ext. park. day.

JESSE, 21, red rose in hand, walks down along the main park path. He stops at the end and nervously adjusts his shirt.

Standing still, Jesse surveys the area whilst putting in his earphones. In the background behind him, a man is sitting on a bench reading a newspaper, and a girl is performing Pilates stretches.

Jesse licks the back of his hand. He smells it and pulls back immediately, appearing somewhat puzzled. He then pulls out chewing gum from his pocket and begins to chew on it. He looks behind him, quickly scanning the area, then turning back around.

Whilst Jesse chews on his gum, GRETA, 18, handbag at her side, appears at the end of the main path. She looks around for a few seconds before spotting Jesse. She approaches behind himslowly, as to not alert him.

As Greta approaches him, the man on the park bench folds and drops the newspaper at his side. He is wearing a black suit, sunglasses and a wireless Bluetooth headset.He puts a single finger to the headset and nods, pulling out a small wet rag from his back pocket.

The man then comes up behind Greta and grabs her, forcing the rag over her mouth. Jesse is oblivious to this, checking texts on his phone. Greta struggles and elbows the man in the stomach, winding him and releasing her.

Greta then pulls out a knife from her handbag, wielding it threateningly. Before she can use it however, the girl who was doing Pilates – who was watching the whole time – suddenly comes up behind Greta, pulling out a similar wet rag. She grabs Greta, and covers her mouth with the rag.

Greta struggles weakly, but then soon passes out, dropping her knife. The man then carries her body away from the scene, whilst the other girl picks up the remaining evidence.

Jesse removes his earplugs and places a call with his phone. He steps backwards and looks around, with Greta nowhere to be seen. Truly alone, he mournfully places his phone back into his pocket. He notices the Pilates girl, who is back to doing her exercises. Jesse offers her the rose. She slowly shakes her head in rejection.

THE END

How does one come up with an idea?

I know I always fluctuate in how I come up with ideas for short films or stories. Sometimes I’ll have just a singular image painted in my mind, and I’ll base a story around it. Or sometimes I’ll listen to a song and find a story to fit the tone.

It never just pops up. A good one at least. It’s so easy to spurt out gibberish like “A CAT DEVELOPS NEW MECHANICS OF SPACE-TIME TRAVEL” (that actually sounds pretty incredible – I’m copyrighting this).

Maybe what I’m trying to ask is, is there anyway to really create an original, amazing idea instantaneously without it being completely arbitrary?

Probably not. But I guess that’s why not everyone is a writer.

My idea for my 60 second film went through a couple of permutations. It started being developed around the imagery of a man’s close up, and then blood surprisingly splattered across his face. I then found that the film unfortunately might be hard to do, as it involved quite a lot of whip pans – which I still have no idea really how to do. Watching Wes Anderson films only gets you so far.

As a result, my new idea kind of morphed out of the old one, but instead its about what people turn a blind eye to in relationships. Literally and figuratively speaking, of course. That’s what it’s about to me though. I’m hoping it’ll translate to the screen, and not just look like a whole bunch of people grabbing each other while Jesse is turned away, oblivious in the foreground.

I don’t really know how that idea came about. Must’ve been inside a dream.

Maybe it was the Space-Time Cat.