"I loved being asked 2,000 questions a day, storyboarding every move, knowing as though by instinct exactly where the camera had to be, because it was my story"
About this Quote
There is a particular kind of control that feels like freedom, and Richard Grant is naming it without apology. “Being asked 2,000 questions a day” sounds like managerial hell in any other workplace; here it becomes a love language. The number is hyperbolic, a deliberate stress-test that signals intensity, pressure, and constant negotiation. Yet Grant’s “loved” flips the expected complaint into a confession: he thrives on scrutiny because it verifies authorship.
The phrase “storyboarding every move” borrows film grammar to describe a mindset, not just a process. Storyboarding is pre-emptive meaning-making; it’s the decision, before the moment happens, about what the moment will be. That’s the subtext: real power isn’t improvisation, it’s framing. When he says he knew “as though by instinct exactly where the camera had to be,” he’s claiming a craft so internalized it feels bodily, the way a musician stops thinking in notes and starts thinking in sound. Instinct here is earned, not mystical.
Then comes the tell: “because it was my story.” That clause carries the quiet politics of adaptation and production. In collaborative media, “my story” is always under threat - by editors, directors, markets, even by the camera itself. Grant’s intent is to defend ownership while admitting the paradox: to keep a story yours, you sometimes have to submit to relentless questioning and technical planning. Control becomes not vanity, but a shield against dilution.
The phrase “storyboarding every move” borrows film grammar to describe a mindset, not just a process. Storyboarding is pre-emptive meaning-making; it’s the decision, before the moment happens, about what the moment will be. That’s the subtext: real power isn’t improvisation, it’s framing. When he says he knew “as though by instinct exactly where the camera had to be,” he’s claiming a craft so internalized it feels bodily, the way a musician stops thinking in notes and starts thinking in sound. Instinct here is earned, not mystical.
Then comes the tell: “because it was my story.” That clause carries the quiet politics of adaptation and production. In collaborative media, “my story” is always under threat - by editors, directors, markets, even by the camera itself. Grant’s intent is to defend ownership while admitting the paradox: to keep a story yours, you sometimes have to submit to relentless questioning and technical planning. Control becomes not vanity, but a shield against dilution.
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| Topic | Movie |
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