A Quote by Wyatt Cenac
One of the things that I was kind of holding on to from 'The Daily Show' was there was an exhaustion that I would feel because we just kind of got caught up in the news cycle. You tell a story, and that's an interesting story, and then the next day we have to drop it and talk about something else. That's so unfair to the story and the people.
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On 'The Daily Show,' we get so caught up in the day-to-day news cycle. A story breaks, and then the piranhas in late night, we all jump to the headline, and we dissect it, and then we have to move on to the next day.
If you gauge how you're doing on whether somebody is responding vocally or not, you're up a creek. You can't do that; you kind of have to be inside of your work and play the scene. And tell the story every day. Tell the story. Tell the story. Regardless of how people are responding, I'm going to tell the story.
We got kind of into a rhythm at 'Parks' because there were so many characters that we had an A story, a B story, and a C story just about every episode. So by the middle of that show's run, we always had three stories, and it worked really well.
It's hard to tell if anyone's interested in reading a serialized story. But it's interesting to put in a cliffhanger each week. That was popular in old comic strips. They'd write a weekend story different from the daily strip. So people follow one story day to day, and a separate story on weekends. If you read them, you think "I'll read two more." Then you're like "I gotta find out!" And you read 500 more.
Sometimes the music just has to tell the story without you trying to tell the story. It depends on the type of music you want to make. If it makes you feel good and party then you go with that. If it makes you feel like speaking on something real and doing a story then it's the beat just has to have the story.
Vera said: 'Why do you feel you have to turn everything into a story?' So I told her why: Because if I tell the story, I control the version. Because if I tell the story, I can make you laugh, and I would rather have you laugh at me than feel sorry for me. Because if I tell the story, it doesn't hurt as much. Because if I tell the story, I can get on with it.
You have to do three things really well to make a successful film. You have to tell a compelling story that has a story that is unpredictable, that keeps people on the edge of their seat where they can't wait to see what happens next. You then populate that story with really memorable and appealing characters. And then, you put that story and those characters in a believable world, not realistic but believable for the story that you're telling.
For people who are coming out of an oral tradition, it is very exciting to get into reading and writing and it is quite interesting how frequently people want to write their own story. Sometimes it is straight history - this is how we came about, how our town was created, a lot of that kind of effort, as soon as literacy came. The first thing you wanted to do was to put something down about who you are or how you are related to you neighbors. Then the next stage would be the stories, the cultural part of the story: this is the kind of world our ancestors made or aspired to.
It's not easy to tell a story about writers and make that feel like a complete story and an interesting story.
Sometimes, I'll read a news story and there will be one line about something else, and I'll find it interesting and look into it. That can often turn into an entire story on its own.
We would also go to musicals. So Singing In the Rain, On the Town, and West Side Story. Especially West Side Story because played that a lot before VCRs, so that would be something that would be a big deal if it came on, you caught it. So that really started, my family was not in show business at all but really loved that kind of thing.
I don't know what the definition of a short story is, and I don't even care to answer that question. That's something somebody in academia would think about. I just want to tell a story, and if people listen, and if it stays with you, it's a story.
I think the best thing about music is that someone could be writing a song that's so personal, and it tells so many other people's story at the same time. It kind of exemplifies that we are all kind of on the same wave[length] - it's amazing how comforting somebody else's story can be, because we have experienced their story in some way or another, and I can totally relate, and I get to feel that feeling and the expression of that emotion. I get to feel like as a listener, that somebody understands me, which is pretty incredible.
I hardly ever think about audience. I just try to tell a story for me. I write the kind of story I would like to read.
A story is a way to say something that can't be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is. You tell a story because a statement would be inadequate. When anybody asks what a story is about, the only proper thing is to tell them to read the story. The meaning of fiction is not abstract meaning but experienced meaning.
And for better or worse, a story like 'Pieces of April' is the kind of story I'm supposed to tell. The kind of story that makes you laugh as much as possible but also breaks your heart.
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