What is your process for keeping and discarding ideas?
If my aim is to think of an idea to fit a specific project my process is different from when I have project ideas.
When fitting a specification I try to think about the audience, genre and distribution of the eventual project. I try to choose an experience or story I think the audience will relate to and that will fit the scope. I draw on all of the experiences my friends have told me about and that I overhear.
The ideas that come naturally to me are always when I’m doing something else, sometimes another media project but often while doing one of my other more physical jobs and always when I’m trying to sleep!
I wonder sometimes if all insomniacs have great ideas just before they fall asleep, after a while of trying to sleep and accidentally waking myself up to write the best ones down, I started recording myself when I tried to sleep. It helped me to sleep but I found that the whole next day then needed to be spent listening through them all!
Aronson’s suggestion of the screen model is a helpful one. Whenever I have an idea I decide which pre existing standard fits best. When I was first given the task of a 15 min short I realised I couldn’t use my pre existing idea, so I thought about what mattered most to me at that moment and it was a journey through mental health. I’d been spending a lot of time in nature and found it to help my mental health, so this created my premise. In the first two weeks we studied video games and I started thinking that a video game would be a good vehicle to be able to elaborate on the mental health aspect, allowing the viewer to fight their own demons would give me more room to elaborate on character and story within the allocated time.
Last week however, a new idea popped into my head whilst I was doing an online pediatric first aid course. I feel that the new concept would fit better to the brief and would help me practice my dialogue more, which I have always felt was my weak point and one of the reasons I wanted to do this course in the first place. In addition I believe I will be more able to listen to criticism on characters that I have not got to know properly yet.
I like to pay homage to different shows that I love and add pop culture references in my writing style. My projects are always quite self aware and self deprecating much like myself!
I often draw on different aspects of people I’ve met or close friends to form well rounded realistic characters who make decisions the way those people would. I tend to write about places I know well or have been to as it makes it easier to imagine. If I wanted to write about something I hadn’t experienced I would definitely do a lot of research and try to experience it in some way to have a more thorough understanding.
My new concept still involves a teacher saving a child but in a different context completely:
Teachers
A school teacher finds an unconscious child on her way to work in the morning. As she performs CPR whilst waiting for the ambulance, a group of nosy neighbours start congregating, all wanting to have their say but no help to Kath who continues struggling to keep the girl alive.
The world has gone mad, no-one agrees anymore and in the midst of a pandemic and leaving the E.U everyone has something to say. Kath has her first day back at school, teaching primary and is nervous but calmly gets her bag together and heads out to work.
As she heads out of the built up estate block where she lives, she spots a small child lying face down in the middle of the path. It’s early and no-one else is out yet so she calls for an ambulance straight away while running over to check on her. Kath explains to the ambulance that she has her first aid training but it’s been a while and tells them to hurry.
The other neighbours are starting to wake up and Kath spots a man walking his dog, so she calls out to him for help. The man siddles up and looks down at Kath frantically trying to keep the girl alive. He tells Kath to calm down and start giving very unhelpful advice. A woman walks past and disagrees with the man’s advice.
Fifteen minutes feels like an eternity to Kath who is still trying to keep the girl alive, now with five onlookers, all being equally helpful. Two are arguing about whether all this is the government’s fault, one is reading an article aloud about Madeleine McCanne and a mother is explaining to her son why a teacher really isn’t as good as a nurse.
Twenty minutes in and Kath is exhausted, half the estate is out there now all squabbling about the state of affairs and trying to detect how all this could have happened. The ambulance finally arrives and takes over from Kath, they rush her into the ambulance as Kath fills them in on what she knows. They thank Kath quickly and hurry off leaving Kath a nervous wreck on the street.
The neighbours, realising the spectacle is over, all slowly start to disperse. Leaving Kath standing there, as one neighbour walks by they remind her that she has a job to go to and she shakes herself out of the shock and tries to find her phone to let work know what happened. “Teachers” the neighbour mutters.
