Patrick Lussier Quotes

When you're working in a collaborative storytelling medium, every step of the way, you're opening yourself up.

I want to work with anyone who's passionate about telling a story. I obviously have a list of people I really love, but it's a really long list.

In a weird way, I think I'm much better at oneshots than longform. So I try to focus on five or six-issue arcs. I have a real fondness for the one-shots because that's where I do my best storytelling.

Robert Bolt's storytelling is the kind that I grew up with and aspired to.

I prefer to bring these to the service of story rather than to let them replace narrative.

The first and primary requirement for me in a director that I'd want to work with is: do they love writing, and do they love the collaboration process with writers?

I'm big on story structure. I studied with John Truby, who mapped out story by means of moral wants and needs, and that's what I do. Hey, so does John Irving.

There is commerciality in storytelling, even in a film or a piece of literature. These things exist. That's why stories came to be: to hold attention and, while you're not looking, you'll get hopefully some nutritional value that the author has been working up. That's narrative; that's passing stuff down.

The marketplace tells us that good, visceral storytelling has a place. But there are lots of questions about the format that stories take.

Steven and I have worked together a lot and I'm far ahead of the curve than most people in knowing what he wants, but he knows far more than I know about what's important for the story. So, most of the changes he will make will involve story changes.

The director in TV and the writer and the creator are working very much hand in hand.

These days we're all hyper-aware of the canonical way in which stories are supposed to play out - people are taught all about three-act scripting and where to put the reversal and all of that - and I think we can do more interesting narratives.

All directors are storytellers, so the motivation was to tell the story I wanted to tell. That's what I love.

No great television show has ever rested on just one person. They're all about great ensembles and storytelling.

I guess I would say that most of what I've learned about storytelling derives from novels and short stories. I cannot think of a novel or story, or a novelist or story writer, who thinks in terms of three-act structure.

How many times can you put together 26 different stories without running out?

I don't care if it's Dr. Dre or Dr. Luke or Brian Eno. When you're in a studio and making music together, it becomes pretty apparent if you see eye to eye.

I would say the most important aspect of direction is that you, as a director, and your producer need to be on the same page, the same line of thinking. If that doesn't happen in the beginning of the film, then that will show in the final product 100 percent.

I always try to develop a good relationship with the director on any film and make sure that we want the same things and we're talking about the same ideas, and that gives me great protection.

I'm especially keen to work with good scriptwriters on stories we have developed.

Every story is organic, and every story finds its own ending.

I have to work with the team at Blizzard and the producers on the film and convince them that, as a fan, I have a unique and hopefully entertaining way of taking people through the first contact story, which is really what sets up 'Warcraft' for everyone else.

So we [with Kate DiCamillo] decided to give the friends an object and see what they did with it. The object was a sock and it went from there. Once we got going, once we got on a roll, it became very easy to work together and to figure out how to do it. We would meet for two-hour segments, usually from 10-12, two or three times a week. We met all one summer, and I think into the fall.

You just have to go with a good story and a script that you like and people that you like to work with.

I am very excited to work with people who have a strong vision of what they want. They're trying to tell a story, and they want to use me. I'm there to facilitate that. I really like that. I'm like, "Tell me where your frame is. Tell me what you want, what kind of story you want, and I will facilitate it." That's sort of my job, and it makes my work better when I'm working in that kind of a frame, and hopefully it's their work. It's incredibly collaborative, in the sense that you're working toward a common goal.