Save your good ideas, or just go for it?

J

jghenderson

Well-known member
This might seem like a silly, or whiny, question. But please hear me out, as this is something that is really bothering me at the moment.

I'm still in the very early stages of my career. Only made 4 short films to this point, directed my first music video a few months ago, in pre for my 2nd one right now. I do not feel that I am good at this craft yet, but I am learning a lot every project and i've noticed progress, which gives me hope.

I am finally in a place where I am starting to get others that want to collaborate with me, without me having to desperately ask for help every project. I have a small but steady crew of people I work with, i've finally befriended some talented actors, etc. I am very happy for this, obviously.

I recently pitched an idea for a short film to an actress friend, and it was a bit of a wakeup call for me. She wants to do a project with me, and she didn't really say no to the idea, but she did basically say: it's stale, cliche. And I realized she was right. I was playing it safe, and there's a reason for that.

See I have a lot of ideas, as i'm sure we all do. But I am not completely confident in my abilities just yet, and I guess i'm afraid to take one of my better ideas and execute it poorly. In my head i've decided it would be smarter to do small, straight forward projects right now, that I can use to get better at directing actors, at being visually concise, at everything. I guess I view these little shorts as "throw aways", as practice. Without putting the pressure on myself that a great idea has inherent in it, I can relax and just focus on bettering my craft.

But am I sabotaging myself? Should I always just pick the best idea I have, and go for it, even though it will be much harder to execute? I'm so caught up in my own thinking and all the projects going on, that it's hard for me to tell if i'm being smart, or if i'm being a scared little boy.

What do you all think?
 
There is material, an idea, a story that may need a certain environment to really grow into something that can live - plant a tree on wrong soil and it dies.

What you may think is your best idea may not be seen as best idea by others. Of course "others" may be wrong. As can you. There is no other chance than taking it.

Some material, exposes, treatments, scripts may need a time to lay, sit, sleep and ripen in the cellar - so that you can look at them later, see where they suck, have enough courage to chop that out and protect at the same time what is really good.

It's absolutely necessary to have a lot of things going on in your brain and at your desk at the same time and it's also rather dangerous because you may lose orientation.

What you do now is training "only" your creative abilities - but regardless if you run "only" the Coyoteville-round-the-clocktower race or the New York Marathon what you also train is your will and your ability to succeed.

You need to make luck to find you and for that you have to stick out - chances are though that also a lightning may find you instead.

Be prepared to have presentable stuff if luck knocks at your door.

The best idea you have today is not be the best you will have had in your career - at least this is the contention you have to work on - or you will have no career.

What you train now is your ability to - hopefully - be a creative powerhouse tomorrow.

My 0,02 € of wisdom.....
 
GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying :
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

:)
 
Always go with the best idea. Don't be afraid of f***ing it up. You will eventually. But you will learn from it. Always give your best. Coz if it turns big, it better be good.
 
Rolf has given you excellent advice, and keith also has a point (a great point - I know many who let life pass them by while they "waited" for the perfect timing).

I have another thought for you. It has to do with this: "but she did basically say: it's stale, cliche. And I realized she was right. I was playing it safe, and there's a reason for that."

What is wrong here is NOT - repeat: NOT - that you are "playing it safe", or "saving your best for when you're ready". I tell you what is wrong: that you went for stale cliches. You should NEVER do that. NEVER. Stale cliche is not "playing it safe". How about this: it is perfectly OK not to use your "best idea" for a throwaway short that won't do it justice. Hang onto that idea until you can do it well, BUT there is NO EXCUSE for doing bad, cliched and stale work in the meantime. "Safe" is not "cliche". I was recently watching the excellent Repulsion by Roman Polanski, and they had an interview with him and the actresses in the extra features - one thing was said that struck me: he tries his damnest not to descend into cliches and conventions and untruths, particularly with actors. He illustrated how a person is usually depicted as responding to a phone call when the caller is then silent - he showed how in most movies there is a cliched sequence of "Hello... HELLO... HELLLOOOOO" and so on, and how fake that is, and he drew attention to how he instructed the actress to do it in the film. And the actresses both said he was very particular about looking for cinematic acting cliches and trying for a "real" and original response. He said he spends a lot of time thinking about acting and what's fresh and what's fake.

Do you see what I mean? Even if you don't use your special idea at the moment (saving it for later), there is NO EXCUSE for doing what you did to that actress - proposing a cliche. You should always strive to do good work - you will learn a ton more that way than trying to follow cliches as "safe" - they are not "safe", they are killers... all you have to do is look at the various trailers to work posted here at dvxuser - the vast majority are horribly stale and cliched - which KILLS any interest. You won't grow or learn from doing cliched work.

So bottom line - if you want to save your best ideas for when you can really do them, fine, but NEVER, EVER, EVER do bad work, or cliched work or stale work - because you'll never learn and never grow that way. And sometimes, if you have no other non-cliche idea except for your "good idea", then rather do that, than hord it and do a cliche. Never, ever a cliche.
 
i'm afraid to take one of my better ideas and execute it poorly.
Click to expand...

part of your skill set as an indie moviemaker is to invent projects that are filled with PERSONAL and CHALLENGING ideas

start developing that rebellious indie spirit

do your best ideas, do them with passion and daring, start practicing making challenging and ball-sy movies how can you do that if you save your challenging and exciting and daring ideas for a supposed later time doesnt make sense
 
I have been active now 'in film' for about 2 years. Mostly corporate / business stuff, which is great to practice shots and get better at it while getting paid.

But anyway, I'm a creative guy and get lots of 'ideas' for shorts and those kind of things, but I can't seem to create scripts that are 'simple'. By that I mean, 2 actors, 2 scenes, great ending. My ideas always cost time & money to produce, simply because I can't think of super simple ideas.

So for all this time, I 'postponed' and even canceled lots of script ideas simply because it costs me (personal) money and time. And what's the point in producing a short anyway if it just sits there on vimeo later?

My new years resolution for this year was 'shut the **** up and go make ****'.

I'm now editing a short that I shot last weekend and toke me a month to write & produce. Luckily it only cost me a couple of hundred bucks and a friend of mine wanted to co-produce / invest for half of that. Great stuff.

I have learned so much again, improved myself and it will all help me further down the path. Even more, it's just plain fun and exciting to do.

I don't really have an advice, just my story. I just hate the 'old me' who was always focussing on the reasons not to make films. Now I have turned it around, and I can't look back. More films are coming for sure this year.
 
Thanks everyone for the words. I've realized I was being scared.

Odd as it might seem, it dawned on me just now that ultimately the role of the Director is to inspire others to do their best work. As much as I might have doubts of my own abilities, and as much as these doubts might drive my mind to want to do "throw away" projects so I can get better, how can I ever expect people to want to work with me if they don't feel inspired or excited about the ideas i'm putting forth to them? Especially now that I finally have a group of people I work with and have met some really talented actors, more than ever I need to put my best foot forward, otherwise people might begin to think i'm just a big bag of cliched, safe ideas.

If I set my sights too far, and ultimately fall short, oh well. At least I will learn a lot (probably more than I would with a safe idea), and hopefully people would have had a good time in the process. I guess the real way to learn is to stretch yourself to your limits. Time to be bold!
 
If she said it was cliche, then she must have had good reasons. A lot of cliche material gets out in the world. It's not easy being innovative and fresh. You have to slog through thousands of other people's works, do research and try and make new connections that no one else has made before -- and they need to be dead-on appropriate connections too. It's extremely difficult to succeed in the creative arts today, and the competition is nearly insurmountable.

Most short films (posted hereabouts) are riddled with cliche situations. They aren't very good. The ones that do something that knocks you back are rare. But out there in the world, there are so many things being shot that the numbers say a lot of exceptional work is happening. The festivals weed out most of the banal stuff.

The flip side is that a lot of people LIKE cliches. Go figure. They want the same old crap and pay money for it. While your actress friend may be discerning, others won't be as much. It's a crazy world full of such a variety of people that most any garbage can find an audience. But should it?
 
The easiest thing to discourage people from doing anything is throwing the cliche-bomb at them. The easiest thing to appear as an incredibly knowing person is throwing the cliche-bomb at others. The cliche can be both - it really may be terrible and it really can be just a tool in a perfectly functioning work of art. So if anybody says "it's a cliche" we need to know the context. A cliche that develops into something original can be great. So don't be afraid of a cliche - use it, change it, let it grow.

And too often we see the seemingly original that is in the end just a cliche in itself.
 
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