An Idea Worth Shooting

How Do You Come Up With A New Idea?

The obvious question, if we shelve our good ideas, what next? We need to come up with good stories to tell. Ideas worth shooting.

When first starting out, our films may ultimately be about honing our skills. But we need to make it about much more than that! What makes an idea worth shooting? Worth the monumental amount of time it takes to do a well done movie? In my opinion, two main things:

One, the idea is important to you. Two, it’s an idea that’s marketable. And when you’re starting out, number two is more important than number one.

If that sounds like heresy it’s not. And it’s not being a sell out.

If you want to find success in the entertainment industry, you’ve gotta pursue things that have an audience. As much as the artist in you may not like it, you’ve gotta be strategic. We’ll talk more on this in a second. First, let’s explore the 4 CRUCIAL checkpoints you should run any idea through:

1) Is it unique?
2) Do you have the budget?
3) Premise and Genre
4) Who is Your Audience?

1. Is Your Idea Unique?

Maybe you already have a great idea and you think it’s new and exciting. Guess what? It’s already been done.

Find any studio executive in Hollywood and start pitching your best ideas. You’ll be shocked at how many they’ve heard. But even though ideas have been pitched and done before, you can add your own unique twist. Ron Howard says successful story telling is about “combining something old with something new.”

I remember back when the original Avatar came out; it struck me as a retelling of The Last Samurai, a film by Edward Zwick. Does the similarity mean James Cameron copied Zwick?

No. But it’s a familiar story that’s been done before.

Avatar successfully combined something old with something new. And I’m sure The Last Samurai did the same. The Matrix is another incredible film that received a lot of awards.

The Matrix is a story about mankind making machines and the machines attempting to take over. But wait…speaking of James Cameron, didn’t he already do that story in 1984 with The Terminator?

So you get it. Just because it’s been done doesn’t mean you can’t do it again. You just have to put your own unique, creative spin on it. A more recent example, THE BATMAN starring Robert Pattinson. I never thought I’d want to see another Batman after Chris Nolan did such an amazing job with his.

But guess what? The new film has its own unique spin.

2. Do You Have The Budget?

Studios seem to have unlimited amounts of money to vaporize, so it doesn’t affect them like it does us. I mean, a prime camera lens used on a studio set costs more than all of my gear combined. With independent film we have micro budgets. But limitations are the parent of creativity.

Your job is to come up with an idea you can execute on with the resources you have available to you. Do you live in the country? Use that. Is your dad a mechanic with a shop full of tools? Awesome. Do you have a kid brother? A pet? Do not underestimate the production value of what you have access to.

3. Premise & Genre

Along with a unique idea and budget, you’ve gotta decide on premise and anchor your idea in a genre.

Premise

So what is premise? It’s what your film is about on a surface level. It’s what sells movie tickets. The basic premise of Jurassic Park could be:

A scientist discovers how to create real dinosaurs and builds an island amusement park that turns into a jurassic hunting ground.

Often as filmmakers our idea and our premise are one in the same. The idea is the premise, right? While other times an initial idea might be something we want to explore and we need a premise to do this.

For example, let’s say something that’s important to you is trusting those who are close to you. Even when it’s tough or doesn’t make sense. And let’s say for physical resources you have access to your home. And you have a cat. And that’s it.

What story could you tell that is entertaining, and an analogy of your idea?

A man trying to sleep before his first day at a new job must learn to trust his cat who continues to wake him up when someone tries to rob him.

See? Very basic, but it could definitely be entertaining.

Once you have an idea and a general premise, you must anchor it all in a genre.

Genre

We all get genre in a basic sense, right? Action, drama, thriller, comedy, etc. Deciding on the genre and premise for an idea will guide you in how you tell your story. Take the cat example: The idea could easily live in drama, action, horror or comedy.

And your decision on genre will affect how you tell the story.

Consider the premise for two well known films:

Film 1: A home is taken over by thieves during Christmas and a boy must figure out how to beat them single handedly.

Home Alone right?

And Home Alone is a comedy. We laugh through the entire movie.

Film 2: An office building is taken over by thieves during Christmas, and a lone cop must figure out how to beat them single handedly.

That’s Die Hard. A rated R action film. Totally different than Home Alone, but notice the premise of these two films is almost identical. Genre is what sets them apart. Genre dictates how the story goes.

If at the end of Home Alone the kid pulled out a 9mm and started blowing people away, the film would instantly flip from comedy to action. This would send the audience into confusion—not a good thing!

Even though it may seem obvious, you need to make sure you know the genre you want to execute in.

4. Audience

When we first start out as filmmakers we must choose commercially viable stories. Or let me say it this way: Audience-building stories. This advice could protect your career.

I’ve personally seen it happen:

A new, talented filmmaker will spend thousands of dollars on an idea that’s close to their heart but at the end of the day, nobody else really cares. It’s a harsh reality. But if that same filmmaker had spent the time and money on something commercially appealing, it could have changed things for them.

Spielberg said this about Jaws: “The amount of success the film enjoyed just gave me final cut, gave me the chance to tell my own stories.”

Notice what he said there?

“Gave me the chance to tell my own stories.”

Focus on stories that are either widely appealing, or have very strong support from a niche audience. Let’s say you’re a leader in the Boy Scouts, and you know that making a film about the Boy Scouts would have an instant audience for you. That’s a niche audience. Go for it.

And this is where genre also comes into play. A comedy could be watched by every kid in the Boy Scouts. A horror? Not so much.

TAKE ACTION

If you want to get a short film going to hone your craft and build an audience, decide on an idea that you can execute on right now—what entertaining story can you tell with the locations and things you have access to? Never take what you have for granted.

Jot down ideas for your film and run them through the checkpoints. Don’t just settle for the first thing that hits you. One of the most difficult things about story telling is forcing yourself to not be mentally lazy. Your initial thoughts and ideas could be perfect, but do the work and come up with a few more to make sure.

Then bounce the ideas off your friends. Think about films you love, and see if you can adapt them. Just like Die Hard and Home Alone. You might not have an office building, machine guns and police cars, but you might have a house and a kid brother.

I did this recently with our film Reckoning. We shot at free locations and used friends and family for actors. I was the only filmmaker on set…and the movie got done.