whats the best route to go if you can come up with unique original ideas, but have bad writing/too lazy to write?
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good ideas, but bad writing?
- Thread starter RealJasonBourne
- Start date
Find a writer looking to have their scripts produced.. or maybe get a "regular job" and give up your filmmaking dream because laziness will get you nowhere faster than procrastination. 
Find a writer looking to have their scripts produced.. or maybe get a "regular job" and give up your filmmaking dream because laziness will get you nowhere faster than procrastination.
lol, i consider laziness the matrix. i still need to wake up from it
well it's a choice you have to make. It's not something that happens TO you
Unfortunately gone are the days when people bought "Concepts" and "Ideas". You need to do the work and write the script yourself. Or give your ideas over to someone who can and agree on some kind of credit.
"Oh, I have this great idea for a movie!" is probably one of the most common things I've heard, from people across every imaginable profession. Some of the ideas are actually pretty good. None of them ever write them though.
Ideas are a dime a dozen, execution is what matters. If you want to be more than just another random guy with ideas you have to write, there's no way around it. And if you're a bad writer, you have to write - it's the only way you'll get better. Set aside an hour a day and spend it writing - not thinking about writing, or thinking about ideas to write, but actually writing. See if you can write 500 words, 1000 words, more - it doesn't even really matter what you're writing, just practice and build momentum.
"In the dim background of our mind we know meanwhile what we ought to be doing but somehow we cannot start. Every moment we expect the spell to break, for we know no reason why it should continue. But it does continue, pulse after pulse and we float with it." - William James
Stop floating. Start writing.
Ideas are a dime a dozen, execution is what matters. If you want to be more than just another random guy with ideas you have to write, there's no way around it. And if you're a bad writer, you have to write - it's the only way you'll get better. Set aside an hour a day and spend it writing - not thinking about writing, or thinking about ideas to write, but actually writing. See if you can write 500 words, 1000 words, more - it doesn't even really matter what you're writing, just practice and build momentum.
"In the dim background of our mind we know meanwhile what we ought to be doing but somehow we cannot start. Every moment we expect the spell to break, for we know no reason why it should continue. But it does continue, pulse after pulse and we float with it." - William James
Stop floating. Start writing.
Everyone has lots of great ideas - world-shaking ideas even - but few can make them work.
Laziness can be fought very easy - create a Word Document on your computer and write the title (if you already have one) and your name.
I can give you a similar example. A year ago I started going to gym. At first I had no laziness problems. But after 3-4 month it began. Too lazy, too tired, my dog ate my homework... (what?) You know how I used to fight it? I just WENT to gym. Too lazy, too tired... And guess what? I see other people workout, and the strength suddenly returns to me! And I begin workout too.
So the same is about writing. Just start it!
I can give you a similar example. A year ago I started going to gym. At first I had no laziness problems. But after 3-4 month it began. Too lazy, too tired, my dog ate my homework... (what?) You know how I used to fight it? I just WENT to gym. Too lazy, too tired... And guess what? I see other people workout, and the strength suddenly returns to me! And I begin workout too.
So the same is about writing. Just start it!
Fantastic, you guys should really be able to help him out then
http://www.indietalk.com/showthread.php?t=54648
Since they're a dime a dozen and everyone has lots of great ideas, you guys should be able to give him 6 fantastic movie ideas and some that shake the whole world
I don't think there are "world shaking" ideas. Ideas just sit in your head, and have no impact on the world until you act on them. The nature and extent of that action determine the degree to which they effect the world.
I'm not even too sure there's really inherently "great" ideas. For instance, having a small group of people struggle to survive against walking corpses bent on their destruction might have been considered a great idea when Romero first did it, but is it still a great idea if you decide to do it now after it's been done hundreds of times? Is it only a great idea if it hasn't been done before? And yet we have good, bad, and great zombie films that are all based on that same basic idea. What's the difference between the great ones and the rest? It's not the idea, it's the execution.
I'm not even too sure there's really inherently "great" ideas. For instance, having a small group of people struggle to survive against walking corpses bent on their destruction might have been considered a great idea when Romero first did it, but is it still a great idea if you decide to do it now after it's been done hundreds of times? Is it only a great idea if it hasn't been done before? And yet we have good, bad, and great zombie films that are all based on that same basic idea. What's the difference between the great ones and the rest? It's not the idea, it's the execution.
It's definitely both. And there are some great ideas, the fact that they keep getting redone is a good barometer of how great the idea actually is.
Also take a look at psycho and then the remake. The remake
Done.
I have lots of stories, but my problem is getting them onto film. Perhaps someone can help me start.
Ideas can't be copyrighted, so get you sh1t in gear and keep your mouth closed until it is.
Nah, seriously, not everyone can be a writer, so your choices are perhaps to give up or find some (sucker) scribe on mandy.com to write your ideas for you, offering them 50% of the pie when the script sells. I know I've seen such "deals"...
Nah, seriously, not everyone can be a writer, so your choices are perhaps to give up or find some (sucker) scribe on mandy.com to write your ideas for you, offering them 50% of the pie when the script sells. I know I've seen such "deals"...
So, in other words, the way we judge an idea is by the execution - not just in the singular, but also in the aggregate. Can we really say the idea is intrinsically great then? Or, more specifically, can we say an idea is great before we have one or more examples of it's execution to judge it by? What if the first execution is poor? What if the first ten executions are? Wouldn't we consider it a bad idea at that point (or at the very least, not 'great')? What then if the eleventh execution was amazing? Would it become a great idea then? Was it then a great idea all along, just poorly executed? Or was it just another idea, no better or worse than any other, waiting for the right execution?
More practically - if we can't judge whether an idea is great until we have one or more executions to base our judgement on, what use is the concept of a 'great' idea when we're just at the initial idea stage? How do we judge new ideas? Does it matter if the idea itself is great or not? Or is our ability to execute on any given idea the defining consideration in whether the idea has the potential to be great?
The best advice I can think of is that if you have what you think is a good idea for a movie, try to create a step outline for it.
If you don't know what that is, yet. There are different versions you can find in some basic screenwriting books..
Basically, it is outlining, very simply, the three acts of your story.
Have a sheet of paper with the list the different points of the three act movie structure. Try and fill in those major points.
Here is an example of a step outline worksheet:
Opening Image
Catalyst
Debate
Break into Two
Fun and Games
Midpoint
Bad Guys Close In
All is lost
Dark night of the Soul
Break into Three
Finale
Closing Image
Here is a link to an explanation of these points:
Like I said, there are different versions of this. But at the very least, if you have an idea, try and see if you can make an outline with just a sentence explaining what happens in your story at each of these points.
To echo what some others on here have mentioned. Craig Mazin and John August, two Hollywood screenwriters ,have a podcast on which they often mention that Hollywood is full of people that say, "I have a great idea, I just need somebody to write it." As if, (Mazin and August joke), the "just writing it" part is unimportant busywork or something annoying that needs to be gotten out of the way before it is a movie.
If you don't know what that is, yet. There are different versions you can find in some basic screenwriting books..
Basically, it is outlining, very simply, the three acts of your story.
Have a sheet of paper with the list the different points of the three act movie structure. Try and fill in those major points.
Here is an example of a step outline worksheet:
Opening Image
Catalyst
Debate
Break into Two
Fun and Games
Midpoint
Bad Guys Close In
All is lost
Dark night of the Soul
Break into Three
Finale
Closing Image
Here is a link to an explanation of these points:
Like I said, there are different versions of this. But at the very least, if you have an idea, try and see if you can make an outline with just a sentence explaining what happens in your story at each of these points.
To echo what some others on here have mentioned. Craig Mazin and John August, two Hollywood screenwriters ,have a podcast on which they often mention that Hollywood is full of people that say, "I have a great idea, I just need somebody to write it." As if, (Mazin and August joke), the "just writing it" part is unimportant busywork or something annoying that needs to be gotten out of the way before it is a movie.
An idea is great if you can pitch it to people in under 15 seconds and they give you money.
Just like NASA is said to get new designs for spaceships regularly.
Often very detailed except for on bigblock labelled: "this is where the warpdrive should be"
I have a few ideas as well (for scripts, not spaceships) and I like to think they are good.
But I know, that as long as they only exist in my head, they are not real.
Actually, when I was a student at artschool and someone would say "it's all in my head." most teachers would say: then it doesn't exist yet. Some would just say: "so you did nothing and try to talk your way out of it?"
The proof is in the eating of the pudding.
And yes, I sometimes see a movie with a good idea in it, but the execution just s#cks...
So I guess we can judge ideas on an intellectual, abstract level, even if the execution is bad. Or when it's all still a concept. Whether our judgement is sound and correct is another story...
