Charles Forsman Quotes

I use colors to bring fine points of story and character.

I often use hypothetical situations to generate information and imagery for paintings and to create a fictional space where a subject can be put into play.

I don't have a drawer full of ideas. I kind of look around and take notes and wonder what could actually be a whole movie. And each time, I think I'm going to do it more commercial this time; I'm going to get a big budget and make it. But I always come up with some small idea.

I think writers like to see how people bring their words to life, and it's always surprising. Always, no matter what, whether it's good or bad, it's always surprising because a whole human being is coming to that piece of writing.

For me, I get a part of an idea here and a little bit of an idea there, and then finally it accumulates into a movie.

When you're drawing something, you kind of run a movie in your head. You might close your eyes or stare into the distance and kind of see a movie unfolding and, you know, grab a certain moment or think, 'Oh, yeah, that's when we need just the point that he appears around the corner but just as she's getting into the car,' you know?

My films usually start with an idea that I get while walking the streets. For example, I got the idea for 'Guard Dog' when I was walking in the park and I saw a dog barking at a bird.

Once I'm given an idea for a story I have a million ideas on how it should be illustrated, but I don't have a big shoebox full of unfinished ideas.

To some extent, I draw on what I see around me; in other places, I imagine what I write.

What I like most about directing is creating a world more so than anything. To me, the music is the wrapping paper on that world.

I love writing picture books and story books because of the exciting, visual life that artists and illustrators give to them. And most of all, I love writing novels because of the inner, emotional journeys that they take me on. Hopefully, the reader comes with me!

I truly enjoy directing. I enjoy looking at the words on the paper and visualizing how to make them come to life.

Where story comes from, I don't know. I know that I become obsessed with something. An idea, an image, a person, the way a person talks. And then something starts happening that I can't explain, and it has a lot to do with language.

It's fun to try and picture what exactly is in your head and translate it onto the screen. How you can take something that lives in my mind and bring it to life - but that part is fun.

A good song should give you a lot of images; you should be able to make your own little movie in your head to a good song.

My struggle over the years has constantly been, it only takes 10 minutes, or an average shower, to come up with a mini-series or two, but it takes a year to draw them. So for me, it's been just trying to find a way to get all these ideas and all these incidents on paper.

When you're trying to create imagery, you're trying to create a feeling or a mood.

When I write, I never think of segments as chapters; I think of them as scenes. I always visualize them in my mind. Then I try to get the scene down on paper as closely as I can. That's the one thing that readers don't see - what you have in your mind. The reader can only see what you get on the page.

I keep on having ideas and developments. Some happen and some don't, but I still always have a way of telling a story.

'The Indian Runner' was easy. It had been incubating in me for eight years, and by the time I sat down to write the thing, I had all the pictures in my head.

The artist's job, I think, is to be a conduit for mystery. To intuit it, and recognize that the story-germ has some inherent mystery in it, and sort of midwife that mystery into the story in such a way that it isn't damaged in the process, and may even get heightened or refined.

If I can't get a mental image from the song, I won't sing it.

I try to stay focused on my creativity.

With directing, you've got to find something and drag it up from its inception, and I'm at the early stages of doing that again. There's something all-consuming and addictive about that.

I try and create for the audience something that relates to real-life experience.