How do you work your ideas?

jpbankesmercer

jpbankesmercer

Director Mod
For me it’s normally late at night. I also get my best ideas when I’m really up against it, or depressed. If it’s a concept music video, I play the song over and over, close my eyes and think – ‘If someone else made this video what would I like to see?’ I then write a brief and add in a few images to create a feel.

When writing screenplay, I find the initial idea by talking to people, researching on the Internet or looking at newspapers. I find a concept that interests me, sit on it for a few days while I’m looking deeper into it. Then Wham! It just flows out of me. I always write on paper, (correcting any mistakes later to keeping flowing), it just comes. Don’t get me wrong only after long periods of waiting in-between. :crybaby:

I end up writing about 10-20 pages a sitting. Half way through, I start separate ‘Act’s’ 'Characters' pages with brief descriptions of each scene to get an overview and control the structure. I wrap things up and then let it breath for a week or two. I return to it by typing it up and do the first edit while it’s going in the computer. I print the sucka out and do a quick second edit after a few read-throughs. I let it breath again for a couple of days and look more closely at a paper-page version of the structure, I mark up what scenes really work and try and cut scenes that don’t move it along while filling out the characters. After a few days of doing this I go back and make what feels like the first true solid edit using my structure page.

Then I show it to a few people and get the initial reaction. Then I think how am I going to get this made? :)

What about you?
 
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I find my initial ideas all over the place for scripts and write them down on whatever I can find. I've gotten home with notes made on napkins, receipts, paper towels, or in my phone. I usually try to hammer out a plot line when I’m home that night, but most of the time I just log them into a Word film (about 12 pages at this point) and then glance through the list every so often and sometime spot old ideas in a new light.

It takes me a while to get a story nailed down, and I work in the limitation of filming close to my college campus which is in part a blessing for forcing me to be more creative. Then the script changes more as I storyboard shots and thinking of editing styles. Then I send the script out to a bunch of my friends on AIM getting feedback and then I know if it’s worth making or not.
 
I have a very creative mind, so generally if I get one idea, about 80 more pop up in the next 60 seconds. Usually I get ideas FROM something, like watching another movie, reading a book or just being someplace.
 
yea...watching other movies can definately help. I was having trouble locking on with some dialog i was writing but then I put on a david mammet film and it helped anchor me.

We're talking David Mammet, absolute brilliant dialog. But with stealing his lines, i was able to capture the spirit of his style
 
my ideal scenario is to begin researching my ideas and developing their themes into playable scenarios that I can take to trusted actors. then through improv we further develop the characters and the world they might inhabit. from this material i spend many late nights structuring into a screenplay.
 
Jim Brennan said:
The shower...an inconvenient place, but there's something about the smell of the soap...
Click to expand...

Not sure if you were joking, but this is true for me. Monotony in general makes me creative -- taking a shower, mowing the lawn, driving, walking/running, spacing out in class so the teacher's voice becomes no more than a low hum... I always carry a small personal recorder with me -- a "note to self" device, as it were -- and dictate every idea I think of, no matter how slight, and whether or not I have a larger story framework to put it in. A lot of the time when I make one note-to-self, it will be followed by many other related ideas. I listen back through these audio notes, and transcribe them into a text file on my computer. Every once in a while I go back and read through the text file, find a brilliant idea I had that I'd forgotten about, and go on a creative burst around that idea, formulating it into a story.

I think the most important thing is to have something you carry around, whether it be an audio recorder or a small notebook, since ideas can strike at any time. Before I started carrying the note-to-self device around, I would still come up with just as many ideas, it's just that I would forget half or more of them.
 
Not kidding (well, except for the soap smell) The shower (actually the bathroom in general) is my only real refuge with 2 little primates running around.

I carry a notebook in my back pocket (but not in the shower...usually). I cannot tell you how many times I've had an idea that I thought I would remember...then I can't even remember that I forgot it. I make notes all the time. Be lost without it.
 
I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds ideas in the bathroom. I once made a short film at two in the morning, of me in a bathroom doing mundane things in a weird way, just from sitting in there, and thinking.
 
my girlfriend, who is a freelance editor, says that she often finds inspiration for whatever project she's currently working on right around the time she's brushing her teeth every morning.
 
I'm not sure if anyone mentioned this yet, but I often get my idea specifically from music. Not from playing a song and boom an idea comes, I mean I end up thinking of a shot that fits that part of the song in some way. Alot of my final ideas on doing a story develop from one shot and the rest fills in.

I think it would be a great writing contest to simply get a nice frame from video and have like 24hrs to write a 10 page short just based on what you see, leading up to that moment, including that moment, or w/e. Creativity for me comes from past experience, things ive see in other films, music, or w/e. Not sure if there's a specific place I get all of my ideas.

I do know that talking my idea out with someone who will simply sit there and listen often leads me to either fix problems in the idea itself or come up with other aspects of that idea....
 
I do the same thing. I think of one line in a song and I have a whole scene in my head.

Also, the place where my ideas develop most is when I'm in bed...trying to sleep...and I end up not sleeping.
 
I usually carry a palm pilot around and jot down stuff on that. Then, if the idea is good enough, I'll write a rough plan on paper, beginning, middle and end, usually only a couple of pages and a few brief character bios. Then I get straight into typing. I don't believe in too much pre-planning. My first draft is usually a formless mess. When I get to the 5th draft, by then I usually know if my idea is good enough. If it goes beyond a 5th draft, my story starts to move away from my original idea and I usually know to quit writing then.
 
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