"We are such stuff..." - Idea
We have covered a lot of ground in the blogs this year, I say we, because to my great satisfaction, I see that the blog is being read on a fairly regular basis all over the world. I am deeply thankful fair followers.
The year has been an incredibly busy one for everyone. Some of the busyness has been welcome and some not. Add to that the world seems to be caught in ever spiraling turmoil. In the film community, what has already been a busy year will now become even busier as Awards Season intensifies with the Globes and the Oscars around the corner! Have you seen Parasite? More on that at another time.
In our personal lives, a season of festivities begins, and we are all abuzz with plans. Lucky for us, so long as we stay tuned to our inner self, no matter the circumstances, we can always steady ourselves. The inner self is where our creativity lives. And the creative impulse is a free and joyus one.
So far this year, we have considered everything from character and dialogue to originality and structure. In this edition I will dive into an essential…The Idea. Without one you cannot make magic. You have to have an idea that prompts you to begin day dreaming in terms of a possible screen story. And
IDEA is a hard thing to define. And an Idea never arrives full blown and strikes in multiple different ways. First, an Idea arrives as a germ. A germ, a tickle, triggered by a newspaper article, a suggestion from a friend, by an incident you see on the street or a conversation that comes up with family at Thanksgiving dinner. For our purposes as a writers we must differentiate. Ideas are not the bits and pieces of notes and observations that we collect that are rarely related to each other. As a writer you collect those like you do sea shells walking along a beach or autumn eaves on a walk in the forest. A piece of dialogue. A silent exchange of expressions between two people at a cafe that could suggest a scene. Those are go into our treasure chest to draw on later. If not for one project then for another. On the other hand, an Idea, comes from one of those germs, those triggers, but then, like a shard of light, it illuminates. It ignites and crystalizes into a full blown IDEA. The crystallization comes from the burn it generates in your brain that won’t subside, and like a slow flame, with a little fanning on our part, it becomes a fire alive with energy, that we tame and nurture and guide into a full fledged idea from which we write our story.
It is then and only then that a kind of obsession takes hold.
As I have said in earlier blogs…the creative state is one of discomfort. Dis-ease. Everything is always evolving all the time. That is in fact the joy of it. If you are not ok with living like that, it is best to not try to make a living in the arts. Truthfully I believe some people are born with a nature that trusts more easily in uncertainty than others. It does not make you a better person. Some might say it makes you a foolish person. All I can say is it makes you a person more inclined to thrive as an artist. That is if you have the gift, the talent and the tenacity to walk down the hard road. Often because you know no other way. Perhaps akin to a calling.
As you well know by now, screenwriting is different from any other form of creative writing simply because it must weave into and around a world of other people’s talents and technical disciplines. So the luxury of obsession that I mention above, and the process that ensues, may to the less experienced writer seem mysterious, vague and amorphous. With more experience and the more secure you are in your craft and process, the easier it becomes to move forward. Add to that your own unique imagination. The wonderful mysterious part of the process, the part that comes from your subconscious, and the rest is order amidst chaos. In other words…the creative process.
Here is an example of an idea that ignited in the brain of an experienced writer:
It was late at night when the writer opened a bathroom door without knocking, and caught an unintended disturbing glimpse of a very elderly naked relative brushing his teeth. Embarrassed he quickly closed the door. But the image burned in his imagination and triggered thoughts of his own on-coming age. Obsession took hold. He had himself as a possible character and the members of the family - that he fictionalized - who had all gathered to celebrate the 90th birthday of the relative, so he also had a situation from which to spin off. Bingo, the twig, the germ, caught fire. Being experienced, the writer had a firm grip on his craft and trusted his process and he wrote his first draft in six weeks.
Another example, this time of someone with much less experience who recently wrote and directed her first full length feature. A thriller about a young woman who has repressed a childhood trauma which she now gradually begins to piece together. I saw the film, UNINTENDED, and as I had been with the filmmaker Anja Murmann in a few writing classes some years ago I reached out and asked her about the genesis of her idea, Anja said, “I was on a turbulent flight from Toronto to New York and reflected on the meetings I had at the Toronto International Film festival. Certain comments stuck to me. A distributor telling me that right now, that was 2014, Thrillers were on the rise and so was horror. I knew horror wasn’t my thing. So while I was bouncing in my seat feeling super scared I thought what if a woman returns to her hometown because she has done something in the past that haunts her. I guess that was my initial seed of the idea of the script Unintended.”
UNINTENDED is a lovely film, visually gorgeous, with a story that keeps you engaged from beginning to end, unfolding with surprising grace and control specially for a first time writer/director. You can see the film which is streaming on many platforms at the moment.
🖥AppleTV (iTunes): http://bit.ly/UnintendedAppleTV
🖥Amazon: http://bit.ly/UnintendedAmazon
🖥Microsoft: http://bit.ly/UnintendedMicrosoft
🖥Spectrum: http://bit.ly/UnintendedSpectrum
🖥DirecTV: http://bit.ly/UnintendedDirecTV
So two examples of how an IDEA leads to a full length script and subsequent production. The first one actually morphed into a stage play.
So friends I will be taking break next month so you will hear from me again on January 17th when I will begin the New Year with the second level of my Deep Dig into Screenwriting, starting with Story.
For now I wish you all a very, very Happy Thanksgiving or, whatever other festival of thanks you may enjoy. The buoyancy of gratitude is a wonderful thing. And I hope December brings you a warm and joyous time shared with loved ones.
A most special thank YOU for reading my blog. Stay with me and please leave a Comment, good or bad, all are welcome. If you aren’t already subscribed, please take a moment to subscribe below..
See you next year!