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Creativity Quote by Craig McCracken

"One of the main things I do is focus on ideas and what stories we decide to tell, but probably the biggest part of my job, I'd say, is working on the storyboards"

About this Quote

McCracken’s line quietly demystifies the auteur myth: the job isn’t just dreaming up worlds, it’s grinding those worlds into sequences you can actually watch. He nods to the glamor category first - “ideas” and “what stories we decide to tell” - then pivots to the unsexy center of gravity: storyboards. That turn matters. It’s a reminder that in animation, authorship lives in the in-between spaces: timing, framing, gesture, the micro-decisions that determine whether a joke lands or an emotion reads.

The subtext is a defense of craft over vibes. “We decide to tell” signals power and responsibility - storytelling as curation, as a set of cultural choices - but he immediately anchors that power in labor. Storyboards are where lofty themes get stress-tested against physics, budget, and clarity. They’re also where collaboration becomes real, because boards are a language other artists can build from. In an industry that often sells cartoons as the product of singular genius, McCracken describes a role closer to translation: taking abstract intent and turning it into an executable plan that still has personality.

Contextually, this fits a creator shaped by TV animation pipelines, where speed and readability are survival skills. It’s also a subtle statement about why certain animated shows feel authored: not because the creator had “a vision,” but because they obsessed over the beat-by-beat mechanics that make a vision legible. The romance is in the workbench.

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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
McCracken, Craig. (2026, February 16). One of the main things I do is focus on ideas and what stories we decide to tell, but probably the biggest part of my job, I'd say, is working on the storyboards. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/one-of-the-main-things-i-do-is-focus-on-ideas-and-51466/

Chicago Style
McCracken, Craig. "One of the main things I do is focus on ideas and what stories we decide to tell, but probably the biggest part of my job, I'd say, is working on the storyboards." FixQuotes. February 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/one-of-the-main-things-i-do-is-focus-on-ideas-and-51466/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"One of the main things I do is focus on ideas and what stories we decide to tell, but probably the biggest part of my job, I'd say, is working on the storyboards." FixQuotes, 16 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/one-of-the-main-things-i-do-is-focus-on-ideas-and-51466/. Accessed 4 Mar. 2026.

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About the Author

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Craig McCracken (born March 31, 1971) is a Artist from USA.

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