I was just reading jharts "good pot made this movie" post, and there were minor replys about how people think of their ideas, so I thought it would be a cool topic to start. So how do you guys think up your ideas?

just from being around people I get ideas.

I pull most of my ideas off of real life situations, then I twist them ever so slightly so the people from real life can't quite make the connection between my characters and the horrible, quirky, or downright unusual people on screen.

When I'm working with a group of people we usually start by picking a genre, deciding on a mood or feel, and then throwing the ball back and forth between us. I'll say, "Oh, what if this..." and someone else will say, "Oh, totally! And like, then, like, whoa!" and then I'll throw the ball to the only girl in our group and she'll talk and we'll take the ball away from her and not pass to her again until we have a fleshed out outline.

Maybe this is why I'll never get married.

I get my ideas from anything, I guess. Anywhere, anytime, I'll suddenly say 'wow - this would make an awesome scene!'

It's not generally related to where I am, or what I'm doing, as much as an image I saw. A single moment will have an impression on me, and I'll instantly imagine a scene to go with it, and gradually I build stories out of these moments and images. I'm still trying to figure out how to get a long narrative story this way.

I like to pace around the house with loud music blaring on the stereo(usually The Doors or Iron Maiden), and that's how the ideas come. And then I plan out the scenes one by one in my head. Sometimes after a cool scene enters my head I flesh it out by sittin down with some GI Joe or ninja turtle action figures and usin my eyeballs as camera 1 and camera 2.

Music. My dialogue comes from other movies. Well not ripped totally. But the same style is there. I'm starting to use personal experience and dialogue I hear in every day life into scripts.

I can't sit and just "think up" ideas, they just come to me in random places and situations. However, I will say that most of the time my ideas come to me when I'm listening to some music.

I write scripts around the costumes I want to wear.

Unfamiliar situations trigger the most interesting, different ideas...

Traveling is one of my favorites. Not that I get an idea from the things I see when I travel, necessarily. But I've written a whole bunch of stuff just sitting on a plane, regardless of where I was going.
But it doesn't even have to be a plane. I drive, most of the time, but whenever I have to take a bus or subway, I also get inspired, though in those situations it's more the actual people or dialogue I come across.

And for music writing... I'd have to go with the shower. That, and stealing a lot, in the better sense. Which is listening to a certain artist's work and thinking "I wonder if I can make my music sound like it was written/played/etc. by this guy". Even when it doesn't really ressemble the other person's work, I end up with something that's genuinely mine, and a new direction in music that I can now follow.

E.

p.s.: going over my post, let me clarify: no, showering is NOT an unfamiliar situation. It was a different paragraph to begin with!

Usually when I see a cool location I base a story around it.

I'm psychotic. Thats how I think up my ideas. I watch some stuff, like El Santo movies, lots of grind house horror, b movies, and kung fu, lots of Troma, lots of Orson Welles and Hitchcock, some pot, and then I conjure up the most psychotic ideas. Kung Fu Christ vs. El Grande Luchadore in a New Jersey waste land. Kai-Zen: The Korean Mariachi. I was a Teenage Zombie. They're a bunch of splatter/comedy/horror/bull**** that I've written.

I've also written dramas and a romantic comedy, but I don't feel like I'm being pretentious when I write movies that are completely insane b-movies. I try too hard to write drama and romantic comedies. Writing absolutely psychotic storylines featuring a korean mariachi, some mexican wrestlers, jokes about Bill Cosby, and a giant kaiju style battle are what come naturally to me.

I honestly cannot listen to music and concentrate at the same time. So I never listen to music while trying to develop an idea for a script. Usually I wait untill 1 or 2 in the morning and pace quickly all throughout my house talking to myself and gesturing mildly. Its surprising how often I come up with creative/original ideas this way. (Hopefully you all will be seeing some of my work soon...)

Lately I've been closing the store I work at, so I'm on my way home at 1 in the morning. suddenly, out of boredom and trying to stay awake, I start talking out whole movies with myself, or an idea will just suddenly pop in from nowhere. Its actually real cool

I do it the Hollywood way and don't think at all.

ideas to me are like the bulb of a plant. There is something in my life that I am fixed upon. And slowly it grows through my experiences filtered through this idea. It is incredibly important i think for any filmmaker to be observant. Also finding moments/interactions that juxtapose a certain idea. One's that while seemingly unconnected share a similar motive underneath. These ideas of course are something that is practically impossible to express in short films being that TIME is needed to allow certain ideas to digest in the audience so a particular frame of mind is achieved. And so the moments in your life that affect YOU and have since been molded into a whole can be transmitted to those watching the film. Again I feel that short films are about a single Idea rather than feature length or Long shorts (30-45min) which can deal with the juxtaposition of many ideas resulting in a much richer experience and train of thought.

My ideas come at completely random moments. I find that when I try to do something it doesnt come out right. But when you randomly write something down, something brilliant always comes out of the paper.

quote:

Kung Fu Christ vs. El Grande Luchadore in a New Jersey waste land.

Please shoot this. I have a treatment in the works involving a cannibal re-interpretation of Jesus in the Amazon.

Where do I get my ideas? I operate a dozen or so sweatshops on the Pacific Rim and in sub-Saharan Africa, where children orphaned by disease and famine have ideas sucked from their brains in exchange for five grains of rice

I get my ideas from watching other people's films and music.

Most of the time I listen to music I think would be cool in a movie. Then I imagine the scene that would go with it. Then I make my movie around that perticular shot, I also take parts from movies I liked or real life situations, and then I put my own spin on it. My movies take a long time to make though, I always have ideas for long elaborate Visual fx shots.... and then I pass the days thinking of how to do it.

A) Listening to music... the lyrics aswell as the music itself

and

B) Making myself step back when I am out (in the city, at uni etc) and watch people and there actions. Sometimes a person crossing the road would give me an idea, stuff like that

and finally

C) Not concertrating on anything at all, letting my mind wonder and thinking of all the creative stuff that comes in.... usually the first idea is bogus bu then that springs another idea and then that one another and etc and etc and then viola... idea!

I allow ideas to come to me naturally. It's rare that I sit down and consciously try to think of ideas.