Mara Brock Akil Quotes

Writing film scripts is the hardest thing in the world. A script has to go to five or six drafts, and you need the feedback of other people and to keep coming back with a fresh eye, honing it down.

There's nothing more important in making movies than the screenplay.

I want to write a film. I need to think of the right idea and focus on that; I love writing.

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.

Writing a script consumes so much of time.

Writing a TV show is totally different than writing features, or just, what I started doing is writing features. You write a little bit more organically. You start from the beginning to the end, beginning, middle and end.

Sometimes I find it tiresome to write actions and describe the scene in a very intricate way so that every crew member understands where we are going - that I can find a little bit long and tiresome. But dialogue is just all my life. There's no way I could ever be challenged, not challenged, but I'm always so happy to write dialogue.

The few times I've tried to write original screenplays, it's a difficult process because I just don't feel like I know the characters the way I know them after the year or two it takes to write a novel.

A script is not a piece of literature it's a process.

Every day, I learn something new. I think one of the most exciting things for a writer is to work on a TV show. It's like a novel. You have a really long time to develop and learn about the characters, and you can just really keep digging in deeper, every week.

The technology available for film-making now is incredible, but I am a big believer that it's all in the story.

When you're making a television show, it's about the story and arc of the show rather than any particular episode or director.

If you're writing a screenplay from scratch, it involves a lot of creation.

A script is a unique literary form, because it's not the end product; it's a blueprint. If you're not thinking of that end product, there's going to be a disconnect.

Jerry picked up the technique of visualizing the story as a movie scenario; and whenever he gave me a script, I would see it as a screenplay. That was the technique that Jerry used, and I just picked it up.

I write scripts to serve as skeletons awaiting the flesh and sinew of images.

If the script is telling the story well, that is your inspiration, and you do not need to go somewhere else.

'The Full Monty' was my first feature script, and I wasn't that skilled at it.

I wrote for 'The Sopranos' and worked on big, blustery characters for quite a while.

I've never written anything that I haven't wanted to write again. I want to, and still am, writing 'A Few Good Men' again. I didn't know what I was doing then, and I'm still trying to get it right. I would write 'The Social Network' again if they would let me, I'd write 'Moneyball' again. I would write 'The West Wing' again.

First and foremost, it's got to be on the page. It starts with the writing.

I like scripts. I spend a lot of time writing them.

'Just' writing is every bit as important as any other creative part of a film.

As a director, you want to work with great writers.

When television gets in trouble is when it forgets that it all begins with the written word.