The idea

               Susan Sontag by Annie Liebovitz

Where do they bloody come from? I don't know.

There is a lot of pressure on making your graduate film project. But there's pressure on making any film because it's expensive and it involves a lot of other people. And it takes a long time so you need to find an idea that gives you energy and will drive you for at least a year, maybe many more. If things go well hopefully you'll be at film festivals with it, but this may happen 3 years after you first came up with the idea. 

But where do you start?

I think, as with any creative endeavour, you can start anywhere. I really love stories and characters. But I find it hard to make decisions sometimes. But let me guide you through the plan I made to find an idea. 

I committed to full time work as a cooking teacher in a juvenile prison for all of January. I would have to start school in late February and I wanted to have the semblance of an idea by then. The work I was doing was exhausting and when I came home at the end of the day I was brain dead. So mornings were my only option. I decided to get up at 6am, do yoga for 20 minutes, then sit down to write for 10-30 minutes. I committed to coming up with one idea each day. I started a stream of consciousness writing document and added on to it each day. And I did it - for 28 days I came up with 28 ideas, most of which were complete rubbish. But it started my mind turning. 

It took the pressure off the ideas being 'good,' and set the focus to just finding ideas. 

I highly recommend it. 

Next post I'll talk about the idea I fell for. It was after all a bit like dating...