For the last two Saturdays I’ve had the special privilege of working with the newly formed Studio Startups, a group of aspiring teen filmmakers who have moved into the “serious stuff” of making proper films. Over the last two weeks, we’ve been working/playing (it can’t get too serious, it is meant to be fun) at developing firstly a genius premise and latterly, a top notch short screenplay to go into production as their first independent venture. Great stuff, because if there’s anything I love it’s a really good story.
I thought I’d share some of the things that cropped up during that process up here, in the hope that maybe some of those young writers/producers might just be reading this and might find it at least a little bit useful.
First off, and it sounds so obvious, that it’s almost like a trick question: remember to write. Sometimes the best ideas can come from not trying at all, so once a day, or even once a week, sit down with a stopwatch and just write – about anything! Keep going, set yourself a time, and make yourself write. You’ll be amazed at the ideas you’ll come up with. When we did this activity as a group, we had some fantastically insane and impossibly brilliant ideas spill out from this process; the trials and tribulations cats face when attempting to shop in the supermarket; the presence of yellow to the colourblind; the mystery of humans without faces; persistent, annoying and unidentified “thump… thump… THUMP”s.
All ideas that I’m quite tempted to steal, in the space of just 5 minutes. It’s amazing what happens when you actually write.
