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.