Need Ideas for Making a Short Film?? Try this.. (PART TWO)

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4)        Visual Stimuli- Anything happened the last time you looked at a photograph or a painting ?? Any idea crossed your mind? For eg. Look at this photograph. It was published in a newspaper. What moves you/intrigues you about it? Can you create a new backstory (everything that happened up to the moment this shot was taken? How did this person reach there? What happened after this photograph was taken?

 

5)        Forced Connection- As the name suggests, take two props or two characters or two locations exactly opposite to each other or having no obvious connection and then create a connection between them. For eg., pen and paper is an obvious connection but what about pen and money or paper and sunglasses? Or write a story about a chance encounter of an industrialist with a rag-picker, etc. 

6)        Shoebox- Next time, if you buy a nice pair of shoes or any other footwear, do not throw away the shoebox. Rather, just wrap the opening lid with the base by a cellotape and make a small horizontal cut at the top. What next? Well, jot down on a piece of paper whatever crap comes into your mind, put it inside this shoebox and forget about it. Next time, repeat the same process. After a few weeks, when you feel you have put enough material inside the box, open the lid and take out all the papers. Open and read all of them, try shuffling them or re-ordering them, you will get something to work with for your next film. 

7)        Brainstorming- This is a technique which is used in advertising. Try picking up a subject and list down a free association of thoughts and feelings that come to you. For eg., a wife getting ready for office is searching for her pen drive, which contains an important presentation, drives to office and gives the presentation. Now this scene has no conflict or problem. Keeping PCR (Problem-Complicate-Resolution) theory in mind, we have to create a problem first. We can start with a problem that she is unable to find her pen drive and time is running out for her. She finally gets her pendrive. She starts to drive (may be the tyre gets punctured and she takes a lift which leads her to even more troubles) OR she reaches office in time only to find that she carried a wrong pen drive. So, try to complicate a problem thereby providing a final resolution. 

8)        “What if”- Always ask yourself- “What would happen if this happens??” For eg., you get up one fine morning to find that you are inside a coffin, alive. Or what if you found out that the world will end in 24 hours, what would you do? Or what if you realize that you can read anyone’s mind? Most stories start this way. You will end up getting challenging situations leading to new twists. 

9)        Dreams- Make sure to keep a diary or a note book along your bedside to immediately write whatever you dreamt last night. It could be not so interesting but you will definitely get a starting point. 

10)     Mind Mapping- Write a key idea on the centre of a page. Then write     associated ideas in bubbles around that centre idea, with a line linking each one to your core idea. Then draw bubbles of associated ideas and so on until you create an information web on that page. 

These are some of the ways to generate ideas. Essentially screenwriting is divided into 3 parts:

1)        Pre-writing (65% of total writing)

2)        Actual writing (5% of total writing)

3)        Re-writing (30% of total writing)

The more you work on pre-writing, the better outcome you will get. Don’t just start writing your first draft. Pre-writing cannot be ignored.