‘Bob’s Burgers’ is done with the cast all together – not necessarily all together: some are in L.A. and some are in New York, but we’re hearing each other. So scenes are performed as a group. And ‘Archer’ is just me alone in a booth.
Show, don’t tell, is a mantra repeated by tutors of creative writing courses the world over. As advice for amateurs, it is sound and helps avoid character profiling, unactivated scenes, and broken narrative frames.
There’s something really fun about being scared, and I guess that was at least part of why I wanted to film certain scenes from my new book, ‘Skeleton Creek.’
With modelling, a lot happens behind the scenes; all the fittings and hair and makeup. Then the runway takes two minutes – you just walk out and come back in!
In TV, you are much more likely to see the episode closer to the script as written – in terms of the order of the scenes – than you would in a movie, and here’s why: you don’t have as many days to edit. You have 10 to 12 weeks or more to edit a feature, and you have four days to edit TV. That’s a huge difference.
I made ‘St. Nick’ on a 30-page outline. ‘Aint’ Them Bodies Saints’ was a full-bodied script, but it still had a lot of room for improvisation. There were scenes that weren’t there on the page – just a sentence saying something happens. I was like, ‘We’ll figure this out when we shoot it.’
I loved being behind the scenes and finding out how they make movies.
Film is a lot different. You have the whole script in its entirety, and you have a couple of weeks to learn different scenes, really go over them and rehearse them so when you get to them they’re more fleshed out. But TV shows are harder.
I try to play serious scenes a little funny and the comedy a little serious.
Inspiring scenes of people taking the future of their countries into their own hands will ignite greater demands for good governance and political reform elsewhere in the world, including in Asia and in Africa.
Whatever headspace you need to live in for your character is sort of where you stay in between scenes.
But the two of them together, broke my heart. Olympia and Peter, those scenes… When they’re kissing in their 20s and then kissing in their 70s, that’s what it is. And they had never met five minutes before they shot those scenes.
James Franco is a Method actor. I respect Method actors, but he never snapped out of character. Whenever we’d have to get in the ring for boxing scenes, and even during practice, the dude was full-on hitting me.
It is totally different making films in the East than in the West. In the East, I make my own Jackie Chan films, and it’s like my family. Sometimes I pick up the camera because I choreograph all the fighting scenes, even when I’m not fighting. I don’t have my own chair. I just sit on the set with everybody.
One week I was in school and the next I’m at Leavesden Studios in Dumbledore’s office reading scenes with Daniel Radcliffe. Weird. And terrifying for such a huge ‘Harry Potter’ fan.
I made tons of films. I did animation for my friends’ films. I animated scenes just for the fun of it. Most of my stuff was bad, but I had fun, and I tried everything I knew to get better.
Kissing onscreen is the worst thing in the world. I’m OK with lovemaking scenes, but I hate kissing.
When I write, I imagine scenes. I write things down. I take photographs. I do some casting. I rewrite. It’s a permanent making or remaking.
The peculiar fascination which the South held over my imagination and my limited capital decided me in favor of Atlanta University; so about the last of September I bade farewell to the friends and scenes of my boyhood and boarded a train for the South.
The most important thing is for women not to tear other women down. Everyone in our division is helping each other, and that’s a message we send behind the scenes: that we are a unit and working to make the best product and highlight women as strong and independent superstars.
I didn’t know how to write a novel, so I sort of let it happen in waves. The only way I could write it was to think like scenes in a movie.
‘Pitch Perfect 2,’ those scenes are super fun. It’s just me and John Michael Higgins, and we’ve been friends for so long, we just have the best time. Anything I do with him is some of my favorite stuff.
There will be a time very shortly that I just might not be in front of the camera at all, and I might just be behind the scenes. I love doing television, though. I don’t necessarily love being in front of the camera.
As president, I’m not supposed to play games or show my hand, because there’s a lot going on behind the scenes that you don’t see or hear and don’t need to know.
I write narrative nonfiction, creating lively scenes through action and the use of quotes from firsthand accounts, all based on rigorous research. If I say a character leaned against a fence on a windy day, than I have at least two sources to back up these details.
I like documentaries because there’s nothing to nitpick or criticize about scenes if they aren’t just right. It’s about honesty and real-life circumstances coming out. Granted it can be swayed by how people tell that story, but overall, I like it because it is true.
With prose you can incorporate more details, develop scenes, sustain the tension in a special way. Prose has its own speed.
I love the smaller scenes. I love the smaller, slightly more theatrical scenes.
Just the textures of things are really important to me as I’m writing; I think atmospherics and visuals can have such emotional impact if you can harness the thematic thread between how scenes look and how your characters feel. I like to tug on that thread.
I’ve had scenes where I had to cry, and by the time I’ve cried for the 20th time, I’m exhausted.
I really like directors who give you a certain amount of autonomy because I think a lot about my characters and I think a lot about scenes and choices.
In features, we’re languid: we shoot one or two scenes over, like, three days. In TV, the pace is so different. You’re shooting ten scenes a day, going way into the future or way back into the past. It’s complete madness, and I’m just trying to keep up with this really electric pace.
‘Smallville’ was one of those things where we worked a lot of nights, and there were a lot of physical scenes. I was hurt a lot, but I loved it! The ‘Revenge’ cast was also one of the greatest, most gracious casts I’ve ever been a part of.
If my characters travel somewhere, I generally write about a place I know to give the scenes more authenticity.
I’d be lying if I said that any part of writing is easy for me, but I have always found that setting comes more naturally to me than, say, writing action scenes.
TV is so different from the movies. It takes a lot of stamina because you work such long hours. It is really challenging. You are learning the next day’s lines while you are shooting today’s scenes. I found courage I never realised I had. I hope to do more.
I love doing scenes with two actors in an elevator, but sometimes I’m a little boy, and I like swinging a sword with 800 soldiers around.
My views on piracy and illegal streaming are I think it’s illegal for a reason, and I feel like there’s a lot of people working hard behind the scenes to get the fights going and showing things on TV.
I love finding balance. My favorite thing to do is action-driven, emotionally-charged scenes.
In dialogue scenes, my favorite moments are when people aren’t talking because you can cut to the heart of the matter much more quickly, often with a look. People hide things in words. When you don’t have words to hide things in, it becomes much more direct and much more immediate of a connection.
Even for the most difficult scenes, and there are difficult scenes in the film, and because Michael Haneke is such a great film-maker – I think a great film-maker is not only being inspired, but how to do it, how to make it as real as possible, knowing that it’s not real.
I want to direct one day. I want to write my own thing and really be behind the scenes because you have more creative control.
I should think wrestling is the most positive thing in the world. The fact is, behind the scenes, there’s stuff that goes on that’s bush-league. It’s laughable.
It’s too bad I’m not a flirt. When I’m on the sets, I’m too busy working on my scenes to look at the ladies.
The scenes in the show were filmed with a crew of really excellent stunt jumpers, but we had the feel of the parachutes, so we could be more realistic in the roles.
I like being the lead but I like being in an ensemble. There are different challenges and dilemmas with both. If you’re carrying a film, there’s a certain weight, but there are a lot of scenes to explore the character. When you’re in an ensemble, you have to convey the entire character in a limited number of scenes.
I felt extremely uncomfortable as the focal point, in the spotlight. I really like the behind the scenes role, because all my freedom is there.
Obviously, ‘Lincoln’ is not about the telegraph operator. There’s a whole other movie before and after the two isolated scenes that I’m in.
In all the background scores I do, I take care to see that the theme enriches the storyline and does not deviate from the mood of the scenes, context, characters and the entire movie.
As a newspaper reporter, I covered and was around a fair number of crime scenes involving juvenile delinquents, and few things bothered me more than listening to their parents. Crying, ranting, proclaiming how great their children were despite being kicked out of school or previous run-ins with the law.
