For years Ive had half formed ideas flitting around in my head, vague dreams along the lines of ‘wouldn’t be cool if….’, ‘I’d love to make that….’ and ‘but what if I could…’. It was only this year that I made an effort to start writing down these half formed thoughts. So far its resulted in one script for a short skit and a rough outline for several other concepts.

When the task for this weeks classes was to write about how we form ideas and to write about some of ours I was excited, this is exactly what I’ve been trying to do! Ideas for me often come late at night, as Im sure is common with everyone, and often I’ve woken to a scribbled note that makes no sense in the light of day.

I have a few works in progress at the moment so I thought I’d take this opportunity to flesh out two ideas, which came about in very different ways.

The first, working title ‘The Curious Case of the Lemonade’, I started tossing about in my head after I heard a quote about creating suspense. I can no longer remember the author or the exact words, but the gist of it was you creating suspense by hiding information. This can take the form of hiding who the murderer is from the audience, or hiding information from the characters while letting the audience know. The example given was of showing the audience a bomb placed under a table which none of the characters are aware of, thus leaving the audience in suspense over whether they will discover it in time, or when it will go off. I immediately wanted to shoot this film, but of course had to pull myself away from the concept of the bomb. I started thinking, and I loved the concept of shooting a high-suspense sequence in a still, small space, such as around a table. The concept of a poisoned drink came to me, and I thought I could take the concept further by hiding exactly who poisoned the drink from the audience.

A medium close up shot of a large pub style jug of lemonade, sitting on a table. Condemnation runs down the side. Voices can be heard, but muffled, from the other side of a wall. They get louder as a door swings open, then are muffled again. Faint footsteps are heard coming closer and closer. The shot changes to show several small white pills drop into the jug and dissipate in the liquid. The footsteps retreat, the door opens and closes again.

This would be the opening shot, which sets up the premise of the short. So, the audience knows the lemonade is poisoned, but the characters don’t. Except the murderer of course, except the audience doesn’t know who that is, and therefor who knows about the poison. I thought the best setting for this would be around a poker table, allowing a bit of action to take place that could reveal more about the characters and give clues as to the identity of the murderer. I don’t even have a conclusion to this, or know who the murderer is, or why they even poisoned the lemonade, but I can’t leave this image of a lemonade jug sitting innocuously in the middle of the table, a host of victims sitting around it completely unaware.

My second idea has come out of a more personal frustration with a lack of a certain scene in media which I now feel a need to create. See, many crime serials have a ‘cold open’, before the title cards, where we see someone get murdered, then post-opening we see the main character detectives arrive at the scene. Well, most often these cold open victims are women, and for some reason always joggers, which really doesnt help motivate me to run in the mornings. Anyway, my frustration comes from the fact that every single one of these women are entirely helpless in the face of these (usually male) aggressors, and by helpless I mean they don’t even fight back, barring some useless hand flapping, or trying to run away then tripping on air, never mind the fact they were running fine just before. I’m not saying I want the girl to beat the guy into the ground (although wouldn’t that be a twist!), but the fact of the matter is I do martial arts with a lot of capable women, I have been to self defence courses with entirely women, and I feel like with how very aware women are of the risks they face every day, we could see at least one woman who is prepared enough to fight back! Most reality based self defence moves rely on counteracting, incapacitating, then running. Thats all I want to show.

I may format it as a parody, with two over the top detectives in aviators describing the ‘helpless, blonde, leggy runner’ being attacked, then being surprised at the lack of body before being told shed punched the guy in the nose then bolted. I’d love to create a longer version, portrayed more seriously, similar to an episode of Criminal Minds, when the cold open shows a woman taking care of one serial killer, then when the killings don’t stop its revealed they had a partner.

But here comes my stumbling block: I come up with these ideas, which I think are great! Amazing! Interesting! And I can see exactly how they should play out in my head. But I know that at this stage in my career I don’t have the skills to bring my vision to life, and so I do nothing with it. I think its time for me to let go of this mentality, after all, if I want something I’ve never had, I’m going to have to do something I’ve never done.