Storytelling Tool Quotes

Film is a truly magical medium.

Cinema, I always felt, is a very powerful mass medium to translate ideas in an engaging way.

I'm really not a fan of voiceovers; I think they become a crutch.

Style is not an end in itself, it is only a means to an end - the means of telling a story.

Visual effects have always been a part of this art form. And CG is simply a tool on the filmmaker's tool belt to tell a story, but when the end result is bad - maybe it's not the tool's fault.

I can use movie as a language. Not only could it send a good message, I could let people know about my thinking and how I see the world, how I see the colour, how I see the music, how I see everything.

3D is great, but I just think of it as another tool, like colour or music or sound. It has the potential to add another emotional layer to certain things if you use it right. But it's not the saviour [of the movies], the be all and end all, the reason to do something.

I think that cartoons have a lot more power than they're given credit for.

I'm certainly hoping that 3D gets to the point where people do not notice it because once they stop noticing it, it just becomes another tool and an aid to help tell a story.

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

I think film is a very powerful advocate and message carrier.

I'm only interested in science fiction that's used as a literary device, a shortcut into something more exploratory or universal about our experience. That's why I think it was invented and why mythology was invented; it's a tool, not an end to itself.

If you use music boldly at the front of a scene, it creates another level.

I think 'Lost' didn't invent the flashback, obviously. It's been a cinematic tool. It's been around almost as long as cinema has.

The portal structure is simply a technique: it is neither necessary nor unnecessary, except as the writer and the story make it so. In the case of 'The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant,' it was absolutely necessary to my intentions.

Genre is a really great shorthand you can have with an audience. In the same way you can use music to create a connection with an audience, it brings so much of their knowledge of what genre really is to the table. You have a shortcut to connect with them. I really like that.

Dialogue's a method of revelation, of course. A few words of dialogue can reveal worlds about a character.

I think the voice over actually enhances the various moments instead of compensating for something that's lacking. Voice over can be tricky. It can be dangerous because its over used or inappropriately used. I think in this case it informs the story.

I feel like handling a narrative in fiction is a wonderful way to teach stories that then open a pathway to reality and understanding.

Rather than a teaching tool, I think a novel is more of a witnessing entity. A witnessing entity? What is that? I just want the reader to step in and experience it as a story.

More than simply capturing brief moments in time, MixBit helps people bring stories to life.

A shot is only as every as good as how well it tells the story.

Interactive storytelling emphasizes a personal connection with the characters. It is a powerful tool that can draw you so deeply into the world of a story that you lose sight of it as a story. You think you are there - at least, if it is done right.

Pathos and poignancy are, to me, tactics and techniques; in my work as a writer, I fetch them from my toolbox and use them as required.

Film is really the one art form that can effectively use silence. Music and theater can play with silence, but they can't sustain silence without losing energy, whereas film can go into a silent mode and stay there for minutes at a time.