I'm using the afterlife as a backdrop against which to explore the joys and complexities of being human - it turns out that it's a great lens with which to understand what matters to us.
When I cast great actors, I try to make extraordinary people ordinary, dealing with these extremely small intimate details of interpersonal relationships against an epic backdrop.
Many a fine SF story uses science or technology merely as backdrop. Many a fine SF story presumes a technological breakthrough and explores its implications without attempting to predict how the thing might actual work.
What's so strong about 'Game of Thrones' is that it's a character and political drama, with a sort of fantasy backdrop.
My dad had a retail business in Leavenworth, Kansas, and there's a whole bunch of prisons there, so it was a backdrop of my childhood, these ominous prisons sitting off the road.
Do I have to see movies and television about the English throne or the Holocaust every year? There are multiple multi-million dollar movies with the same backdrop. But our Holocaust - meaning Latino - aren't ever told.
A poet or prose narrator usually looks back on what he has achieved against a backdrop of the years that have passed, generally finding that some of these achievements are acceptable, while others are less so.
To study consumer behavior is to explore human nature at its most fundamental level using the modern world as its backdrop.
The first time we ever used the Dixie flag for our backdrop was actually when we went over to Europe in 1970. It looked good, so we all liked it. We never meant any racial things by it.
Even though I love Hindi films, I don't remember any backdrop visuals that are really striking.
