Courtney A. Kemp Quotes

If you create a good story that has a lot of story value... I think audiences like that. It's why they stick with the same TV show over and over.

I believe what makes great television is wanting to watch particular characters.

I think TV is all about caring, and if you don't care about a character in a drama or a person when they get voted out of a reality show, it's bad TV. I wouldn't care if you dropped a bomb on the 'Big Brother' house.

A lot of entertainment, and especially in a half-hour format, can be all jokes, all the time. And some of those jokes can be really, really funny, but what I respond to, as a viewers, is identification or caring about the characters.

We figured the audience would want good stories, great art, wonderful characters, people you could fall in love with that we would immediately put through hell.

It was unpredictable, good storytelling that brought you back each week.

I think the tricky balance, the most important thing more than the horror is to have a compelling story, compelling drama, a show about great characters that you care about and you want to come back every week to see what they're up to.

And the most important thing - apart from telling a good, believable story, and being a true character - is to be someone the audience will care about, even if you're playing a murderer or rapist.

We give you characters we'd feel very comfortable judging, and then go: 'Oh yeah? Watch this'.

But in film you always watch situations or stories that you really have no relation to. A lot of times just because there's no personal connection doesn't mean you can't connect with the film or the characters in the film.

In the end, drama is successful if you care about the people.

Whatever kind of movie it is, you're going to be more into it when you care more about the drama, or you'll have a better laugh if you feel like you know the people better.

You can't make the audience fall in love with a character you don't like.

Whether it's Brad Pitt up there, if there's a good moment up there, and you get pulled into the emotion, you're not thinking, 'Oh, that's Brad Pitt. He's an actor, and he's famous.' That's kind of the nature of storytelling, right? You sit around the fire and tell a story, and you can get sucked into that story.

People love storylines. They love them because at some point, the talent will get people emotionally invested.

I think it's touching that the fans feel so close to the characters that they feel personally hurt. I've felt that way in plenty of TV shows - 'Game of Thrones,' 'Mad Men.' How could they do that to that character? That's drama.

If we get caught up in a story, it's because we've started to care about the characters, and that can only happen if we've moved beneath the surface.

One of the things that separates a good genre movie from a bad genre movie, I always think, ironically, is when you care about the people. The dime a dozen ones are where you don't have any awareness of the character.

People like the comedy more when they care about the characters.

That's how you get surprises, because what movies are all about is surprises.

As a storyteller, when you're writing a movie and when you're directing, you want to keep people entertained. That's the whole point, right? It has to be entertaining.

As a writer, you have to realize that people want to like the characters, so you have to be careful to keep them involved.

At the premieres, I always watch the audience. If a child asks to go to the bathroom, I know I've failed.

I think there's a lot of elements that go into making a really awesome horror film and that's like putting together like a real good group of people that you love to watch them either live or die.

If I watch something, I want to be wondering what is going to happen next; I want to be engaged in a way that makes me ask questions and think about how I can relate myself to the characters and the issues that are there. But if it's just fluff, and everything is spelt out, I find it difficult to concentrate.