Latest Dave McKean Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• So I really love this very difficult feeling of being completely out at sea. I don't know what I'm doing, and I kind of like this feeling. So I think for the moment, I'm going to continue to try and nail film down in some sort of shape where I'm happy with it.

  Dave McKean

  Thinking, Sea, Feelings

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I love telling stories. And even in single images, I tend to have stories inside them. I've always loved film, but I was making drawings and paintings and photographs. And you put art and narrative together, and that really is comics.

  Dave McKean

  Art, Drawing, Together

  Source: www.avclub.com

• You could easily spend several lifetimes trying to master film. It make very good use of all the things that I love. Narrative, image-making, also sound and music. It's so full that I can't really imagine getting tired of it. Or getting to the point like I feel like I know it.

  Dave McKean

  Tired, Sound And Music, Trying

  Source: www.avclub.com

• There is nobody who is good or bad, it's just not like that. They all are complex individuals. They all see the world in their own way that makes complete sense to them. Nobody goes around feeling that they're evil - they think that they're doing the right thing. And so that seems to have something really important, big, and deep to say about human beings.

  Dave McKean

  Thinking, Evil, Feelings

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I do very, very, very simple, skimpy doodles, nothing too committed. Because people tend to fall in love if they like it - if you color it in and they like it, then they want exactly those colors, even if they were just indications. You really have to do it as simple as possible so they can concentrate on the idea and composition. And then all of the energy goes into making the final piece. And the final piece can be anything - it can be a drawing, a painting, a collage - and usually, it's obvious what that should be. Usually, the idea dictates what medium you use.

  Dave McKean

  Falling In Love, Simple, Color

  Source: www.avclub.com

• When you just get fantasy stories that are about fairies or goblins, I just don't care. I'm never going to meet a goblin, it doesn't mean anything to me. So my definition of fantasy is very broad, it's anything to do with memory, or dreams, or ways of interpreting or making sense of the world.

  Dave McKean

  Dream, Memories, Mean

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I've always used masks. I think it's a lot about the fact that masks often reveal a sort of subconscious element to a character. The mask is carved and given an expression or markings to reveal something, even though it's shielding the face. Even though it's hiding the face, it seems to reveal something underneath.

  Dave McKean

  Character, Thinking, Expression

  Source: www.avclub.com

• PhotoShop is a program I use all the time with my 2D stuff. And that's an extraordinary program - you really can do anything there, and I've never hit my head on the ceiling. The 3D stuff is incredibly complicated, monstrously complicated, but for the things that I want to do, I've found very simple and interesting ways, I hope, of making images without getting tied up too much in the maps and technicalities.

  Dave McKean

  Simple, Interesting, Ceilings

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I kind of enjoy the limits. If you've got no limits, you can do absolutely anything, it's very difficult, actually. I always enjoyed working with machines like color photocopiers and letter-pressing type settings, things where the limits are very apparent. You push the machine to do something, and it tries to do its best, and it usually has wonderful qualities all of its own. Then you get a sort of dialogue going, and the limitations become qualities.

  Dave McKean

  Color, Trying, Quality

  Source: www.avclub.com

• But actually making pictures to look like my pictures, I've done it for so long, I'm kind of used to it now. So at the beginning of the process, designing and storyboarding everything, I sort of did all that. And then designed the characters, and doing the textures for the characters, and the texture maps to cover all the animated characters and the sets, I did those, because that's where my sort of coloring and textures get imprinted on the film.

  Dave McKean

  Character, Long, Design

  Source: www.avclub.com

• Usually, the most difficult thing to do is photo-real stuff. Something that has to actually look like the real world, because it's just so difficult to do that. We're just so used to looking at the real world, our brains instantly see when something is not quite right.

  Dave McKean

  Real, Brain, Looks

  Source: www.avclub.com

• My stuff is generally quite collage-y anyway. So it's sort-of suited to gathering raw materials like shooting actors, then making stills or animating characters, then just bringing them all together in a 3D space. That process is very close to my 2D work anyway.

  Dave McKean

  Character, Space, Together

  Source: www.avclub.com

• The filmmakers I really love are the ones that let me look through their eyes for a while. They have an aesthetic and social point of view.

  Dave McKean

  Eye, Views, Looks

  Source: theculturalgutter.com

• I love the silent era because you can see the rules being written, the grammar of film being created. Most of my films are in some way love letters to the silent era.

  Dave McKean

  Letters, Way, Eras

  Source: theculturalgutter.com

• Sometimes the things I learn making paintings or drawings - composition, colour, expressionism, texture - can directly influence the making of a film. Sometimes it's great that they are different, and simply taking a break from one medium to spend time with another, recharges the batteries and I feel refreshed.

  Dave McKean

  Drawing, Batteries, Different

  Source: theculturalgutter.com

• The reason I love comics is that they DON'T move, and there is NO sound. As a creator I have to evoke those elements in the drawings and writing, and the reader has to create those elements in their own minds.

  Dave McKean

  Moving, Writing, Drawing

  Source: theculturalgutter.com

• Reading a good comic is a creative act. Watching a film is often a more passive experience, and since I'm interested in engaging that conversational aspect of creativity, I'm trying to find ways of achieving that in my films.

  Dave McKean

  Reading, Creativity, Creative

  Source: theculturalgutter.com

• Film gives me live actors, editing, music, sound, a huge and powerful toolbox to play with. If there is a problem for me, it is that film gives me too much. There is less room for the audience to add their side of the conversation.

  Dave McKean

  Powerful, Editing, Play

  Source: theculturalgutter.com

• The human face is the most deeply ingrained image in our brains. It is the two dots and a dash we connect with as babies. It is the focus of our attention in our relationships with each other. The face and the human figure express all we are. Everything else - architecture, art, even landscape - we usually understand in relation to us.

  Dave McKean

  Baby, Art, Two

  Source: thequietus.com

• I'm always thinking about story, and the development of ideas or images, so with all types of media, I'm simply trying to communicate the feelings and ideas in the story or characters in the most appropriate and effective way.

  Dave McKean

  Character, Thinking, Media

  Source: theculturalgutter.com

• I think the two jobs I dreamed of doing as a teenager were comic book artist and record cover illustrator. Maybe film director was in the mix as well, but that seemed to be an impossible mountain to climb.

  Dave McKean

  Jobs, Teenager, Book

  Source: thequietus.com

• I'm interested in the parallel narrative of our fantasy lives. How the moment of 'now' that is palpably real, is surrounded by our memories, our dreams and hopes, the stories and connections that our brains make as we navigate a universe of fantasy, or unreality, or surreality. I'm keen to explore this very human experience, how our minds create our own realities, a blend of fact and interpretation of fact.

  Dave McKean

  Dream, Memories, Real

  Source: theculturalgutter.com

• If you want to be a chef or a scientist, you've got to know what the current thinking is, so if you want to write comics or draw comics find out what the very best ones are and look at them all and then you'll know where the bars are because the bars are often very high, if you are going to make a splash and make yourself known, you need to get to that level.

  Dave McKean

  Writing, Thinking, Needs

  Source: www.thestorymint.com

• I like stories that exist both in the naturalistic world and in our imaginative lives, films are so immersive in that sense, we can explore how our characters think and dream, as well as how they exist in the real world.

  Dave McKean

  Dream, Real, Character

  Source: theculturalgutter.com

• I've always liked making things that don't deny the medium that they're made in. If it's collage, I'm happy for it to look like that. If it's a film made with computers, I don't mind that it looks like a film made with computers as long as it still has a feeling or a mood or an atmosphere that is relevant.

  Dave McKean

  Long, Feelings, Atmosphere

  Source: asitecalledfred.com