Story Viewer Quotes

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He steps back, still looking. In the painting, Willem's torso is directed toward the viewer, but his face is turned to the right so that he is almost in profile, and he is leaning towards something or someone and smiling. And because he knows Willem's smiles, he knows that Willem has been captured looking at something he loves, he knows Willem in that instant is happy. Willem's face and neck dominate the canvas and although the background is suggested rather than shown, he knows that Willem is at their table. He knows it from the way that JB has drawn the light and shadows on Willem's face. He has the sense that if he says Willem's name that the face in the painting will turn toward him and answer; he has the sense that if he stretches his hand out and strokes the canvas he will feel beneath his fingertips Willem's hair, his fringe of eyelashes. But he doesn't do this, of course, just looks up at last and sees JB smiling at him, sadly. "The title card's been mounted already," JB says, and he goes slowly to the wall behind the painting and sees its title - "Willem Listening to Jude Tell a Story, Greene Street"-and he feels his beneath abandon him; it feels as if his heart is made of something oozing and cold, like ground meat, and it is being squeezed inside a fist so that chunks of it are falling, plopping to the ground near his feet.
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
Freedom isn't an illusion; it's perfectly real in the context of sequential consciousness. Within the context of simultaneous consciousness, freedom is not meaningful, but neither is coercion; it's simply a different context, no more or less valid than the other. It's like that famous optical illusion, the drawing of either an elegant young woman, face turned away from the viewer, or a wart-nosed crone, chin tucked down on her chest. There's no “correct” interpretation; both are equally valid. But you can't see both at the same time. “Similarly, knowledge of the future was incompatible with free will. What made it possible for me to exercise freedom of choice also made it impossible for me to know the future. Conversely, now that I know the future, I would never act contrary to that future, including telling others what I know: those who know the future don't talk about it. Those who've read the Book of Ages never admit to it.
Ted Chiang (Stories of Your Life and Others)
A writer, like a cinematographer, manipulates the viewer’s perspective on an ongoing story, with the verbal equivalent of camera angles and quick cuts.
Steven Pinker (The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century)
The growing number of gated communities in our nation is but one example of the obsession with safety. With guards at the gate, individuals still have bars and elaborate internal security systems. Americans spend more than thirty billion dollars a year on security. When I have stayed with friends in these communities and inquired as to whether all the security is in response to an actual danger I am told “not really," that it is the fear of threat rather than a real threat that is the catalyst for an obsession with safety that borders on madness. Culturally we bear witness to this madness every day. We can all tell endless stories of how it makes itself known in everyday life. For example, an adult white male answers the door when a young Asian male rings the bell. We live in a culture where without responding to any gesture of aggression or hostility on the part of the stranger, who is simply lost and trying to find the correct address, the white male shoots him, believing he is protecting his life and his property. This is an everyday example of madness. The person who is really the threat here is the home owner who has been so well socialized by the thinking of white supremacy, of capitalism, of patriarchy that he can no longer respond rationally. White supremacy has taught him that all people of color are threats irrespective of their behavior. Capitalism has taught him that, at all costs, his property can and must be protected. Patriarchy has taught him that his masculinity has to be proved by the willingness to conquer fear through aggression; that it would be unmanly to ask questions before taking action. Mass media then brings us the news of this in a newspeak manner that sounds almost jocular and celebratory, as though no tragedy has happened, as though the sacrifice of a young life was necessary to uphold property values and white patriarchal honor. Viewers are encouraged feel sympathy for the white male home owner who made a mistake. The fact that this mistake led to the violent death of an innocent young man does not register; the narrative is worded in a manner that encourages viewers to identify with the one who made the mistake by doing what we are led to feel we might all do to “protect our property at all costs from any sense of perceived threat. " This is what the worship of death looks like.
bell hooks (All About Love: New Visions)
He steps back, still looking. In the painting, Willem’s torso is directed toward the viewer, but his face is turned to the right so that he is almost in profile, and he is leaning toward something or someone and smiling. And because he knows Willem’s smiles, he knows Willem has been captured looking at something he loves, he knows Willem in that instant was happy. Willem’s face and neck dominate the canvas, and although the background is suggested rather than shown, he knows that Willem is at their table; he knows it from the way JB has drawn the light and shadows on Willem’s face. He has the sense that if he says Willem’s name, the face in the painting will turn toward him and answer; he has the sense that if he stretches his hand out and strokes the canvas, he will feel beneath his fingertips Willem’s hair, his fringe of eyelashes. But he doesn’t do this, of course, just looks up at last and sees JB smiling at him, sadly. “The title’s card’s been mounted already,” JB says, and he goes slowly to the wall behind the painting and sees its title—Willem Listening to Jude Tell a Story, Greene Street—and he feels his breath abandon him; it feels as if his heart is made of something oozing and cold, like ground meat, and it is being squeezed inside a fist so that chunks of it are falling, plopping to the ground near his feet.
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
Many of the people who consented to talk about their private lives in front of millions of television viewers would say that they were sharing their stories as a way to give comfort [to] fellow sufferers, to raise public awareness, to give a voice to their pain. None of them would ever admit that it was all about ratings and voyeurism and lurid, grotesque curiosity.
Elizabeth Wurtzel (Prozac Nation)
The idea tells you everything. Lots of times I get ideas, I fall in love with them. Those ones you fall in love with are really special ideas. And, in some ways, I always say, when something's abstract, the abstractions are hard to put into words unless you're a poet. These ideas you somehow know. And cinema is a language that can say abstractions. I love stories, but I love stories that hold abstractions--that can hold abstractions. And cinema can say these difficult-to-say-in-words things. A lot of times, I don't know the meaning of the idea, and it drives me crazy. I think we should know the meaning of the idea. I think about them, and I tell this story about my first feature Eraserhead. I did not know what these things meant to me--really meant. And on that particular film, I started reading the Bible. And I'm reading the Bible, going along, and suddenly--there was a sentence. And I said, forget it! That's it. That's this thing. And so, I should know the meaning for me, but when things get abstract, it does me no good to say what it is. All viewers on the surface are all different. And we see something, and that's another place where intuition kicks in: an inner-knowingness. And so, you see a thing, you think about it, and you feel it, and you go and you sort of know something inside. And you can rely on that. Another thing I say is, if you go--after a film, withholding abstractions--to a coffee place--having coffee with your friends, someone will say something, and immediately you'll say “No, no, no, no, that's not what that was about.” You know? “This is what it was about.” And so many things come out, it's surprising. So you do know. For yourself. And what you know is valid.
David Lynch
Our best moral stories don’t tell us what is right or wrong in every situation, but they show us what one character did in one situation at one time. Readers, viewers, and listeners are supposed to extrapolate the moral meaning from the story. We’re not supposed to have it handed to us.
Jonathan D. Fitzgerald (Not Your Mother's Morals: How the New Sincerity is Changing Pop Culture for the Better)
Every tattoo should tell a story of the person inside. Each is open to interpretation to the viewer. No one has to know the real meaning if you don't want them to.
Charisse Spiers (Marked (Shadows in the Dark #1))
In this image-driven age, wildlife filmmakers carry a heavy responsibility. They can influence how we think and behave when we’re in nature. They can even influence how we raise our kids, how we vote and volunteer in our communities, as well as the future of our wildlands and wildlife. If the stories they create are misleading or false in some way, viewers will misunderstand the issues and react in inappropriate ways. People who consume a heavy diet of wildlife films filled with staged violence and aggression, for example, are likely to think about nature as a circus or a freak show. They certainly won’t form the same positive connections to the natural world as people who watch more thoughtful, authentic, and conservation-oriented films.
Chris Palmer (Shooting in the Wild: An Insider's Account of Making Movies in the Animal Kingdom)
Whether you know it or not, your desire to write comes from the urge to not just be “creative,” it’s a need (one every human being on earth has) to help others. A well-told Story is a gift to the reader/listener/viewer because it teaches them how to confront their own discomforts.
Shawn Coyne (The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know)
The person with the paintbrush or sculptor’s chisel was now the dominant figure in the relationship, having thrown down the gauntlet to a newly subordinate and vulnerable viewer, daring us to take a leap of faith. Which remains the case today: abstract art puts us all at risk of looking like suckers, believing in something that isn’t there.
Will Gompertz (What Are You Looking At?: The Surprising, Shocking, and Sometimes Strange Story of 150 Years of Modern Art)
The depressing majority of comics seem to be about violence of one sort or another, [...] And I just don’t enjoy violence. I can see that narratively it is often a powerful spike in a story, but I certainly don’t want to dwell on it. I don’t want it in my real life, I don’t find violence entertaining in and of itself, or exciting, or funny. But sex is happily part of most people’s lives, and crosses the mind most days, I would say, even if it’s just watching your partner get out of bed in the morning. [...] Most pornography is pretty awful. I mean, it does the job at the most utilitarian level, but it rarely excites other areas of the mind, or the eye. It’s repetitive, bland and often a bit silly. I was interested in trying to do something that has an aesthetic beauty to it if possible, and something that tickles the intellect as well as the more basic areas of the mind. Maybe that’s not possible, and as soon as you start to think too much, it stops working as pornography. I don’t think so, but I guess it’s in the eye and mind of the viewer.
Dave McKean (Celluloid)
The pieces don't fit perfectly together and don't tell the whole story. Only the viewer can say if I succeeded.
Susan Juby (The Truth Commission)
The artist said he was removing all visual clues to the known world so that the viewer could enjoy the “experience of non-objectivity . . . the supremacy of pure feeling.
Will Gompertz (What Are You Looking At?: The Surprising, Shocking, and Sometimes Strange Story of 150 Years of Modern Art)
Suprematism was an audacious concept. At least Kandinsky’s abstract paintings gave the viewer a visual treat, even if they were indecipherable
Will Gompertz (What Are You Looking At?: The Surprising, Shocking, and Sometimes Strange Story of 150 Years of Modern Art)
The problem is not the visibility of dark skin, but who sees it and what the viewer feels motivated to do next.
Emily Bernard (Black Is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother's Time, My Mother's Time, and Mine)
Modern politics is like watching a film with only bad guys. It soon starts to get really boring, because one of the points of stories is that they should have some sort of redeeming character, or, at the very least, trick the viewer into believing such. But seeing the world nowadays has no such effect, its bad guys VS bad guys VS bad guys, and all you can think about is how the hell can I switch off this horrible depravity
Martijn Benders
The journey through this one case will ultimately bring viewers from wondering, in cop-show expectation, whether the bad guys will get caught, to wondering instead who the bad guys are and whether catching them means anything at all,
Jonathan Abrams (All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of The Wire)
As discussed earlier, this approach relies on the viewer believing that the artist is blessed with special talent and insight. But Rodchenko was saying that his Constructivist paintings were not special or transcendental works of art.
Will Gompertz (What Are You Looking At?: The Surprising, Shocking, and Sometimes Strange Story of 150 Years of Modern Art)
Black Square might appear simplistic, but Malevich’s intentions were complex. He knew that even though he had removed all reference to the known world, the viewer’s brain would attempt to rationalize the painting: to attempt to find meaning.
Will Gompertz (What Are You Looking At?: The Surprising, Shocking, and Sometimes Strange Story of 150 Years of Modern Art)
Catharsis comes when Joy understands her mistake and she—along with the viewers—realizes that Riley isn’t Joy, or Sadness, or any of the other characters. Riley is a complex story produced by the conflicts and collaborations of all the biochemical characters together.
Yuval Noah Harari (21 Lessons for the 21st Century)
would always advise any young writer for the theater to do everything—to adapt plays, to translate plays, to hang around theaters, to paint scenery, to become an actor. . . . There’s a bottomless pit in the acquisition of how to tell an imagined story to listeners and viewers.
Thornton Wilder (The Matchmaker: A Farce in Four Acts)
If my life were a movie ... the title sequence would start out like a typical high school story, but then reveal that something's amiss. There'd be a tight shot, or piece of dialogue, or something that would make the viewer uncomfortable. Something to give them that prickly feeling. -Dez
Dawn Klehr (The Cutting Room Floor)
Rodchenko’s intention was to challenge the belief system that Malevich had instigated around his non-objective art. The Suprematist told the viewer that there was more to his triangles and squares than simply being pleasing pieces of graphic design; that his art contained hidden meaning and universal truths.
Will Gompertz (What Are You Looking At?: The Surprising, Shocking, and Sometimes Strange Story of 150 Years of Modern Art)
The rule of thumb for all news operations is that stories are assigned their importance on the basis of what affects or interests the greatest number of one's readers or viewers. Depending on the nature of the newspaper or broadcast, the balance between what "affects" and what "interests" is quite different. The first criteria of a responsible newspaper such as The New York Times is going to be that which their readers need to know about their world that day — those developments that in one way or another might affect their health, their pocketbooks, the future of themselves and their children. The first criterion of the tabloid is that which "interests" its readers — gossip, sex, scandal.
Walter Cronkite (A Reporter's Life)
Bush’s campaign manager, former Nixon operative Lee Atwater, and media advisor Roger Ailes, who had promoted Nixon in 1968, produced the infamous Willie Horton ad, laying the groundwork for a new kind of right-wing television in which ideological propaganda would be filmed as if it were a news story, making it hard for viewers to tell the difference.
Heather Cox Richardson (Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America)
Meanwhile, as this confusion was going on, Malevich hoped that deep within the viewer’s psyche their unconscious mind would get a chance to work its magic. And once it had escaped from its rationalist prison, the unconscious mind would be able to “see” that the artist was presenting the entire cosmos, and all life within it, in his small, square, simple painting.
Will Gompertz (What Are You Looking At?: The Surprising, Shocking, and Sometimes Strange Story of 150 Years of Modern Art)
Fifty years ago A Charlie Brown Christmas was first broadcast on American television. Some network executives thought it would be ignored, while others worried that quoting the Bible would offend viewers. Some wanted its creator, Charles Schulz, to omit the Christmas story, but Schulz insisted it stay in. The program was an immediate success and has been rebroadcast every year since 1965.
Our Daily Bread Ministries (Our Daily Bread - October/November/December 2015)
Grip’s favorite painting didn’t contain a single figure. 'Seven A.M.' showed distant trees on one side, and on the other a storefront that time had passed by. So still. Some kind of story could probably be told, but one refrained from asking questions. The light and shadows convinced the viewer to exist in the moment. Hopper had drawn sharp lines where the sun cast shadows on the white walls inside the window, while outside the ground gleamed like warm sand. The hands of an old wall clock suggested that the time was seven. Someone who should have been there was somewhere else. Yet nothing was missing. With the morning light streaming down on the ground and in through the window, time might as well have stopped—so the clock always stood at seven. Just like that, a place where nothing ever changes.
Robert Karjel (The Swede (Ernst Grip #1))
It used to puzzle me: Why do companies advertise during such depressing programming? Do they really want viewers to associate their products with the horror stories that fill the nightly news? And who is going to be in the mood for a department store sale after hearing about a brutal murder or the threat of a terrorist attack? It turns out I might be, and you might be, too, thanks to a psychological phenomenon called terror management.
Kelly McGonigal (The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It)
Steamboat Willie put Walt Disney on the map as an animator. Business success was another story. Disney’s first studio went bankrupt. His films were monstrously expensive to produce, and financed at outrageous terms. By the mid-1930s Disney had produced more than 400 cartoons. Most of them were short, most of them were beloved by viewers, and most of them lost a fortune. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs changed everything. The $8 million it earned in the first six months of 1938 was an order of magnitude higher than anything the company earned previously. It transformed Disney Studios. All company debts were paid off. Key employees got retention bonuses. The company purchased a new state-of-the-art studio in Burbank, where it remains today. An Oscar turned Walt from famous to full-blown celebrity. By 1938 he had produced several hundred hours of film. But in business terms, the 83 minutes of Snow White were all that mattered.
Morgan Housel (The Psychology of Money)
Sewing is a visual language. It has a voice. It has been used by people to communicate something of themselves — their history, beliefs, prayers and protests. For some, it is the only means to tell of what matters to them: those who are imprisoned or censored; those who do not know how or are not allowed to write of their lives. For them needlework can carry their autobiographies and testimonies, registering their origin and fate. Using patterns as syntax, symbols and motifs as its vocabulary, the arrangement of both as its grammar, sewing is a graphic way to add information and meaning. But is not a monologue, it is part of a conversation, a dialogue, a correspondence only fully realised once it is seen and its messages are read. It connects the maker to the viewer across time, cultures, generations and geographies. As a shared language, needlework transmits — through techniques, coded symbols, fabrics and colour — the unedited stories, not just of women, but often of those marginalised by oppression and prejudice.
Clare Hunter (Threads of Life: A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle)
Most people who haven’t had direct contact with the leadership of their own and other countries form their views based on what they learn in the media, and become quite naive and inappropriately opinionated as a result. That’s because dramatic stories and gossip draw more readers and viewers than does clinical objectivity. Also, in some cases “journalists” have their own ideological biases that they are trying to advance. As a result, most people who see the world through the lens of the media tend to look for who is good and who is evil rather than what the vested interests and relative powers are and how they are being played out. For example, people tend to embrace stories about how their own country is moral and the rival country is not, when most of the time these countries have different interests that they are trying to maximize. The best behaviors one can hope for come from leaders who can weigh the benefits of cooperation, and who have long enough time frames that they can see how the gifts they give this year may bring them benefits in the future.
Ray Dalio (Principles: Life and Work)
She was the model Manet painted more often than any other, more often than his own wife. But when I look at the paintings I don’t always recognize her as beautiful right away. Her beauty is something I have to search for, requiring some interpretive work, some intellectual or abstract work, and maybe that’s what Manet found so fascinating about it – but then again maybe not. For six years Morisot came to his studio, chaperoned by her mother, and he painted her, always clothed. Several of her own paintings hang in the museum too. Two girls sharing a park bench in the Bois de Boulogne, one in a white dress, wearing a broad straw hat, bending her head forward over her lap, maybe she’s reading, the other girl in a dark dress, her long fair hair tied back with a black ribbon, showing to the viewer her white neck and ear. Behind them, all the lush vague greenery of the public park. But Morisot never painted Manet. Six years after she met him, and apparently at his suggestion, she married his brother. He painted her just once more, wedding ring glittering dark on her delicate hand, and then never again. Don’t you think that’s a love story?
Sally Rooney (Beautiful World, Where Are You)
Disproportionate coverage in the news media plainly has effects on readers and viewers. When Esther Madriz, a professor at Hunter College, interviewed women in New York City about their fears of crime they frequently responded with the phrase “I saw it in the news.” The interviewees identified the news media as both the source of their fears and the reason they believed those fears were valid. Asked in a national poll why they believe the country has a serious crime problem, 76 percent of people cited stories they had seen in the media. Only 22 percent cited personal experience.29
Barry Glassner (The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things: Crime, Drugs, Minorities, Teen Moms, Killer Kids, Muta)
He says this episode will be about grief. About helping other people to mourn. He says that my family's involvement could really help other people in similar situations. All those viewers who thought they lost a family member to a famous serial killer, then are told 36 years later that DNA from the crime scene matches both that of a retired nurse and a man who was four years old at the time and grew up to murder his mother, I think. With less graciousness than I'd hoped to display, I ask if there's a reason why stories about the bizarre, violent deaths of young, good-looking, middle- to upper-class white girls help people mourn better than other stories.
Maggie Nelson
What really matters is that in the Star Wars series, as in many works of literature, “I am your father” moments and their accompanying shivers are defining. They involve pivotal transitions and reversals of course, which nonetheless maintain (enough) continuity with the previous story, which now changes and gets more interesting. Vader’s fatherhood also created a significant challenge for Lucas, because it meant that viewers had to reassess past scenes, sometimes in fundamental ways. If the reassessment produced utter incredulity in the audience—not an “OMG” but a “WTF?”—the “I am your father” moment would not work. In fact it would have backfired, ruining the whole series.
Cass R. Sunstein (The World According to Star Wars)
Is it wrong to bring my new convictions to the set?” I asked myself. “Should I keep them wrapped up inside, letting business be business? After all, TV isn’t real. A sitcom is just a story. And the stories aren’t real. The characters aren’t real, either.” Now I sounded like a crazy person, talking to myself in my dressing room. I knew Mike Seaver wasn’t me and I wasn’t him, but viewers didn’t seem to know the difference. To them, the Seavers existed. If Mike took drugs, kids would assume it was okay to take drugs—all because Mike was cool and someone to follow. I didn’t want to blow it. That would be my nightmare. I desperately wanted to do the right thing in a no-win situation.
Kirk Cameron (Still Growing: An Autobiography)
When countries negotiate with one another, they typically operate as if they are opponents in a chess match or merchants in a bazaar in which maximizing one’s own benefit is the sole objective. Smart leaders know their own countries’ vulnerabilities, take advantage of others’ vulnerabilities, and expect the other countries’ leaders to do the same. Most people who haven’t had direct contact with the leadership of their own and other countries form their views based on what they learn in the media, and become quite naive and inappropriately opinionated as a result. That’s because dramatic stories and gossip draw more readers and viewers than does clinical objectivity. Also, in some cases “journalists” have their own ideological biases that they are trying to advance. As a result, most people who see the world through the lens of the media tend to look for who is good and who is evil rather than what the vested interests and relative powers are and how they are being played out. For example, people tend to embrace stories about how their own country is moral and the rival country is not, when most of the time these countries have different interests that they are trying to maximize. The best behaviors one can hope for come from leaders who can weigh the benefits of cooperation, and who have long enough time frames that they can see how the gifts they give this year may bring them benefits in the future.
Ray Dalio (Principles: Life and Work)
The odds are ever in Katniss's favor: she is the primary character with whom audiences identify. This is not inherently problematic, as part of the work of literature is to provide mirrors, windows, and doors into other people's experiences. The problem occurs when contemporary literature and media for young people include characters of color who are supposed to provide someone for every reader or viewer to identify with--and yet at the same time construct protagonists who are the only characters worth rooting for. Although the initial authorial intent may have been noble, stories constructed in such a fashion have the pernicious effect of normalizing our existing social hierarchies--including hierarchies of race.
Ebony Elizabeth Thomas (The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games (Postmillennial Pop, 13))
All of this is typical girl-fear. Once you realize that The Exorcist is, essentially, the story of a 12-year-old who starts cussing, masturbating, and disobeying her mother—in other words, going through puberty—it becomes apparent to the feminist-minded viewer why two adult men are called in to slap her around for much of the third act. People are convinced that something spooky is going on with girls; that, once they reach a certain age, they lose their adorable innocence and start tapping into something powerful and forbidden. Little girls are sugar and spice, but women are just plain scary. And the moment a girl becomes a woman is the moment you fear her most. Which explains why the culture keeps telling this story.
Jude Ellison S. Doyle
This is one of the great charms of Poirot’s investigations, for they reveal a world where manners and morals are quite different from today. There are no overt and unnecessary sex scenes, no alcoholic, haunted detectives in Poirot’s world. He lives in a simpler, some would say more human, era: a lost England, seen through the admiring eyes of this foreigner, this little Belgian detective. For me, that makes the stories all the more appealing, for although the days he lives in seem far away, they are all the more enchanting because of it." "In those first days after the series had begun on ITV, I realised for the first time that Poirot touches people’s hearts in a way that I had never anticipated when I started to play him. I cannot put my finger on precisely how he does it, but somehow he makes those who watch him feel secure. People see him and feel better. I don’t know exactly why that is, but there is something about him. My performance had touched that nerve." "The more Poirot welcomes his fellow characters, the more the audience sympathise with him, and the more he extends his gentle control over everything around him, as if wrapping it all in his own personal glow. I believe he is unique in fictional detectives in that respect, because he carefully welcomes everyone – be they reader, viewer, or participant character – into his drama. He then quietly explains what it all means and, in doing so, he becomes what one critic called ‘our dearest friend’.
David Suchet (Poirot and Me)
This act of whistleblowing was not like other acts of whistleblowing. Historically, whistleblowers reveal abuse of power that is surprising and shocking to the public. The Trump-Ukraine story was shocking but in no way surprising: it was in character, and in keeping with a pattern of actions. The incident that the whistleblower chose to report was not the worst thing that Trump had done. Installing his daughter and her husband in the White House was worse. Inciting violence was worse. Unleashing war on immigrants was worse. Enabling murderous dictators the world over was worse. The two realities of Trump’s America—democratic and autocratic—collided daily in the impeachment hearings. In one reality, Congress was following due process to investigate and potentially remove from office a president who had abused power. In the other reality, the proceedings were a challenge to Trump’s legitimate autocratic power. The realities clashed but still did not overlap: to any participant or viewer on one side of the divide, anything the other side said only reaffirmed their reality. The realities were also asymmetrical: an autocratic attempt is a crisis, but the logic and language of impeachment proceedings is the logic and language of normal politics, of vote counting and procedure. If it had succeeded in removing Trump from office, it would have constituted a triumph of institutions over the autocratic attempt. It did not. The impeachment proceedings became merely a part of the historical record, a record of only a small part of the abuse that is Trumpism.
Masha Gessen (Surviving Autocracy)
When readers who are White, middle class, cisgender, heterosexual, and able-bodied enter the fantastic dream, they are empowered and afforded a sense of transcendence that can be elusive within the real world. If this is the case, then readers and hearers of fantastic tales who have been endarkened and Othered by the dominant culture can never be plausible conquering heroes nor prizes to be won in the fantastic. Unless the tale is meant to be comedic, tongue-in-cheek, a wink and a nod that breaks the fourth wall and assures audiences that this is a parody of the fantastic, not the real story . . . . . . the implicit message that readers, hearers, and viewers of color receive as they read these texts is that we are the villains. We are the horde. We are the enemies. (Page 23).
Ebony Elizabeth Thomas (The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games (Postmillennial Pop, 13))
This unusual television moment received much international attention, as did another CNN interview in which I displayed a large map of the Middle East. I “walked” through the Arab countries from Morocco to the Indian Ocean with the open palms of my hands. Then I covered Israel with my thumb.10 For many used to seeing the map of Israel alone on a full screen, a great Israeli Goliath “oppressing” the small Palestinian David, this demonstration came as a shock. It was Israel that was David. This was the best way I could think of to convey that the Arab world was hundreds of times the size of Israel. These interviews may have been seen by some unlikely viewers. When visiting Japan that year, singer Perry Como was asked by the Japanese government how to improve Japan’s image in the United States. He suggested they hire my services.
Benjamin Netanyahu (Bibi: My Story)
As one of the most pervasive forms of cultural narrative in industrialized societies, commercial film serves as an extremely powerful vehicle of myth… To some extent the scripts that do get picked up manage to be supported because they already articulate a culture’s social imaginary – the prevailing images a society needs to project about itself in order to maintain certain features of its organization. This social imaginary is not simply encoded in a film or decoded by the viewer from the film’s formal structures. Rather, the mythic meanings of films are the effect of a social and dynamic process of meaning-making in which their production and reception participate. Any film text comes to make sense by means of the historically available modes of intelligibility – a variety of assumptions about reality – through which the spectator chains together the film’s signifiers into a meaningful story.
Rosemary Hennessy
In television the democratization of knowledge and its pedagogical commercial exuberance have become one. Consider from the end of the nineties such BBC history shows as Surviving the Iron Age or The Ship: Retracing Cook’s Endeavor Voyage—each shown 2001.... All these shows recruit volunteers who are put into environments conspicuously uncomfortable.... An emphasis on participants’ surprise at the difficulties of daily life and a previously unexamined and thus taken for granted assumption of physical comfort is the formula for melodrama in these kinds of shows.... All of them are one part soap opera, one part period recreation—and with folks from our time who invite audience identification as “us,” viewers mentally enacting too, playing at, reenacting, shadowing, experimenting, speculating, trying to provide evidence for, various understandings of varying pasts.... “Science” and all it stands for—knowledges broadly understood or our everyday knowledge-managed technologies—are especially lively players in the action....
Katie King (Networked Reenactments: Stories Transdisciplinary Knowledges Tell)
1953. It was a world with a war that had just ended and, like a devil that grows a new tail after you’ve chopped one off, another war had begun. With a draft and an enemy just like the one before, only this time there were nuclear weapons; there were veterans’ cemeteries that refused to bury Negro soldiers; there was a government telling you what to look for in a nuclear flash, what kind of structure to hide under should the sirens start wailing—though they must have known that it would have been madness to look or hide or consider anything except lying down and taking your death in with one full breath. There were the subcommittee hearings with Sheedy asking McLain on TV, “Are you a red?” whereupon McLain threw water into his face, and Sheedy threw water back and knocked off his glasses. A world in which TV stations were asked to segregate characters on their shows for Southern viewers, in which all nudes were withdrawn from a San Francisco art show because “local mother Mrs. Hutchins’s sensibilities are shaken to the core;” and beautiful Angel Island became a guided missile station, and a white college student was expelled for proposing to a Negro, and they were rioting against us in Trieste; the Allies freed Trieste not many years ago, and suddenly they hated us … and hovering above all this, every day in the paper, that newsprint visage like the snapshot of a bland Prometheus: Ethel Rosenberg’s face. When would the all clear come? Didn’t somebody promise us an all clear if we were good, and clean, and nice,
Andrew Sean Greer (The Story of a Marriage)
Once unbound from the shackles of truth, Fox’s power came from what it decided to cover—its chosen narratives—and what it decided to ignore. Trump’s immature, erratic, and immoral behavior? His sucking up to Putin? His mingling of presidential business and personal profit? Fox talk shows played dumb and targeted the “deep state” instead. Conservative media types were like spiders, spinning webs and trying to catch prey. They insisted the real story was an Obama-led plot against Trump to stop him from winning the election. One night Hannity irrationally exclaimed, “This makes Watergate look like stealing a Snickers bar from a drugstore!” Another night he upped the hysteria, insisting this scandal “will make Watergate look like a parking ticket.” The following night he screeched, “This is Watergate times a thousand.” He strung viewers along, invoking mysterious “sources” who were “telling us” that “this is just the tip of the iceberg.” There was always another “iceberg” ahead, always another twist coming, always another Democrat villain to attack after the commercial break. Hannity and Trump were so aligned that, on one weird night in 2018, Hannity had to deny that he was giving Trump a sneak peek at his monologues after the president tweeted out, twelve minutes before air, “Big show tonight on @SeanHannity! 9: 00 P.M. on @FoxNews.” Political reporters fumbled for their remotes and flipped over to Fox en masse. Hannity raved about the “Mueller crime family” and said the Russia investigation was “corrupt” and promoted a guest who said Mueller “surrounded himself with literally a bunch of legal terrorists,” whatever that meant. Some reporters who did not watch Fox regularly were shocked at how unhinged and extreme the content was. But this was just an ordinary night in the pro-Trump alternative universe. Night after night, Hannity said the Mueller probe needed to be stopped immediately, for the good of the country. Trump’s attempts at obstruction flowed directly from his “Executive Time.
Brian Stelter (Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth)
Cultures are always built by the telling of stories. Within them are contained symbols and values that can be passed easily through the generations. Thousands of goddess tales are being unearthed and retold, and many new ones are being created. These tales are like threads with which we can weave our magic. In many stories the goddess is described in three phases—the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone. This is a wonderful female trinity with infinite correspondences in life and nature. Cycles Three, Four, and Five will deal with each of these goddess-phases in turn. Some of the old goddess tales were twisted to suit the takeover of male powers, in order to win converts to their new gods. For example, Pandora (All-Gifts) was originally a Great Mother Goddess, whose box (womb, cauldron, cave, cup) was a reservoir of beauty and life-sustaining gifts. Patriarchal myth tells us that Her box contained all manner of destructive demons, which once unleashed upon the world, brought evil and suffering to all. Eve was also a Mother Goddess, whose tree was the Tree of Life. The serpent was her own sensual wisdom, and the apple was her sacred fruit. Athene, whom we are told was born fully grown out of the head of Zeus, dressed in armor and ready for war, was originally the daughter of the matriarchal goddess Metis. (Meter, method, measure, matter, mother…) Both mother and daughter were worshipped by the Amazons at Lake Triton, and were born parthenogenetically—without sperm. The examples of mythic misogyny are endless. Medusa is another; the patriarchs would have us believe that one look upon her face would turn the viewer to stone, because they did not wish us to know her true nature. One source reveals that the Medusae were a tribe of Amazon women; another that their snaky-haired masks were used over temple doorways to protect the Mysteries from irreverent intruders. Whenever we hear about a serpent in myth or fairy-tale, we can usually be sure that it hails back to an ancient Goddess and Her powers. The serpent, before the heyday of Freud and phallic symbols, meant transformation and kundalini energy.
Shekhinah Mountainwater (Ariadne's Thread: A Workbook of Goddess Magic)
These associations—Cavafy, my mother polishing the silver, a missionary aunt who fled the familiar turf of Tennessee for the otherness of Korea (presumably with the intent of teaching them something, hopefully with the result of being taught), my Mamaw’s fragrant old bureau with its smell of wax and polish—all of them would be brought to bear upon my painting of peppermints, but none of them would be visible; there’s no reason the viewer would know any of this. I could render only what can be seen—color and form, though the painter’s splendid artifice reveals to us texture, too, and rich associations of scent and flavor, all arriving through the gates of the eyes. And yet there is something more here, and that something is what nags at me to write this book, what tugs at my sleeve and my sleep. Why, if all that is personal has fallen away, should these pictures matter so? Why should they be alight with a feeling of intimacy? Interiority makes itself visible. In my imaginary still life, the “context and commentary” of my experience would be gone, but something would remain, something distilled and vibrant in the quality of attention itself. Is that what soul or spirit is, then, the outward-flying attention, the gaze that binds us to the world? Coorte’s asparagus, his gooseberries and shells, distill this quality down to its quietest, most startling essence: the eye suffuses what it sees with I. Not “I” in the sense of my story, the particulars of my life, the way my father tended his old asparagus beds each spring, the way my beloved loved the forms and colors of shells. But “I” as the quickest, subtlest thing we are: a moment of attention, an intimate engagement. Is that the lesson, then, that ultimately I becomes an eye? What is left of Adriaen Coorte but this? Isn’t that enough? […] That, I think, is the deepest secret of these paintings, finally, although it seems just barely in the realm of the sayable, this feeling that beneath the attachments and appurtenances, the furnishings of selfhood, what we are is attention, a quick physical presence in the world, a bright point of consciousness in a wide field from which we are not really separate. That, in a field of light, we are intensifications of that light.
Mark Doty (Still Life with Oysters and Lemon: On Objects and Intimacy)
Quanta. On Yom Kippur Eve, the quanta went to ask Einstein for his forgiveness. “I'm not home,” Einstein yelled at them from behind his locked door. On their way back, people swore loudly at them through the windows, and someone even threw a can. The quanta pretended not to care, but deep in their hearts they were really hurt. Nobody understands the quanta, everybody hates them. “You parasites,” people would shout at them as they walked down the road. “Go serve in the army.” “We wanted to, actually,” the quanta would try to explain, “but the army wouldn't take us because we're so tiny.” Not that anyone listened. Nobody listens to the quanta when they try to defend themselves, but when they say something that can be interpreted negatively, well, then everyone's all ears. The quanta can make the most innocent statement, like “Look, there's a cat!” and right away they're saying on the news how the quanta were stirring up trouble and they rush off to interview Schrödinger. All in all, the media hated the quanta worse than anybody, because once the quanta had spoken at an IBM press conference about how the very act of viewing had an effect on an event, and all the journalists thought the quanta were lobbying to keep them from covering the Intifada. The quanta could insist as much as they wanted that this wasn't at all what they meant and that they had no political agenda whatsoever, but nobody would believe them anyway. Everyone knew they were friends of the government's Chief Scientist. Loads of people think the quanta are indifferent, that they have no feelings, but it simply isn't true. On Friday, after the program about the bombing of Hiroshima, they were interviewed in the studio in Jerusalem. They could barely talk. They just sat there facing the open mike and sniffling, and all the viewers at home, who didn't know the quanta very well, thought they were avoiding the question and didn't realize the quanta were crying What's sad is that even if the quanta were to write dozens of letters to the editors of all the scientific journals in the world and prove beyond a doubt that people had taken advantage of their naiveté, and that they'd never ever imagined it would end that way, it wouldn't do them any good, because nobody understands the quanta. The physicists least of all.
Etgar Keret (The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God and Other Stories)
The key to preventing this is balance. I see the give and take between different constituencies in a business as central to its success. So when I talk about taming the Beast, what I really mean is that keeping its needs balanced with the needs of other, more creative facets of your company will make you stronger. Let me give you an example of what I mean, drawn from the business I know best. In animation, we have many constituencies: story, art, budget, technology, finance, production, marketing, and consumer products. The people within each constituency have priorities that are important—and often opposing. The writer and director want to tell the most affecting story possible; the production designer wants the film to look beautiful; the technical directors want flawless effects; finance wants to keep the budgets within limits; marketing wants a hook that is easily sold to potential viewers; the consumer products people want appealing characters to turn into plush toys and to plaster on lunchboxes and T-shirts; the production managers try to keep everyone happy—and to keep the whole enterprise from spiraling out of control. And so on. Each group is focused on its own needs, which means that no one has a clear view of how their decisions impact other groups; each group is under pressure to perform well, which means achieving stated goals. Particularly in the early months of a project, these goals—which are subgoals, really, in the making of a film—are often easier to articulate and explain than the film itself. But if the director is able to get everything he or she wants, we will likely end up with a film that’s too long. If the marketing people get their way, we will only make a film that mimics those that have already been “proven” to succeed—in other words, familiar to viewers but in all likelihood a creative failure. Each group, then, is trying to do the right thing, but they’re pulling in different directions. If any one of those groups “wins,” we lose. In an unhealthy culture, each group believes that if their objectives trump the goals of the other groups, the company will be better off. In a healthy culture, all constituencies recognize the importance of balancing competing desires—they want to be heard, but they don’t have to win. Their interaction with one another—the push and pull that occurs naturally when talented people are given clear goals—yields the balance we seek. But that only happens if they understand that achieving balance is a central goal of the company.
Ed Catmull (Creativity, Inc.: an inspiring look at how creativity can - and should - be harnessed for business success by the founder of Pixar)
Yoel Goldenberg makes exhibitions, photographs, models and media craftsmanship. His works are an examination of ideas, for example, validness and objectivity by utilizing an exhaustive methodology and semi exploratory exactness and by referencing documentaries, 'actuality fiction' and prominent experimental reciprocals. Yoel Goldenberg as of now lives and works in Brooklyn. By challenging the division between the domain of memory and the domain of experience, Goldenberg formalizes the circumstantial and underlines the procedure of synthesis that is behind the apparently arbitrary works. The manners of thinking, which are probably private, profoundly subjective and unfiltered in their references to dream universes, are much of the time uncovered as collections. His practice gives a valuable arrangement of metaphorical instruments for moving with a pseudo-moderate approach in the realm of execution: these fastidiously arranged works reverberate and resound with pictures winnowed from the fantastical domain of creative energy. By trying different things with aleatoric procedures, Yoel Goldenberg makes work in which an interest with the clarity of substance and an uncompromising demeanor towards calculated and insignificant workmanship can be found. The work is detached and deliberate and a cool and unbiased symbolism is utilized. His works are highlighting unplanned, unintentional and sudden associations which make it conceivable to overhaul craftsmanship history and, far and away superior, to supplement it. Consolidating random viewpoints lead to astounding analogies. With a theoretical methodology, he ponders the firmly related subjects of file and memory. This regularly brings about an examination of both the human requirement for "definitive" stories and the inquiry whether tales "fictionalize" history. His gathered, changed and own exhibitions are being faced as stylishly versatile, specifically interrelated material for memory and projection. The conceivable appears to be genuine and reality exists, yet it has numerous countenances, as Hanna Arendt refers to from Franz Kafka. By exploring dialect on a meta-level, he tries to approach a wide size of subjects in a multi-layered route, likes to include the viewer in a way that is here and there physical and has faith in the thought of capacity taking after structure in a work. Goldenberg’s works are straightforwardly a reaction to the encompassing environment and uses regular encounters from the craftsman as a beginning stage. Regularly these are confined occasions that would go unnoticed in their unique connection. By utilizing a regularly developing file of discovered archives to make self-ruling works of art, he retains the convention of recognition workmanship into every day hone. This individual subsequent and recovery of a past custom is vital as a demonstration of reflection. Yoel’s works concentrate on the powerlessness of correspondence which is utilized to picture reality, the endeavor of dialog, the disharmony in the middle of structure and content and the dysfunctions of dialect. To put it plainly, the absence of clear references is key components in the work. With an unobtrusive moderate methodology, he tries to handle dialect. Changed into craftsmanship, dialect turns into an adornment. Right then and there, loads of ambiguities and indistinctnesses, which are intrinsic to the sensation, rise up to the top
Herbert Goldenberg
ONCE YOU’VE HOOKED readers, your next task is to put your early chapters to work introducing your characters, settings, and stakes. The first 20-25% of the book comprises your setup. At first glance, this can seem like a tremendous chunk of story to devote to introductions. But if you expect readers to stick with you throughout the story, you first have to give them a reason to care. This important stretch is where you accomplish just that. Mere curiosity can only carry readers so far. Once you’ve hooked that sense of curiosity, you then have to deepen the pull by creating an emotional connection between them and your characters. These “introductions” include far more than just the actual moment of introducing the characters and settings or explaining the stakes. In themselves, the presentations of the characters probably won’t take more than a few scenes. After the introduction is when your task of deepening the characters and establishing the stakes really begins. The first quarter of the book is the place to compile all the necessary components of your story. Anton Chekhov’s famous advice that “if in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired” is just as important in reverse: if you’re going to have a character fire a gun later in the book, that gun should be introduced in the First Act. The story you create in the following acts can only be assembled from the parts you’ve shown readers in this First Act. That’s your first duty in this section. Your second duty is to allow readers the opportunity to learn about your characters. Who are these people? What is the essence of their personalities? What are their core beliefs (even more particularly, what are the beliefs that will be challenged or strengthened throughout the book)? If you can introduce a character in a “characteristic moment,” as we talked about earlier, you’ll be able to immediately show readers who this person is. From there, the plot builds as you deepen the stakes and set up the conflict that will eventually explode in the Inciting and Key Events. Authors sometimes feel pressured to dive right into the action of their stories, at the expense of important character development. Because none of us wants to write a boring story, we can overreact by piling on the explosions, fight sequences, and high-speed car chases to the point we’re unable to spend important time developing our characters. Character development is especially important in this first part of the story, since readers need to understand and sympathize with the characters before they’re hit with the major plot revelations at the quarter mark, halfway mark, and three-quarters mark. Summer blockbusters are often guilty of neglecting character development, but one enduring exception worth considering is Stephen Spielberg’s Jurassic Park. No one would claim the film is a leisurely character study, but it rises far above the monster movie genre through its expert use of pacing and its loving attention to character, especially in its First Act. It may surprise some viewers to realize the action in this movie doesn’t heat up until a quarter of the way into the film—and even then we have no scream-worthy moments, no adrenaline, and no extended action scenes until halfway through the Second Act. Spielberg used the First Act to build suspense and encourage viewer loyalty to the characters. By the time the main characters arrive at the park, we care about them, and our fear for their safety is beginning to manifest thanks to a magnificent use of foreshadowing. We understand that what is at stake for these characters is their very lives. Spielberg knew if he could hook viewers with his characters, he could take his time building his story to an artful Climax.
K.M. Weiland (Structuring Your Novel: Essential Keys for Writing an Outstanding Story)
That was our goal from the beginning—to bless our community, our friends, and our viewers through this unbelievable platform we’ve been given.
Chip Gaines (The Magnolia Story)
I have always been fascinated by the story behind the story in any film representation of historical events; and while Hollywood likes to change facts to make a story more exciting or acceptable to viewers, I have always found that the unvarnished facts are more interesting and complex than a simple two-hour retelling.
Wesley R. Mullen (When I Grow Up, I Wanna Be Kenneth Tobey!: A Memoir in Essays)
This dog, who didn’t even realize how brave he was, stumbled into hundreds of mysteries, and into the hearts of viewers around the world.
M.D. Payne (What Is the Story of Scooby-Doo? (What Is the Story Of?))
I've always liked fairytales. It was probably the illustrations that first drew me in – beautiful ones from an Italian publisher, if I recall. But growing up in the country, surrounded by trees, fairly isolated and with rather primitive technology at the house, the stories seemed to seep into reality more than they might have otherwise. Fairytales are also a wonderful vocabulary (almost an alphabet) of storytelling among people who know them. You can use fairytale elements to build entirely new stories; images that work as independent pictures and narratives for viewers and readers who are new to them. But once that audience becomes aware of the depth of history and the ongoing conversation that is happening through all those layers of tellings and retellings and reimaginings, there is a splendid depth and resonance you can access.
Kathleen Jennings
The TV birth of Little Ricky was watched by an incredible 44 million viewers—15 million more than would tune in President Eisenhower’s inauguration the next day on all three networks.
Jess Oppenheimer (I Love Lucy: The Untold Story)
One study suggests that the standard crime news "script" is so prevalent and so thoroughly racialized that viewers imagine a black perpetrator even when none exists. In that study, 60 percent of viewers who saw a story with no image falsely recalled seeing one, and 70 percent of those viewers believed the perpetrator to be African American.
Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness)
All Hale Kate: Her story is as close to a real-life fairy tale as it gets. Born Catherine Elizabeth Middleton, the quiet, sporty girl next door from the small town of Bucklebury - not quite Cinderella, but certainly a "commoner" by blue bloods' standards - managed to enchant the most eligible bachelor in the world, Prince William, while they were university students 15 years ago. It wasn't long before everyone else fell in love with her, too. We ached for her as she waited patiently for a proposal through 10 years of friendship and romance (and one devastating breakup!), cheered along with about 300 million other TV viewers when she finally became a princess bride in 2011, and watched in awe as she proceeded to graciously but firmly drag the stuffy royal family into the 21st century. And though she never met her mother-in-law, the late, beloved, Princess Diana, Kate is now filling the huge void left not just in her husband's life but in the world's heart when the People's Princess died. The Duchess of Cambridge shares Di's knack for charming world leaders and the general public alike, and the same fierce devotion to her family above all else. She's a busy, modern mom who wears affordable clothes, does her own shopping and cooking, struggles with feelings of insecurity and totes her kids along to work (even if the job happens to involve globe-trotting official state visits) - all while wearing her signature L.K. Bennett 4 inch heels. And one day in the not-too-distance future, this woman who grew up in a modest brick home in the countryside - and seems so very much like on of us- will take on another impossibly huge role: queen of England.
Kate Middleton Collector's Edition Magazine
The PLO was founded three years before the Israelis ever occupied Gaza and the West Bank, and that the PLO wanted Israel wiped off the map. But in a ninety-second story, who has time to remind viewers that when the PLO was founded, Gaza was illegally occupied by Egypt, and the West Bank by Jordan, but Yasser Arafat did not mind those occupations? Where were the voices of the Palestinians then for their independent state?
Brigitte Gabriel (Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America)
When we look at the old photographs, we always ask three main questions: Are they alive? If they are, where are they? And finally, what is their life story? Photography is an art of creating many questions in the mind of the viewer!
Mehmet Murat ildan
When I was giving birth to my son, I had a veritable entourage of attendees, including, but not limited to, my mother and sister. I brought two art cards of my mother’s work with me to give myself something to focus on during labour. I expected to use “Sister Moon” more than “Winter’s Cup” because to me it is my mother as a young woman. It is probably my favourite piece of hers and I wanted her with me on many levels for the grand event. However, to my surprise, it was the image of myself that I clung to. The one of me conveying utter determination and strength, clothed in old finery, raising a chalice above my head while I literally manifested and birthed good things from within. It became, in those trying hours, a vital source of power for me. I see the picture differently now. “Winter's Cup” as my mother created it has found a life of its own, far from the one she ever imagined. In the end, this is perhaps the greatest achievement of an artist, of a mother, that their work moves beyond them, becoming for the viewer a source of truth and beauty with new stories to tell….
TobyAnne Stanley (Faye: The Art of Melissa Mary Duncan)
How best to portray the story of Lydia---a woman who has mixed Japanese, Malaysian, and English heritage, and who is a vampire, a creature inherently half-demon, half-human---who is constantly trying to resist the temptation of her nature? I designed many versions of this cover; some depicted Lydia, while others focused on specific details from the story, like bite marks, or a pig whose blood she drinks in order to stave off her cravings for human blood. In the end, though, the most powerful visual was not one of Lydia herself, but of the novel's antagonist. Because Lydia is an artist, it felt fitting to use a painting on the cover, but it needed to be a piece that spoke to the story on multiple levels. Caravaggio's Boy with a Basket of Fruit felt just right; the sidelong glance peering back at the viewer, the lush basket filled with food that Lydia can never eat, not to mention Caravaggio's own less-than-pristine reputation, not dissimilar to our antagonist's. The final touch: a perfectly-placed crack in the canvas---or is it a bite mark?
Claire Kohda (Woman, Eating)
Before we dive into specific examples, let’s first look at a simple, four-step, codified breakdown for a typical infomercial pitch: 1. The Problem: Here’s the problem you’re experiencing today, based on your status quo state or the solution you’re already using. This is where the tension is created. Where they “cut you” and get you to see you are bleeding (as we discussed in chapter 4)! In some cases, this pain might be top of mind, or it might be hidden, latent, or even something you may not think about all that often. This is also a perfect place to call out the enemy you identified earlier in this chapter. For example, if this were an infomercial for a set of space-aged kitchen knives that never need sharpening, the narrative might begin with a poor fool trying to cut a red, ripe tomato with an old, dull knife. As the grainy black-and-white footage rolls, the unsuspecting subject squashes the tomato with their sub-par knife, sending seeds and tomato flesh flying in all directions (and ruining the white suit they were wearing for some reason). Tension is created as the viewer starts to see themselves as the subject or hero of this story. 2. The Ideal Solution: Here’s the ideal solution to the problem. While not always top of mind, people often know the solutions to problems but see them as requiring too much effort and cost. In other words, spending money or investing time doing something our hero doesn’t want to do can usually solve the problem. This is where that solution is positioned. For example, the ideal solution to our dull knife problem is to go to a fancy kitchen store and purchase some top-of-the-line Japanese hand-forged steel knives. In a business context, many problems can be solved by throwing tons of time, money, and both human and technical resources at a them. 3. The Problem with That Ideal Solution: This is what makes that ideal solution difficult or less desirable. Here, you are creating contrast between where your hero is today and where they need to get to—a large gap they need to overcome. In doing this you are positioning the ideal solution as something they don’t want to or can’t make happen. For example, you could go to the kitchen store and buy those fancy knives, but they cost hundreds of dollars that you would rather not spend. The same goes for the massive business resource splurge suggested in the previous step. 4. Enter Our Solution: The stunning climax! Here’s how investing in our product, service, or solution can help you overcome the problem and pain you’re experiencing, while at the same time circumventing the challenges associated with the ideal solution.
David Priemer (Sell the Way You Buy: A Modern Approach To Sales That Actually Works (Even On You!))
After Lauren disappeared, the police and the media saw what they wanted to see: a young, beautiful wife and mother who had married her high school sweetheart and settled in their hometown. She should have been cable news catnip, the pretty white girl from a good family whom viewers could ogle and pity at the same time. But this is what I've learned: the dead or missing girl is never the subject of the story. Sometimes she's not even the object. She is the circumstance, the accident, the nexus through which vectors cross. No one really knows her, not even the people who were closest to her in life. She becomes a stranger when you realize that her last moments were incomprehensible, an abyss you can't fathom.
Polly Stewart (The Good Ones)
Please allow me to wax philosophical. The purpose of eyesight, as well as insight for that matter, is for you and I to be in awe of not just creation itself but of the very One who created it. I will confidently propose that this is the purpose behind creation. Consider this: Evolution cannot explain purpose. It can only explain function. Science can explain how and why you and I function. It might even suggest your function within society. However, science alone will never give you the answer to your ultimate purpose for being on this Earth. “Let’s suppose you go to an art museum. While pursuing the halls of art, your eyes are directed to a certain painting. You become fixated on that painting. It is beautiful. The painting is so mesmerizing and beautiful that you are taken with the image it conveys. You begin to speculate on the story behind the painting. You become emotional and even shed a tear as you stare at it in wonder. For a brief moment in time you become immersed in the essence of this work of art. What is happening here? The one who designed and created the painting did so in order to perhaps bring about an emotional response from the viewer. You didn’t look at the painting and wonder about the chemical makeup of paint or the composition of the canvas mat or what type of device was used to apply those chemical compounds to the mat. You didn’t measure the dimensions of the frame. No. The painter gave that painting a purpose. While the painting itself is remarkable and beautiful, the ultimate purpose of it is to direct you to the one who created it. We give honor to Rembrandt, Monet, Goya, Van Gogh, and Picasso. Why does evolution deny that we give honor to the One who designed, created, and gave beauty to you and me, or to any other created thing? For sure, some evolutionists will try to say that the method the grand Creator used in His creation was evolution but will continue to ignore any mention of His creative hand and minimize other accounts such as the evidence for the origin of life in Scripture. They suppress the truth as they give high honor to their evolutionary theories that they guard with defiance. “The appearance of design isn’t just a common sense factor; it comes from a scientific explanation to which I have spoken here tonight. “Each one of you has the ability to hear, read, study, and think on everything that goes into your mind. While we do well to consider objective theory, we still must then decide for ourselves what it is we are going to believe. We are not just lab rats responding to stimuli. We have the ability to reason, love, express emotions, think deeply on matters, and create things—not just as an evolutionary function but from our innate giftedness and developed talents. “Give much consideration to what is true. Consider what is splendid and beautiful and magnificent. Think on things that are right or lovely or worthy of your admiration. Reflect on those things, not just as some facts of science but on the effect these things have on your very heart and soul. There is a word for those thoughts and feelings that penetrate deep within the depths of your soul. The word is visceral. No other creature on this privileged terrestrial ball has this ability. Visceral feelings are not merely a product of our DNA or the chemical and electrical impulses within our brain. Evolution offers no explanation for these deeply rooted expressions of artistic and creative thoughts and ideas. These things come from our Creator. May we not merely skim the surface of wisdom and knowledge without ever going deep. These things are meant to propel you to a deeper awareness of the world around you. They are even meant to propel us to the eternal realm.
Richlon Merrill (Skimming Eternity: The Astonishing and Revelatory Discovery from Neutrinos and Thought Transmission)
The warning is in the story she’s telling here,” Bryce said. A field of corpses had been carved into the wall, a battlefield stretching ahead. Crucifixes loomed over the battlefield, bodies hanging from them. Great, dark beasts of scales and talons—the ones from the pit beneath her cell, she realized with a shudder—feasted on screaming victims. Blood eagles were splayed out on stone altars. “Mother above,” Nesta murmured. “Those holes along the corpses there—the ones that look like wounds … I’d bet anything there are mechanisms in them to send weapons at passersby,” Bryce said. “As some fucked-up ‘artistic’ way of making the viewer experience the pain and terror of these Fae victims.” Bryce could have sworn something like surprise and embarrassment—that perhaps the warrior herself hadn’t spotted the threat—crossed Nesta’s face.
Sarah J. Maas (House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3))
Imagination is always manufacturing scenarios, both good and bad, and the ego tries to keep you trapped in the multiplex of the mind… Our eyes are not viewers, they’re also projectors that are running a second story over the picture that we see in front of us all the time. Fear is writing that script, and the working title is: “I’ll Never Be Enough.
Andrea McLean (You Just Need To Believe It: 10 Ways in 10 Days to Unlock Your Courage and Reclaim Your Power)
Documentary photography is one of the prominent and influential branches in the art of photography that records social, cultural, and even historical realities. This type of photography allows the photographer to depict real and sometimes untold stories of everyday life and people. In this type of photography, the main goal is to convey the sense of realness and authenticity of the scenes. In this article, we will review important tips and principles for documentary photography with a camera and explain how to record facts in an attractive and effective way. Choosing the right equipment Choosing the right equipment Choosing the right equipment for documentary photography is very important, because you often need to act quickly and accurately. Using DSLR cameras and mirrorless cameras are the best options for this type of photography. Camera feature advantages High flexibility DSLR, excellent image quality, various lenses Mirrorless light and compact, more speed, silence Recommended lenses: 50mm prime lens: for portraits and close-ups. 24mm wide lens: for shooting wide landscapes and scenes. The importance of light in documentary photography Natural light is one of the main factors in documentary photography. You can't always control the lighting conditions, but learning to use ambient light, especially in public or outdoor settings, can help you create better images. Important points in using light: Natural light: during the golden hours (early morning and evening) is the best time to take documentary photos. This light is soft and pleasant. Shadow Light: If the direct sunlight is strong, try shooting in the shadows to avoid harsh shadows on your subjects. Composition techniques in documentary photography Composition is one of the key principles in documentary photography, with the help of which you can tell a telling and interesting story. The rule of thirds is one of the best and most common compositional rules used by documentary photographers. Rule of thirds: Divide the image frame into three horizontal parts and three vertical parts. Place the important subjects of the photo at the intersection points of these lines. Also, pay attention to the depth of the scene and try to use the foreground and background properly to make your image more dynamic. Taking meaningful photos One of the important principles in documentary photography is the meaningfulness of the images. Each photo should tell a story or capture a special moment. In order for your images to be real and emotional, it is better to interact with your subjects and capture them in their natural state. Don't be afraid to record unexpected and normal moments; Because these moments can better reflect the reality of everyday life. Recording feelings and emotions: Documentary photography should be able to show feelings and emotions well. Pay attention to small details in faces, gestures and looks. These details can add depth to your images. Choose the right angle The right angle of view can make a big difference in the impact of your documentary photo. Try different angles to find the best way to tell your story. Low Angle: To show the power or glory of a subject. High Angle: To show the smallness or loneliness of the subject. Normal angle (Eye Level): to create a closer and more realistic connection with the viewer. Camera settings for documentary photography Camera settings for documentary photography Camera settings are very important for documentary photography, as you may be shooting in different light conditions and at high speed. In the following, we mention some key camera settings for documentary photography. shutter speed For documentary photography, where there is a lot of movement in the scene, the shutter speed is very important. If you are shooting moving scenes, the shutter speed should be faster than 1/250 second to avoid blurring. resource : nivamag.ir
Mostafa
Of course, the goal is to make the tech invisible, to show the audience viewpoints and perspectives that enhance the story and draw viewers in, not remind them that they can buy a flying camera at Target next weekend.
Eric Cheng (Aerial Photography and Videography Using Drones)
About a year after my arrival in the Gambia, I was sitting at a bar with a young, wide-eyed intern who stared at me while I told stories about how my friends and I ended up in a tribal court upcountry. When I finished, she paused for a breath and said, “Wow, I hope I have an adventure like that while I’m here.” “Oh, that’s easy. Just do something stupid.” I guess that’s the essence of it: do something stupid. Don’t all adventures or at least interesting stories start that way? They sure don’t start due to the motive power of “good clean living.” Carrying the Ring into Mordor wasn’t calculated to increase Frodo’s “health and wellness.” Heroes of the stage and screen have higher causes — or at least coercion — forcing them to do asinine things: love, blackmail, God and country, whatever. There’s always some cause, some purpose or power that allows us, the viewers, to forgive the hero for making what’s really just a jackass move. I had no lofty reason, no higher cause. My only defence for agreeing in three seconds to quit my job, strap myself to an airplane and hurtle myself across the Atlantic to a country I’d never heard of, for an organization I hardly knew of, comes down to the fact that I was tired and feeling a bit daffy.
R. Matthias (Trials Elsewhere: Stories of Life and Development in West Africa)
While a reader/viewer may not be able to pinpoint what exactly it is they want from a Story, they know it when it’s not there. Immediately.
Shawn Coyne (The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know)
Remember that readers and viewers are very discerning and sophisticated (just think about how much Story the average person consumes each day from the newspaper to websites, emails, television shows, books, heart to heart talks with their friends etc.).
Shawn Coyne (The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know)
The only stories that cease to live and breathe after they’ve been told are those that end in perfect, unchanging bliss — “happily ever after” — or with the definitive death of their focal character(s). Most other stories, though, remain unfinished, hanging on into the present, projecting their own spectral future, intangible, problematic, messy. They can never be perfect objects, complete and, in the viewer’s mind, hypostasized. Unceasing bliss or definitive, perfect death are called the classical modes of drama for a reason.
L. Timmel Duchamp (The Waterdancer's World)
They leave the viewer free of the story itself, which after its telling is finished has become a memory (often pleasurable) set firmly in the past, available for revisiting at will, but contained. In order to emphasize this past-ness of classical dramas, some ancients insisted that the drama be set entirely in one place within one local day. Dramas that remain open and unresolved necessarily employ different conventions, techniques, and narrative structures than do those of classical drama as it has developed over the millennia. — Alexandra Jador of Pleth, The Art of Holodrama
L. Timmel Duchamp (The Waterdancer's World)
Inviting viewers along with her chin, she started to walk. Talk came easily. She hadn’t expected that, when she stumbled into this role, but she and the camera had become friends. “It’s been six months since we began work on the small Cape that Rob and Diana LaValle put in our care. They needed more space, but since
Barbara Delinsky (What She Really Wants: A Story)
Inviting viewers along with her chin, she started to walk. Talk came easily. She hadn’t expected that, when she stumbled into this role, but she and the camera had become friends. “It’s been six months since we began work on the small Cape that Rob and Diana LaValle put in our care. They needed more space, but since the house was originally built by Diana’s grandparents and
Barbara Delinsky (What She Really Wants: A Story)
It matters, this stuff, you see. Because, if you don’t know the true history, you are at the mercy of other people’s inventions. If we don’t – both Christians and non-Christians alike – make an attempt to understand the culture of the times, to find out what really happened, then other people will make it up. And they’ll use this story in a thousand different ways to claim a thousand different things. They’ll get Jesus to say things he couldn’t possibly have said, to obtain things he never would have wanted. They’ll take the story and use it to screw money out of TV viewers, to justify positions of power, to peddle theories about the end of the world. They’ll distort it to justify racism and bigotry. And they’ll use this story – the greatest story of non-violent love in history – to justify acts of violence on a scale that has never been seen.
Nick Page (The Longest Week: The truth about Jesus' last days)
Before we move on to discussing specific ways description can modulate the pace of a story, let’s clarify what we mean by action. Action in a story is not the same as activity. Action is motion that is going somewhere, that pushes the story along. It’s a forward movement, an outward sign of an inward motive. Motion serves, as the lyrics of a popular song suggests, to “second that emotion.” Activity, on the other hand, is mere random movement. Made-for-TV movies often include lots of activity— cars crashing, buildings exploding, bullets flying—with little or no motivated action. When a viewer or a reader turns off the TV or closes the book, complaining that “nothing’s happening,” he’s usually referring not to the lack of activity on the screen or page, but to the lack of forward movement. The difference between activity and action is the difference between running on a treadmill and running in a race. So
Rebecca McClanahan (Word Painting: A Guide to Writing More Descriptively)
I decided that a story was anything that I made up that kept the reader turning the pages or watching, and did not leave the reader or the viewer feeling cheated at the end.
Neil Gaiman
The sketches were uncanny, almost photographic in quality. Reference points were given; the viewers described the surrounding terrain and landmarks. There were even sketches showing the aircraft’s location in relation to the Ecuadorean search teams. In every sketch there was a phantom, a transparent body: sort of a self portrait of the viewer in the target area.
David Morehouse (Psychic Warrior: The True Story of America's Foremost Psychic Spy and the Cover-Up of the CIA's Top-Secret Stargate Program)
He was the first military remote viewer—the first man to transcend time and space for the purpose of viewing selected targets and collecting intelligence information. I learned early to rely on his counsel. What he said was always true: no lies, no exaggerations, no betrayal, and no ego.
David Morehouse (Psychic Warrior: The True Story of America's Foremost Psychic Spy and the Cover-Up of the CIA's Top-Secret Stargate Program)
One year, the Brewers had a problem when a skunk built a nest under the stands near the home bullpen. They actually brought in animal control to trap the critter, and it became one of those light local news stories that TV stations like to deliver to viewers.
Bill Schroeder (If These Walls Could Talk: Milwaukee Brewers: Stories from the Milwaukee Brewers Dugout, Locker Room, and Press Box)
range viewer mounted near our ship’s console. Jafar steered for Lucas. After a few more minutes, Lucas signed off and turned to us. “We have a carrier strike group nearby, guys. Denny says they launched two 60H Seahawk helicopters with Seal Teams aboard. We get to clear the Mother Ship’s deck for safe boarding of the Seal teams. I’ll circle the wagons and you guys go rain some death down on the Mother Ship deck until ain’t nothin’ livin’ there. Then we hold shadow position until the Seahawks get here, maintaining a safe landing zone.” Casey and I just smile at each other. Oh yeah! And it’s my turn on the XM307. We jog back into position with Casey manning our Browning fifty while I slipped behind the XM307. We started taking small arms fire from the pirate ship as Lucas passed them to the port side before giving us a clear field of fire. Casey tilted and fired short bursts with tracers. Soon, anything stupid enough to get near the railing was cut in half. I fired 25mm bursts stem to stern. Airburst shells exploded all along the pirate deck, blowing out the view windows on their bridge, and leaving no inch of the vessel untouched above deck. Lucas sped up, passed the pirate bow and angled out on the starboard side. We repeated our dual assault although there really wasn’t anyone alive anyway. Twenty minutes later, we heard the Seahawk helicopters approaching. I fired one more burst as Lucas passed once again on the port side. With the helicopters in sight, Lucas headed for the open sea. Shortly after Casey and I closed up shop, Jafar came to summon us to the bridge. Denny was on speaker. “We’re all here, Captain Blood,” Lucas told him. “The Seals found twenty-six mangled pirates above deck and took no fire from the vessel. Below decks, fourteen more pirates were taken prisoner and eleven of the original ship’s crew rescued. No one spotted you guys so steam for our next baiting area. Once things get wrapped up with the rescued ship the carrier group will get orders to take up a support position within striking distance in case we get this lucky again. Great job! Man, we fucked them up today!” We did our ‘pirate talk’ for a few minutes, including Jafar. Denny cracked up. Who says pirate warfare and cold blooded murder can’t be fun. I had to ask though. “What was the cover story for no live pirates on deck to the carrier group?” “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” Denny adlibbed for our amusement. “The Seals didn’t mind. The official news coverage will be a pirate falling out. The mysterious crater where the pirate den used to be near Mogadishu will be rumored a munitions accident. Those
Bernard Lee DeLeo (Hard Case (John Harding: Hard Case, #1))
Bannon and the Breitbart editors had the same reaction and immediately turned on Megyn Kelly, with a fusillade of negative articles. She became the newest Breitbart narrative: the back-stabbing, self-promoting betrayer-of-the-cause. And Breitbart became the locus of pro-Trump, anti-Fox conservative anger. Between Thursday night, when the debate took place, and Sunday evening, Breitbart published twenty-five stories on Kelly, and the site’s editor in chief, Alex Marlow, went on CNN to accuse Fox News of “trying to take out Donald Trump” and staging “a gotcha debate.” The intensity of Republican anger stunned Fox News executives. The debate had drawn a record 24 million viewers. Now many of them were apoplectic at the network’s top talent. “In the beginning, virtually 100 percent of the emails were against Megyn Kelly,” a Fox source told New York’s Gabriel Sherman. “Roger was not happy. Most of the Fox viewers were taking Trump’s side.” Word spread through the building that Kelly was furious and had personally complained to Ailes. By Sunday, the attacks against her showed no sign of letting up, as other conservative opinion makers, such as radio host Mark Levin, agreed that her questions to Trump had been “unfair.” In a panic, Ailes called Bannon and begged him to call off the attacks. “Steve, this isn’t fair, and it’s killing us,” Ailes said. “You have to stop it.” “Fuck that, that was outrageous what she did!” Bannon retorted. “She pulled every trick out of the leftist playbook.” “You’ve gotta knock this crap off, Steve.” “Not until she backs off Trump—she’s still going after him on her show.” “She’s the star of this network! Cut it out!” The call ended without resolution. Bannon and Ailes would not speak again for almost a year.
Joshua Green (Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency)
External conflict is the sizzle that gets bottoms in movie seats and books on bestseller lists. As consumers, we have concrete expectations of these Genres as we’ve all been exposed to thousands of them since birth. Again, Genre conventions and obligatory scenes satisfy those expectations. While a reader/viewer may not be able to pinpoint what exactly it is they want from a Story, they know it when it’s not there. Immediately.
Shawn Coyne (The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know)
Causes and effects should be shown rather than told; suggested rather than explained. If they’re not, curiosity will be extinguished and readers and viewers will become bored.
Will Storr (The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human and How to Tell Them Better)
So our mystery is solved. We’ve discovered where a story begins: with a moment of unexpected change, or with the opening of an information gap, or likely both. As it happens to a protagonist, it happens to the reader or viewer.
Will Storr (The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human and How to Tell Them Better)
For Van Meegeren, the moral was clear. The close-copy strategy carried enormous risk. Instead, like robot builders and video designers but Decades ahead of his time, he opted for the 50 percent solution—he would do 50 percent of the work toward creating a Vermeer, rather than 99 percent, and let his eager viewers collaborate in building their own trap.
Edward Dolnick (The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century (P.S.))
A painter who wants to involve viewers emotionally needs to leave us some work to do ourselves. Once having collaborated, we find ourselves hooked. Artists figured it out long ago. A painstaking, seemingly perfect depiction of reality has its charms, the art historian E. H. Gombrich explained, but a painting that contains less hard “information” may nonetheless seem more real and more compelling.
Edward Dolnick (The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century (P.S.))
This is the biggest scandal in the story of Pat Robertson. Whatever one thinks of his religious or political views, the fact remains that he raised millions of dollars from his viewers, most of whom were elderly, and then took their money to create a business that was sold for almost $2 billion. What is most surprising about this scandal is that nobody cared. The evangelical world did not seem to notice, and the federal government was only concerned with legal actions, even if they were morally questionable. Democratic congressman Pete Stark said that the sale of the Family Channel was an example of 'transactions in which individuals have enriched themselves at the public’s expense while nonprofit organizations have been looted.
David John Marley (Pat Robertson: An American Life)
realise how differently Leonardo and Michelangelo see the world. How differently they want us, the viewer, to perceive our world. I imagine that sketch of the David in marble, massive and bold and magnificent, a feat of daring from the prodigious Michelangelo. His vision of art isn’t like Leonardo’s. Il Gigante is aggressive and brash, swaggering with his slingshot. Nothing is hidden. A glorious exterior displayed for all to admire. Leonardo is opposite. He always instructs Cecco and Tommaso to tell stories with their pictures but to leave something as a mystery, something hidden. It is more enticing, more delightful, when a secret is concealed. The viewer must bring part of themselves to the painting.
Natasha Solomons (I, Mona Lisa)
Extra thanks to Aron, for bringing my story to millions of TikTok viewers and for educating many young people who would otherwise not have heard about the Shoah.
Tova Friedman (The Daughter of Auschwitz: My Story of Resilience, Survival and Hope)
The simplest explanation for motion graphics is an animation that incorporates text. A motion graphics animated video offers a brilliant way for brands to communicate with their viewers and add depth to their stories. They’re perceived as far more attractive than simple ads or text formats and require half the time and money needed for complex animations. For example, motion graphic animations are great for displaying products to customers in a fun, entertaining, and engaging way that may potentially increase sales. Hire a motion graphic artist or designer from Cloud Animations to deliver your brand message. The motion graphic design can be displayed interchangeably amongst a variety of formats and may also be shared on social media and other digital mediums to extend the reach of the content further.
CLD Animation
Louisa recalled something mom had told her when she was 15 and going through an obsessive landscape painting phase. “You need to put a figure in there. You need a narrative. When you add in a figure, you invite the viewer into a story about what they’re looking at.
Antonia Angress (Sirens & Muses)
Stern reported that 51 percent of viewers could not recall a single item of news a few minutes after viewing a news program on television. Wilson found that the average television viewer could retain only 20 percent of the information contained in a fictional televised news story. Katz et al. found that 21 percent of television viewers could not recall any news items within one hour of broadcast.
Neil Postman (Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business)