I think what I'm trying to do is create moments of recognition. To try to detonate some kind of feeling or understanding of lived experience.
Honestly, when you're writing you try to stay on the story, on the character's mind, trying to throw stuff at them. There is danger, and the scares have to kick in the right places with the drama. And you try not to do too much to try to create those moments. Those moments create themselves.
I do think that fist-waving conversations around liberation ideologies are sort of dated - I'm not creating Barbara Kruger moments of self-actualization - what I'm trying to do is create more moments of chaos where we don't really know where we are: to destabilize; where all the rules are suspended temporarily.
Through these years, I have attempted to create magical moments between my characters because, be it television or films, life is about the moments we create while living through it.
When we wrote 'Avenue Q,' we worked hard to create something that could be funny and satirical but also had some surprise moments of heart, moments when the music itself could become a central player and create something sweet and moving.
Monica Langley has a great piece in The Wall Street Journal about how they're trying to create different kinds of moments for Donald Trump, as opposed to just him shouting at rallies. They're trying to get him in classrooms, and in churches, and in diners and places where he can make a more personal connection.
It's been really important to me to create moments where there's a breath or moments where there's a laugh or moments where there's real life that's allowed to seep in through the cracks of whatever melodrama is happening, because that's what does happen in life.
Performance leads to recognition. Recognition brings respect. Respect enhances power. Humility and grace in one's moments of power enhances dignity of an organisation.
I think terrorists are trying to create instability in Turkey. They're trying to break Turkey apart from where she belongs, which is the Western world. They're trying to scare the people in Turkey, and they're trying to create instability in the country.
Watching people reach a higher level of consciousness. A fixation. For a few moments in their lives, they transcend and become lost in the fantasy of it all. As a DJ, I'm trying to create the opportunity for this to happen.
Moments can change games; moments can create a run.
A part of my appreciation for the good which moments bring has come from awareness and recognition. But it has also come from a correspnding sadness which arises from their passing. When something that can never quite be reenacted comes to an end (and all moments are that way), I feel a pensiveness within. This pensiveness gives my life a quality that might be best described as bittersweet. And those moments take on double meaning and richness - because they are here now - and because they will not always be.
My advice is: to try and stay really true to the things that make YOU laugh, as opposed to trying to create a character that you think is funny. Some comedians get into bad habits when they are trying to create something that is not them, and they are trying to write a voice that isn't their true voice.
When we're trying to move on, the moments we go back to aren't dull ones. They're the big moments that meant everything.
When we make films - even 2D films - you're always trying to create this illusion of 3D, anyway. You're trying to create a believable world with characters walking, in and out of the perspective, to create the illusion that there's a world. The desire and drive to create this illusion of three-dimensional space is something that is true about every kind of film because you want the audience to really be experiencing it, first hand. It's a natural extension of the storytelling and the process of filmmaking.
There are moments of high mood, there are moments of low mood, there are moments of injury, there are moments of strength, there are moments of progress, there are moments of stagnation. All we can do is keep on pushing.