Burnie Burns Quotes

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

Some of the storytelling we did in 'Battlestar Galactica,' to graft that onto 'Star Trek,' it would have required changing the entire format of the show and, really, a different taste of the show.

A good film script should be able to do completely without dialogue.

I just use all the skills that I learned in film school, and I just incorporate them into my sketches. People don't realize that, with a story, there has to be a beginning, middle and end. There has to be a problem and a resolution. Just because it's six seconds doesn't mean it's not a story.

What I learned on 'Homicide' was that each show deserves its own look.

'Game of Thrones' is just incredible, what they pull off every week.

I like reading a lot. Jeffrey Archer and Robert Ludlum are my favourite authors. I love making realistic cinema, so I read non-fiction more.

TV is a different animal these days. You can bring together really smart writing and directing, in-depth character development and really meaty political and emotional stories.

'The Names' is planned as a nine-part series. I have a kind of road map: I know the final scene of episode nine. But as to exactly how we get there, what detours or horrible accidents we might have to pass through, I like to keep that a little fluid.

I think that a movie of a TV show is really tricky, and I don't know if it's ever really been done well. Because it's really hard if you have a 22-minute show, especially something like 'Party Down,' where it's all contained at the party.

That's the great part about television: It's alive, and it changes and evolves with the way the characters evolve. Stuff that happens to you in your life when you're shooting a TV show, you have to be careful, because it might end up in the show.

I was trained in storytelling by Jim Shooter, Stan Lee, and Larry Hama. Doesn't make me a genius, and there really isn't anything fancy about the stage direction in my scripts.

I want to do film and TV. I want to make good stories. I want to write; I want to be more involved.

Because I come from the theater, I use the images of the theater and of movies a great deal when I write. I see the story in my head. I have to break down the outline of a story first. I have to know where I'm going. Usually I have a good beginning and a good ending, and then I think, "Now I have to find my way through it."

I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one. Then they find themselves writing a sketch with an essay woven through it, or an essay with a sketch woven through it, or an editorial with a character in it, or a case history with a moral, or some other mongrel thing.

Never open your story with a character thinking, I advise my students. As a further precaution, don’t put a character in a room alone – create a friend, a bystander, a genie, for God’s sake, any sentient creature with whom your main character can converse, perhaps argue or, better yet, engage in some action. If a person is out and doing, it’s more likely that something interesting might happen to her or him. Shut up in a room with only his thoughts for company well, that way lies fictional disaster.

As a storyteller, I think where working in television can almost be like lifting weights - you really have to know what your story is about.

I felt like 'Life' was a great show. It was really well-written.

But having a really good understanding of history, literature, psychology, sciences - is very, very important to actually being able to make movies.

You can't rely on the acting to tell the story.

All of the good movies are based on how that story was told. And you cannot do it with a bad script, that's for sure, no matter who.

It's tough. We don't have a character-driven show so I think the fans get really frustrated because they don't get to see any consistency in terms of what's happening romantically. We kind of just have to take it with a grain of salt. It shows up where it shows up.

If I really knew how to do good storytelling, I would be a writer. Mystery is not a huge part of it. ... It's tension, it's relationships. I think it's a struggle.

The story is everything, so it always begins with a story.And research is a kind of scaffolding built underneath the story as I go along. My enjoyment level varies, but in general, I'm writing about topics I find interesting, so I can't gripe too much.

Good storytelling is harder than it sounds, but the easy part is that everyone has the ability to do it. ...Tap into it.