Development of Ideas

The first lesson where 'Fiction' was the topic of discussion found us learning about how to create completely unusual fictional ideas that work.

The Ideas Generator

Character | Locations | Problem/Goal | Obstacle

This chart helps to generate ideas when facing a difficulty trying to build the plot or story of your initial spark. For example, a Character could be a Railway Porter, who works at the Location of a Station, and if faced with the Goal of a promotion to become a Guard, but this Obstacle is his dyslexia is holding him back. The bold words are in order to the titles in the table.

This idea would then be written in the form of a 'pitch', where the ideas of character, location, problem/goal, and obstacle are put forward in a short but simple pitch. The template for the pitch is short and covers the key areas of the story.

• This is a short  (genre)  set at  (location)  about a  (short character description)  who because of  (obstacle)  can't  (achieve end goal).

An example of this pitch template using the Railway Porter would be like this:

• "This is a short drama set at a Railway Station about a Porter, who because of his dyslexia can't be promoted to Guard."

This method of generating ideas will help, not only in initial idea development, but also when pre-production is underway and when script writing is evolving. It will also help when explaining to cast and crew when/if they ask what the film is about, and the short description will be blunt but providing of the information for them when it comes to their role.

Links:
http://www.filmsite.org/genres.html