Coming up with film ideas?

Rodney Petrie

Rodney Petrie

What method do you use for coming up with film ideas?

I have found that I can get film ideas from even the most mundane things. It can be a word I see, something I see, something someone says or they can just be random thoughts that occur to me while doing something or thinking of something else.

The challenge is actually coming up with ideas that can be turned into an interesting film. Many ideas that are thought may be good or pretty mediocre - however I still write out a synopsis regardless. I can always fine tune them later...or discard them completely if necessary!
 
I have a robot that has been programmed to come up with movie ideas. Unfortunately, 80% of the ideas involve Adam Sandler.

When that doesn't work, I like a good brainstorming session. Group of friends. Round table. Just toss ideas out, bounce them off each other. Even bad ideas have a way of morphing into good ones.
 
Hi Rodney!

One thing is to not shut down those seemingly-absurd ideas. Play with them a bit and see where they go.
The tendency for me was to automatically think "Nah, that's WAY too unbelievable." But I think we've all seen some fantastic movies who's original premise might have begin with an "out there" concept.

Something to try - and you've probably already heard about it - is the "What if" game.

One of my favorite examples is Brad Bird's original idea for the Iron Giant: "What if a gun had a soul?"
(I read that he opened his story pitch with "What if a gun decided it no longer wanted to be a gun?")

Oh... and one suggestion that I would always read but never try is this: WRITE. I'd really skip over that exercise but eventually I gave it a try. You'd be pretty surprised at what happens when you freewrite (don't even think much... just write/type whatever comes to mind). Set a time limit, though. Make it 10 or 15 minutes, etc. Once done, you'll go back and read what you've written and something might spring out at you.
 
I spent years in a band writing songs, and used this same method. I watch a lot of movies. Basically there is nothing that hasn't been done (as far as the core premise/theme of a film). I take an idea from here, and idea from there, add my own twists, and see where it goes. Yep, I said it, I rip off ideas from other filmmakers, combine them, mix them up, and do thm in my own style.
 
Cracker Funk said:
I have a robot that has been programmed to come up with movie ideas. Unfortunately, 80% of the ideas involve Adam Sandler.
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Ha, ha!! Uhm... I mean, oh that's terrible. :D Did you buy it on sale in the late 90s?

If the idea doesn't burrow under my skin and into my brain and drive me mad, then it's probably not THE idea.

I think Robert McGee said once (paraphrasing here) Film/screenwriting is about finding the art in the person not trying to put the person into the art.

Not all ideas are good ideas and not all good ideas are even worth filming. But try telling THAT to Adam Sandler, right?
 
Movie idea #4,367: Adam Sandler works in a cured meat processing factory, but has always dreamed of playing major league baseball. We'll call it "Grand Salami".

Gonzo_Entertainment said:
I spent years in a band writing songs, and used this same method. I watch a lot of movies. Basically there is nothing that hasn't been done (as far as the core premise/theme of a film). I take an idea from here, and idea from there, add my own twists, and see where it goes. Yep, I said it, I rip off ideas from other filmmakers, combine them, mix them up, and do thm in my own style.
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Dude, I'm with you all the way. Everybody rips off everybody.
 
It sounds kinda odd but, my ideas literally just come to me sometimes, whenever I'm doing something, schoolwork or playing guitar or piano or whatever I'm doing, an idea might just enter my head and I'll just toy around with that to create a premise.
 
I get bombarded with ideas constantly. Usually they're just fragments, maybe part of a scene or just an interesting idea.

Occasionally I'll get enough fragments that I can start to crystallize a story around them. I'm currently writing screenplays that include a journey to the edge of the solar system (physically and scientifically accurate sci-fi movie), a little girl alone in a world of giant spiders, a man who finds he can bring back items from his dreams into the real world, and my current project about something that happens to a cop during a homicide investigation (structured so I can film 98% of the movie with just one actor and one location).

My real problem is coming up with movie ideas that don't cost $60 million to make. Most of the imagery that hits me on a regular basis winds up being the expensive kind of imagery... and they just. don't. stop. A man in a lunar colony on the run from the mob escapes by going off to mine an asteroid and hits a motherlode of rare earth minerals, the world's first jump-drive enabled spaceship gets a robot captain at the last minute due to safety concerns and then they wind up halfway between galaxies instead of in the neighborhood of Jupiter, an expedition to mine a gas giant via ionized electromagnetic gas streams barely survives a supernova and then slingshots around a black hole to make up for their lack of fuel, a bunch of critters in a liquid world swim upwards as high as they can for the first time to see what's up there, a 50's housewife fights off an undead corpse in her kitchen (I swear this is the funniest scene I've envisioned that also manages to be frightening at the same time), a group of scientists find a 400-year-old buried NASA outpost on Jupiter's moon Europa that no one knew existed, a detective and his rookie partner investigate a hover-racer accident and find a cover-up of a massive trade in illegal performance enhancing drugs, a tribe survives by selling off the special metals they find on derelict spaceships that frequently crash on their planet and then one of the tribesman's sons reassembles a fairly intact crashed ship and launches into orbit by accident to find the remnants of a long-ago space battle that is the source of all the wreckage that hits their planet, two jesters adventure through a thoroughly corrupt set of kingdoms, and on and on and on...

So I have no trouble coming up with ideas. It's finished scripts I'm having to learn how to create. :)
 
Semiazas said:
Escher, with me it's the other way round, I can never finish a screenplay. Any tips for writing them :P
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I have trouble finishing them too! Ideas are easy, details are hard.

I don't usually start writing until I have both a beginning and an ending. As long as you know where your story has to eventually wind up, it gets a lot easier. Generally I'll have a beginning, and ending, and a few major plot points I want to hit.

The big huge #1 rule is: Just Keep Writing

This can be very difficult at times, but if you keep chipping away at it you'll be surprised how rapidly your screenplay starts to fill up. The reason I have multiple scripts in play is that if I get stuck on one script I can just rotate around to another one.

That being said, I've only ever finished three screenplays, and all those were in collaboration with a few other people. I hope to get some of these solo scripts done soon.
 
Guys you can derive ideas anyhow you want it!! You just got to be there at the right place at the right time for it to fall right thro your head than another person's!!

but the most efficient method of coming up of film ideas, is by taking out your mobile, open the contacts, see ever name, put it down on paper and start writing the five things that comes to your mind abt that person. Choose ten random guys and do this, you shall be able to make a connection between their traits, qualities, profession, family life etc etc...

Mix and match them up, you get yourself a story with three act structure!!
 
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