Script Ideas – Tip #2

Tip #2 – Find an idea that is vibrating with originality.

You’ve heard it said that any idea you come up with has already been thought of and done.  That’s true.  But, you can take any idea – even one that has been worked to death,  and put a spin on it to change it into something original and interesting.  Something the same, but different and exciting.

While I’m on the subject of ‘same but different’ I’d like to make a suggestion.  The people who will be buying your script are not interested in producing a film that is totally off-the-wall and different from the usual Hollywood fare – especially if it is written by an unknown screenwriter.  Those kinds of films are only accepted and produced if you are well-known, like Woody Allen.  It’s too much of a risk for failure and money loss.

Sticking with a screenplay that touches on subjects people are familiar with are much easier to sell.  But, you need to take those well-worn ideas and put an original spin on them.  And I mean a nice, big, interesting spin – not just little tweaks here and there.

Spend time bouncing your idea on its head, turning it inside out, twisting it around to make it more interesting.  Ask yourself questions about your idea:

• What can I do to make this better?
• Is this like another movie I saw?
• Is there something here we’ve never seen?
• Why will anyone care about this story?
• Is this something people will be busting to tell their friends?
• Will it force a strong emotional reaction?
• Have I seen it before?
• How have I turned the genre on its head?
• What can I do to make it cooler?
• Am I just rehashing somebody else’s movie?
• Is there a piece of my soul here?
• How can I take this idea and explode it into something amazing?
• What parts are going to make my screenplay sell?
• Do I have explosions, or steamy romance, or some other exciting action that can be shown in the movie trailer?

Ask yourself which ground-breaking scenes you remember from movies – and then create some that work strongly for your story.  Following are some examples of those kinds of scenes…

• The food fight in Animal House.
• When Bambi’s mother dies.
• In Pulp Fiction, when Samuel Jackson recites the Bible verses and then kills the drug dealers.
• In Lawrence of Arabia, when Lawrence has to kill Gasim, the mane he saved in the desert.
• In Crash, when the cop rescues the woman, he’d molested earlier, from a burning car.

You get the idea.

Just think of movies you’ve watched and the scenes that have really stuck in your head.  Then, ask yourself, why are those scenes so memorable?  What emotional cords do they pluck for me and why?  Once you have the answers to those questions you can go on to create some ground-breaking scenes for your own script.  Scenes which will stick in the minds and hearts of the script readers and get your screenplay sold.

Yesterday, during a lull at my job, I went surfing for a list of ‘best movies’ and came across of 101 movies which the Writer’s Guild West had compiled.  Most of those movies I’d seen at some point in my life but as a ‘watcher’, not as a movie analyzer.

So, I went through the whole list and added them to my Netflix que.  I intend to watch them all in my spare time, but this time with an eye for analyzing what makes them so great that they made the 101 Best Movies list.

Here’s that list for anyone who is interested…

I actually downloaded the script for Casablanca yesterday, read it at work, and then watched the movie last night – it was a free, ‘watch now’ movie on Netflix.  God, I love instant gratification!

Embarrassingly, I’ve never watched Casablanca and thought, “What can a 1942 black and white move show me?”  But, looking at it with a screenwriter’s eye, I was amazed at the filming techniques and the intricasies of the script writing.  The dialogue was written differently than it is today – much less slang, but all of the script writing rules used today were present in that film.  And, the romance was palpable and exciting.

Casablanca was definitely worth the watch and I’m looking forward to going through the rest of the list at my leisure.

God, I love watching movies and living in a fantasy world when I’m working on a screenplay!

Script Girrl