inspires me: the people I meet, boutiques I visit, a florist that just gave me a great idea for an interior-design project, things like that.

Basically I started to jot notes, lots of faxes back and forth to my writer, we faxed ideas throughout the whole first draft, and started all over again.

Having imagination it takes you an hour to write a paragraph that if you were unimaginative would take you only a minute.

I write stuff down. I have a chalkboard in the kitchen where I will scrawl stuff down if I have a faint outline of an idea. And I'll go into my office or whatever. But that goes from format to format.

I don't have a drawer full of ideas. I kind of look around and take notes and wonder what could actually be a whole movie. And each time, I think I'm going to do it more commercial this time; I'm going to get a big budget and make it. But I always come up with some small idea.

When I write notes in my journal, I'm just trying to scribble down as much as possible. Later on, I decide whether to follow some of those first impressions or whether to abandon them.

I try to stay focused on my creativity.

It is very difficult to make the ideas in my head come to life, but what is harder is making them look effortless.

I'm always writing lyrics. I have so many lyrics on so many stray pieces of paper. Everywhere.

In our office, we have a whiteboard with all of our ideas and things we want to write on it - great ideas we have that we haven't had the time to get around to yet.

As a creative person, you want to start with a blank canvas.

For me, I get a part of an idea here and a little bit of an idea there, and then finally it accumulates into a movie.

I spend a lot of time in a sort of free state when I'm writing in the beginning and sketching.

Write down everything you can think of, no matter how stupid it seems. I always write down my thoughts throughout the day. Sometimes good things come out of it, and I'll find an idea to develop into a song, so my best advice is to try and draw inspiration from everyday things.

I have notebooks and sketchbooks for ideas. I also have drawers full of envelopes covered in quick outlines, scenes or scraps of dialogue that I don't want to forget. I tend to grab whatever's to hand and just get the thing down before it's lost. It's not what you would call a streamlined system.

By the time I sit down ready to write, I've done a lot of longhand and a lot of note collecting along the way.