How do you get your Ideas?

nileo6 · Post by **nileo6** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 2:10 am

Whenever something interesting happens I usually think wow that would be cool for a movie. I can't ever just sit down with pen and paper and just write a story. I have to have small ideas to go off of. Does anyone have any tips or tricks of what you do to get your ideas. I've heard that you can do stuff to distract your rational side of your brain. And thats when good ideas come, when your creative side kicks in. (wow that sounds stupid, but oh well)

foxwood · Post by **foxwood** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 2:17 am

Well my ideas come at me a mile a minute, granted very few of them are good for movies. so what I do is if an idea sticks in my head I start to work out a plan for it in my brain, not writting anything down, and if I can keep it going it usualy gets writen. Now where I get my ideas can range for any number of places. On script started when I had writen a scene about my friend and me playing Diablo II, I started writing a bit more about it, lousely based on real life events that had happoned to me, I say lousely because I never actualy had matrix dreams, or ran into altoid adicted drug addicts at school. another Idea I had came when I was out looking for apartments to live in next semister. And while I was in one, the one that we endded up rentting, I came up with an idea, what if I did Resavour dogs in an apartment. Then I let the idea jestate, for a few weeks and it turned into a satire of Pulp fiction, but started from that single idea, and the wantting to use that loaction.

sometimes a prop will give me an idea as well, such as writting a story to fit the swords that were at our dispossel, ie Vengeance and Retribution. Or at times they are little ideas the poped into my head, while I was making fun of somthing, like the outragious length of Metel Gear Solid cut sequences, hince the Yokai Project. It is hard to give out my writting and idea prosses, because my brain works in a strange way, and pops from one unconected idea to another, and when I am writting I don't ever say somthing is a bad idea I just run with it.

Other times, i also set goals, like, most profain script, or highist body count, both of which yealled two scripts both of which failed in there respects, falling short about 200 f-bombs and about 100 dead bodies.

nileo6 · Post by **nileo6** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 2:29 am

I think a problem I have is im really good at analyzation cr** and i overuse it when i come up with ideas. And i'll just think no this won't work and that is too complicated. I think I should do what you do and work them out. I usually get one great idea but then i run into a dead end and give up. I also like how you exagerate things that really happen to you, that lets you express yourself a little better in the movies you make.

Chris_film · Post by **Chris_film** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 3:00 am

for me, i usually watch a movie or something and think of stuff that could have been done in the movie, but they didnt have it in there. I then maybe add stuff to it, making it cooler, or perhaps easier if im feeling lazy. then put an actual plot around it and wham, new movie.

foxwood · Post by **foxwood** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 3:14 am

nileo6 wrote:I think a problem I have is im really good at analyzation cr** and i overuse it when i come up with ideas. And i'll just think no this won't work and that is too complicated. I think I should do what you do and work them out. I usually get one great idea but then i run into a dead end and give up. I also like how you exagerate things that really happen to you, that lets you express yourself a little better in the movies you make.

Movies are all about the expereance and being over the top so I never let resion or reality stand in my way, sometimes not even a coherent plot, I wrote one script that had such a thin plot that didn't have any motivation, but was still good simply because it was so out there, and so fun in what it did that the fact that you have not real anilization didn't matter. My tip is to sit and just write, don't look don't read back, unless you need to look at a preveus spelling or such, and just write for an hour a day, if you write yourself into a hole take a break and think your way our, or just skip how they got out and keep writing and a solution will present its self, becuase a story does not always come to people in order, you just have to write and write. I write many in phases, the first being the ruff story, the second I tend to add a sub plot, and the third I polish and so forth.

I3lade203 · Post by **I3lade203** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 5:56 am

Ideas just come to me, I let them come to me natrually, then think about them for a while, come up with some detail , characters, a few "higlight parts" i would like to have ect, and build a script

Epsilon · Post by **Epsilon** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 6:12 am

I have a couple notepads readily available. You never know when a great idea comes along. I am always thinking of ideals things for a comedy feature, whether it be Exploding Yams or something that lives beneath the shower.

I'm always telling jokes and whatnot, just always write them down!

nileo6 · Post by **nileo6** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 4:09 pm

It's not coming up with ideas that is the hard part it is just turning them into a full developed script I have a problem with. But sometimes if I can get myself to think creatively then I can go on and on... I think the place I usually get stopped at is the conflict because you have to find a clever solution to the problem you just created. Or sometimes I'll have a great idea for a movie but then I can't come up with a conflict or I don't want to. Is it still okay to make a movie without a 3 part script? (intro, climax, conclusion)

come to think of it I entered a short film of mine into a school competition and it went to the state level and it didn't have much of a intro, climax, conclusion. But I came up with a great idea to go along with the theme. The actual film part I'm sad to say kinda sucked because I was new with making movies. But whenever I'd go up to shake the judges hands they would be like "I loved your storyline." And one judge came up to me and said that all the other judges loved my film because it had a great story and it was creative. Honestly I thought that movie SUCKED and here were all these people saying it was really good because of my ideas. And it didn't even have much of a 3 part storyline.

foxwood · Post by **foxwood** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 7:15 pm

I'll let you in on a secret, your conficlt can at times be cr** when you start writting, just sit and write sceans, that kind of have some conection, and then the confilct will sometimes develupe, other times it won't. and I have endded many movies with only the weakist resalution to a weak conflict because that was never the point. My best advice is to just write and write and eventualy conflict will come to you. Try and adapt somthing, my first script longer then two pages was an adaptaion of the oringal Diablo and that helpped me eminsly, so that might be a place for you to start adapt somthing you love that hasn't already been.

justsomeguy · Post by **justsomeguy** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 7:22 pm

if i have to come up with anb idea, ill do it at like 2 oclock in the morning when i cant thnik right, and viola a crazy idea that occasionaly works

nileo6 · Post by **nileo6** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 8:07 pm

I tried your advice of just sitting and writing. Ideas really do come to you once you get into it. Me and one of my friends who is a really great actor started coming up with a great idea for a movie about a year ago. I decided to try and put it on paper. When I just sat down and started writing I thought of good ideas to throw in there to make the story smoother. When I write I try to make a strong conflict instead of a weak one. A conflict is a person or thing that stops the main character from getting what he or she wants. If you have a strong conflict with high stakes, then the audience will tend to care more about what happens. When there is not much to gain or lose then what is the point of the movie.

I3lade203 · Post by **I3lade203** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 8:36 pm

it is just turning them into a full developed script I have a problem with.

Thats the easiest part for me! Fun to! Just think of some locations and events that your character have to go to/do and lead them there with smaller events, and always remember your main goal of the story

foxwood · Post by **foxwood** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 9:27 pm

nileo6 wrote:I tried your advice of just sitting and writing. Ideas really do come to you once you get into it. Me and one of my friends who is a really great actor started coming up with a great idea for a movie about a year ago. I decided to try and put it on paper. When I just sat down and started writing I thought of good ideas to throw in there to make the story smoother. When I write I try to make a strong conflict instead of a weak one. A conflict is a person or thing that stops the main character from getting what he or she wants. If you have a strong conflict with high stakes, then the audience will tend to care more about what happens. When there is not much to gain or lose then what is the point of the movie.

Sometimes if all you have is a weak conflict start with that and you will find way to make it a stronger conflict, I mean we all have to start someplace right?

nileo6 · Post by **nileo6** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 10:01 pm

Ya you've honestly got to start somewhere or you will never get anywhere. It is better to start out with a strong conflict. But there is nothing wrong with starting out weak and working your way up. But I am saying that it is better to have a strong conflict if you want the audience to care more about your movie.

foxwood · Post by **foxwood** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 10:06 pm

nileo6 wrote:Ya you've honestly got to start somewhere or you will never get anywhere. It is better to start out with a strong conflict. But there is nothing wrong with starting out weak and working your way up. But I am saying that it is better to have a strong conflict if you want the audience to care more about your movie.

Well yes, but we are talking about starting and getting ideas and it is more important to get an idea on paper and started with or without a great conflict, to see if it has any merrit at all. And remember that a conflict can always be strigthend by just adding more obsticals, so you don't always need to sit and worry about it before hand, i have never said "OK I can't write because I don't have a super strong conflict, all I have is two people who think they like eatch other but can't say anything to the other" I say "well I have a weak polt/conflict, but I'll start writting any way and somthing will pop into my head to make it more complex, and that is what I did. Granted that script endded up being about the secenes and not the conflcit in any way, as part of the joke. But adding conflict after the fact seems to be something I do because I write in phases.

nileo6 · Post by **nileo6** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 10:11 pm

Yes everyone is different. And thats great that you know the way you work when writing scripts. And once again your way of just sitting and writing once you have a small idea and turn it into a bigger one is very useful.

Once you get into it more ideas are very likely to come.

Thanks byetheway u have been a lot of help. And it's not like I can't ever come up with ideas b/c thats the fun part of filmmaking and my fav part.

Epsilon · Post by **Epsilon** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 11:33 pm

For slapsticks, humor is derived from the overexaggeration of everything. That's it.

foxwood · Post by **foxwood** » Sun Jun 06, 2004 3:40 pm

Epsilon wrote:For slapsticks, humor is derived from the overexaggeration of everything. That's it.

That is usualy for humor in general.

NPMAX · Post by **NPMAX** » Sun Jun 13, 2004 5:28 pm

I usually have a few drinks, then write random ideas. The more relaxed you are the easier it is to come up with over the top ideas that would work well in film. I then get the crazy I deas out of my system and figure how to plug them into a setting and story line to where they make sense.

Epsilon · Post by **Epsilon** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 8:04 am

All I need is a high on Caffine! Half a dozen cans of Mountain Dew does it for me!

Syras · Post by **Syras** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 8:13 am

i read up on the sort of movie i want to right. for example i'm currently in production for a gangster movie. i got the idea for that by searching newspaper websites for articles on the mafia etc

Epsilon · Post by **Epsilon** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 8:39 am

You could make a comedy movie about a guys who can't think of anything funny for his comedy!

foxwood · Post by **foxwood** » Tue Jun 15, 2004 10:29 pm

Epsilon wrote:You could make a comedy movie about a guys who can't think of anything funny for his comedy!

I tryed that Idea once, really not that funny.

nigel666 · Post by **nigel666** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 9:59 pm

you can watch movies an jot down good scenes i.e. copy. at the end of the day everythings been done before.

you could buy a alarm clock an wake yourself up tht way you remeber your dreams. i.e. james camoran had a dream off that they made terminator

watch loads of movies read loads of comics, i dont know lol

I3lade203 · Post by **I3lade203** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 10:02 pm

This is a REALLY old thread