All worthy work is open to interpretations the author did not intend. Art isn't your pet -- it's your kid. It grows up and talks back to you.
Joss WhedonRead
I'd rather make a show 100 people need to see, than a show that 1000 people want to see.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of creating meaningful work rather than seeking mass appeal.
Joss Whedon suggests that true artistic value lies in producing content that resonates deeply with a smaller audience, rather than simply trying to please a larger group. He advocates for authenticity and personal expression in art, implying that the impact on a few is more significant than broad popularity.
In practice
During a speech at an art conference, I shared this quote to inspire creators to focus on depth over breadth.
All worthy work is open to interpretations the author did not intend. Art isn't your pet -- it's your kid. It grows up and talks back to you.
Because itβs no longer enough to be a decent person. Itβs no longer enough to shake our heads and make concerned grimaces at the news. True enlightened activism is the only thing that can save humanity from itself.
I designed 'Buffy' to be an icon, to be an emotional experience, to be loved in a way that other shows can't be loved. Because it's about adolescence, which is the most important thing people go through in their development, becoming an adult.
My dad would go to work every day and write in a room full of funny people. He enjoyed it. I know great writers who find the process agonising but to me, writing has always been sheer joy.
I loved the idea of a girl going into a dark alley, and a monster comes, and then she just aces him. Itβs like, you want to see the tiny person suddenly take control. God, my whole career is basically about that!
Limitations are something that I latch onto - like working in genre, or if you're writing TV, there are act breaks, there's a length of time it's supposed to be. The restrictions of budget and sets can be really useful. When you can have everything, it's very hard to make things feel real and lived in.
Any photograph has multiple meanings: indeed, to see something in the form of a photograph is to encounter a potential object of fascination. The ultimate wisdom of the photographic image is to say: βThere is the surface. Now think β or rather feel, intuit β what is beyond it, what the reality must be like if it looks this way.β Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy
As a playwright, you are a torturer of actors and of the audience as well. You inflict things on people.
The way I write is very much without kind of a goal. I have something I'm interested in and then I decide I'm going to explore it. I don't know where the characters are going to go, I don't know what the movie is going to do or what the screenplay is going to do. For me, that's the way to keep it alive.
Real people speak in my books about the main events of the age, such as the war, the Chernobyl disaster, and the downfall of a great empire.
Art is not like other culture because its success is not made by its audience. The public fill concert halls and cinemas every day, we read novels by the millions, and buy records by the billions. 'We the people' affect the making and quality of most of our culture, but not our art.
A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it.
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