Garth Stein Quotes

It's hard not to want to become Ken Burns at times. I'm interested in being a Ken Burns who reaches that 17-year-old who goes to the multiplex just to see a good story well-told. And if there's history in it, all the better.

So I do tend to do documentaries where I can move in and out of them.

You should bear in mind that almost all my documentaries are feature films in disguise.

My background is sociology. Combined with my graphic approach, if I could do some film projects, I think I'd be very good at making documentaries eventually, but people don't think of me for that, of course. But dialogue is something I know I can be good at.

I love the idea of documentaries. I love seeing documentaries, and I love making them. Documentaries are incredibly easy to shoot. The ease with which you can hear something's going on, somebody's going to be somewhere: That sounds so interesting. Pick up your camera and go.

I always thought of documentaries as films through which you find your voice as a narrator.

I did documentary film for a long time, and I spent a lot of time behind the camera, fervently wishing that the reality I was filming would conform to my narrative propriety. But you can't control it.

I'm not a purist - I like films that are narrated and films that aren't, films that are beautiful and films that are clumsy but heartfelt. Mostly, I just like a good story and good characters.

I don't normally make documentaries. I'm a drama director. I've made a few short docs, but I don't like talking heads or 'voice of God' narrators.

I think the greatest thing about making a documentary is your ability to just follow the story and the subject.

In documentary films, the most difficult thing to achieve is to make something complex appear simple.

I started in documentaries, and that was a great help to me with improvisation, because with documentaries, you're handed a big lump of footage, and you have to shape it and make it into a story - which I love doing.

I don't think there's so much difference between making documentaries and feature films. I think it's even harder to make documentaries.

I'm a documentary filmmaker, I know what it means to craft a story, especially when you've shot a lot of material.

Of course, when you're making a documentary, you don't have actors, but nonetheless, there is a writing process that does take place in the editing room.

I never intended to be a documentary filmmaker. I think I became a documentary filmmaker because I had trouble writing, and I had trouble finishing things.

The technology is really where all of the changes have taken place, but the fundamentals of a good story being the basis of every good picture, and really the only basis still remains the rule, more so today, I think, because we've unfortunately weaned an audience from birth to kind of mindless movies.

As a rule, anyone who can tell a good story can write one, so there really need be no mistake about his qualification; such a man will be careful not to be wearisome, and to keep his point, or his catastrophe, well in hand.

All the writing elements are the same. You need to tell a good story... You've got good characters... People think there's some dramatic difference between writing 'Little Bear' and the 'Hunger Games,' and as a writer, for me, there isn't.

You set out to tell a good story. You don't do it because there is a deep message involved because the movie is almost always bad when you do that.

I do feel that if you can write one good sentence and then another good sentence and then another, you end up with a good story.

The key fact missed most often by social scientists utilizing documentary films for data, is this: documentary films are not found or reported things; they're made things.

I'm a documentary filmmaker by training. You got to start with the real people and the real place.

Taking a comic strip character is very hard to write. Because comics are meant to work in one page, to work in frames with minimalistic dialogue. And a lot of it is left to the imagination of the reader. To do that in film, you've got to be a little more explanatory. And that requires a good screenplay and good dialogue.

Television is a lot of fun. It's faster-paced. The schedule is really desirable, I guess. But as far as films go, and I've only done a couple; film is like a definitive beginning, middle and end. You know your character's arch.