Just the idea of seeing a type of narrative we've not seen before is a chance to be surprised.
I believe the structure of 'House of Leaves' is far more difficult to explain than it is to read. And while I'd like to lay claim to some extraordinary act of originality, truth is I'm only taking advantage of capabilities inherent in everyone.
I certainly didn't want to make another movie that's 'just another Dracula film.'
So much of television is incredibly predictable. You watch the first five minutes and you know where it's going to go. If you can just create an element of surprise in both the storytelling and tone of a show, you're going to be way ahead of the pack.
I always like to break out and address the audience. In 'The History Boys', for instance, without any ado, the boys will suddenly turn and talk to the audience and then go back into the action. I find it more adventurous doing it in prose than on the stage, but I like being able to make the reader suddenly sit up.
I think authors are just realizing there's no real reason to feel limited to a narrow set of genre rules in their writing. There's no reason a mystery novel can't have fantastic elements in it. Similarly, there's no reason why your epic fantasy series can't have elements of a mystery.
I like it when a script shows you something new, and you can learn something through the journey of a film rather than being told things you already know.
The idea of being on a show where each season stands alone, and you can come back the next year and show an entirely different aspect of your personality or your talent or your anything is an enormous gift that you rarely get in television.
I praise CBS for taking a risk, which is always the price you pay for opportunity. This is not standard movie of the week storytelling. I think movies of the week have fallen into a niche and that isn't my niche.
Because I've worked with Netflix from the beginning, and that's my first job, I only want to work with creators, producers, and networks that are pushing the limit and putting people on the screen that haven't had their stories told yet.
I wanted to tell a romantic and dark side of Ottoman history that was also slightly political, saying to the previous generation of writers, 'Look, I'm interested in Ottoman things, and I'm not afraid of it, and I'm doing something creative.'
I always look for a story that hasn't been told in the same way. I don't care about a lot of the usual elements people use for a quick drama boost. I want to know, for example, what happens when a man who was victimized by his father tries to be a father to a woman sixty years his senior.
My interest in Virtual Reality (VR) films began for me when I began a fellowship with MIT's Open Documentary Lab. It was a profound experience to be on MIT's campus one day a week and to enter a new world of storytelling where breaking convention and traditional methods were expected. This was deeply challenging and inspiring.
Non-studio entities can experiment with storytelling that might be too niche... for a studio.
We're trying to tell a very full story of 'Nashville' and these characters in Nashville, and I'm really hopeful that we're going to be able to do something as innovative as 'American Horror Story' and 'Friday Night Lights.' And I think so far, we're on the right path for that.
The ideal kitchen-sink novel: Throw in everything but the kitchen sink. Then add the kitchen sink.
I'm a slave to my imagination in terms of making narrative films.
It seems so tragic to me that so many filmmakers are making movies up against this extra-ordinary revolution with one eye closed and two hands tied behind their backs.
There's a widening of an idea of what a TV show can be or how it can be told, and that's partially in the diversity of the creators and the stories. Because there are so many new networks and streaming services popping up every day that need more content, there are more opportunities to take risks.
For me, one of the great tragedies is the conclusion studios have drawn about traditional animation. I believe that 2D animation could be just as vital as it ever was. I think the problem has been with the stories.
As a writer, I challenge myself not to tell the same story - to tackle different characters with different issues.
Audiences have become so much more sophisticated, and they're looking for different eyes and different ways to tell a story. And 'Scandal' certainly gives us the freedom to take those chances.
I think Kurosawa was one of the first storytelling geniuses who began to change the narrative structure of films.
What one wants to do with stories is screw them up.
I think one of my favorite things about making low budget movies is that when you get into expensive moviemaking territory, it's almost impossible not to reverse engineer the movies. It's irresponsible not to think about the result and the financial result. But when you make low budget movies, you can put that out of your head.
