Robert McKee Quotes

The dramatist is fascinated by the inner life, the passions and sins, madness and dreams of the human heart. But not the comedy writer. He fixes on the social life - the idiocy, arrogance, and brutality in society. The comedy writer singles out a particular institution that he feels has become encrusted with hypocrisy and folly, then goes on the attack. Often we can spot the social institution under assault by noting the film's title.

Secure writers don't sell first drafts. They patiently rewrite until the script is as director-ready, as actor-ready as possible. Unfinished work invites tampering, while polished, mature work seals its integrity.

Given the choice between trivial material brilliantly told versus profound material badly told, an audience will always choose the trivial told brilliantly.

When talented people write badly, it's generally for one of two reasons: Either they're blinded by an idea they feel compelled to prove of they're driven by an emotion they must express. When talented people write well, it is generally for this reason: They're moved by a desire to touch the audience.

A character is no more a human being than the Venus de Milo is a real woman. A character is a work of art, a metaphor for human nature. We relate to characters as if they were real, but they're superior to reality. Their aspects are designed to be clear and knowable; whereas our fellow humans are difficult to understand, if not enigmatic. We know characters better than we know our friends because a character is eternal and unchanging, while people shift - just when we think we understand them, we don't.

"When two friends meet on the street and talk about the weather, don't we know that theirs isn't a conversation about the weather? What is being said? "I'm your friend. Let's take a minute out of our busy day and stand here in each other's presence and reaffirm that we are indeed friends." They might talk about sports, weather, shopping...anything. But the text is not the subtext. What is said and done is not what is thought and felt. The scene is not about what it seems to be about. Screen dialogue, therefore, must have the swing of everyday talk but content well above normal."

Si se reduce el número de espectadores, también se debe reducir el presupuesto. Ésa es la ley.

Creativity is choice-making.

درام زندگی بداهه پردازی بی پایانی است

Because story is a metaphor for life, we expect it to feel like life, to have the rhythm of life. This rhythm beats between two contradictory desires: On one hand, we desire serenity, harmony, peace, and relaxation, but too much of this day after day and we become bored to the point of ennui and need therapy. As a result, we also desire challenge, tension, danger, even fear. But too much of this day after day and again we end up in the rubber room. So the rhythm of life swings between these poles.

We shape the telling to fit the substance, rework the substance to support the design.

If the story you're telling, is the story you're telling, you're in deep shit.

Hope, after all, is not unreasonable. It’s simply hypothetical.

Once a transition of value creates an emotion, feeling comes into play. Although they're often mistaken for each other, feeling is not emotion. Emotion is a short-term experience that peaks and burns rapidly. Feeling is a long-term, pervasive, sentient background that colors whole days, weeks, even years of our lives. Indeed, a specific feeling often dominates a personality. Each of the core emotions in life - pleasure and pain - has many variations. So which particular negative or positive emotion will we experience? The answer is found in the feeling that surrounds it. For, like adding pigment to a pencil sketch or an orchestra to a melody, feeling makes emotion specific.

When we want mood experiences, we go to concerts or museums. When we want meaningful emotional experience, we go to the storyteller.