Why did I decide to write about ideas and everything that I know about them, even though this extremely ambiguous subject terrifies me? Because a whole lot of people, including those that I respect and admire, really, really wanted me to. So, reluctantly, I agreed.
I don’t think there is any one way that works for everyone when it comes to ideas.
If you ask any creative professional, they’ll eventually tell you that they have no idea where they come from, anyway.
We can make our job easier, though, by limiting what we have to think of. For example, this is a blog about independent filmmaking. So, let’s try to think of an idea that would make a really good independent feature film.
Of course, how do we do that? The task seems quite daunting, to say the least, but we’re going to make our job easier, remember, by limiting what we have to think of.
I’m going to tell you everything I know about ideas.
Prelude
Before you begin, remember what you have and what you don’t have. You know you’re going to have a limited budget. You know you’re going to have limited resources. You know you’re going to have very little help from anyone, if at all.
If you know you have a limited budget, then you know you are going to have limited locations.
You know you are going to have a limited number of actors and a limited number of props. This is going to limit the overall scope of your idea, which is a good thing. This will keep you from going overboard.
You need to keep your idea confined to a realm that you can handle. You need to essentially paint yourself into a very tiny corner and understand that this tiny corner is all that you have to work with.
Now, this may seem very limiting, but once you have eliminated so many possibilities from existence, you will find the task of thinking of an idea far less daunting.
You are narrowing the scope of your creative vision and focusing it like a laser beam on the limited possibilities that are left. This forces you to use your creative thought processes to come up with something truly spectacular.
Unlimited amounts of money and unlimited possibilities, for the most part, can actually hinder creativity for one simple reason: you don’t have to be as creative for your idea or your project to be interesting.
If a filmmaker can blow up thirty universes in the first ten minutes of their film, then, that’s pretty interesting. But how creative is the rest of the story going to be?
I’m not saying that I’ve never seen a big-budget movie that didn’t have a creative story, but what I am saying is that, far too often, I have seen big-budget movies where human nature has inevitably kicked in and someone took the path of least resistance. And the path of least resistance always leads to the one that is less creative.
Besides, you’re not going to be able to blow up thirty universes anyway, and that’s okay.
Why? Because limitations force a person to use unlimited amounts of creative thought to solve their problems and generate an idea that will make an interesting story.
Once you have freed yourself from all of the things that you don’t have, all you are left with is your creative potential, and believe me when I tell you, that is all you really need.
Exercise
You can increase your own creative potential with practice, or should I say, with exercise. When you exercise a muscle, you break it down, but then it builds itself back up, only stronger.
Creativity is like a muscle and it gets stronger the more you use it. The more you think and the more you create, the more your creativity rebuilds itself in terms of substance and complexity.
If you’re having trouble thinking of an idea, it may be because you haven’t thought of any in a while and your creative processes have atrophied.
The good news is that it is never too late to knock the dust off of this amazing machine and jump start it.
Your very first idea is the hardest one to come up with. But your next idea right after your millionth try is easy and that’s because you’ve done it a million times before.
Each time you create something, you’re stimulating the creative portion of the brain. Stimulate it enough and it gets stronger. But unlike the muscles in the body, there’s no limit to how strong your creativity can become.
It is truly unlimited. So, exercise it often. You’ll be glad you did.
What Do You Know?
It has been said that you should write what you know. I believe this to be true, but you should also write what you are interested in.
If you’re not interested in what you are writing about, nobody else will be either.
So, before you begin your idea, let’s limit the field even further and make our job even easier.
What genre of film interests you enough to want to write about it?
If you want to write a thriller, then you’ve just narrowed your focus even further. If you want to write a horror movie, then you’ve just eliminated even more ideas from your realm of possibilities.
We’re getting closer now.
Once you’ve established a genre, use your creative energy and try to think of something in terms of a high concept.
Now, high concept doesn’t have to mean big budget. It could mean interesting situations, or high stakes. For example, when I began thinking of ideas for my first feature film, I knew I had no money, and I thought to myself, “What would the lowest budget movie in the history of the world consist of?”
And what I came up with was a really long conversation between two people confined to one location. Well, that’s not exactly high concept, but that’s where creative thought comes into play. I just made one of those characters the devil, and things got a whole lot more interesting.
If you want an interesting situation, why don’t you just have each of the characters chained to their chairs. Why? I have no idea, but I’m sure you’ll think of something.
For high stakes, you could just put a bomb in the room.
High concept on a limited budget simply means, keep your idea big but keep the world that it inhabits small.
Now that you are limited, free, and focused, what’s next?
Quiet The World Around You So That Your Thoughts Can Be Loud
This has been said before, but I think it bears repeating, and that is, you should set aside some time to think about your idea. That is to say, ideas don’t just pop into your head upon waking and they don’t just hit you when you’re waiting in line at the drive-thru.
This might work for some, but for the most part, ideas are thought of consciously.
So, you should set aside some time during your day to think about your idea, and once you do, you should go into a room by yourself and sit in the dead of silence.
I realize that some people get inspired by watching TV or listening to music, but there is a lot to be said of sitting alone in a quiet room and listening to the most ingenious problem-solving tool that the world has ever known, which is of course, your creative thought processes.
Once you are there, make sure you have a pen and something to write on nearby. When the idea is fully developed in your mind, write it down.
I know some people like to type on a computer to save time but there is something about the physical act of writing and the creative processes of the mind that I can’t quite put my finger on, but all I know is, they’re important.
I write everything down. I make myself notes. I make revisions. I write all of my treatments and all of my scripts by hand and then I type them afterward.
I think fast and this forces me to write fast. I can write faster than I can type, so I guess that’s another reason for why I do it.
The only problem with that is that sometimes I can hardly read what I have written, so be careful. I can usually decipher what I have written after doing some detective work, though, and besides, it was worth it.
Never slow down once you get going. Work fast, maintain the flow, and just enjoy the ride.
If you do this and you have established a genre and you have kept your idea big, your world small, your characters interesting, and your stakes high, then you’ll be well on your way to that tiny corner where miracles happen.
