Recycled: ideas for short films!

Here’s the complete list of my ideas for short films. With links to log lines and other details about the screenplays.

A brief polemic on Recycling for Filmmakers. Short film ideas are everywhere. Developing them takes time. Some filmmakers find script development tedious. Others struggle to come up with new ideas. If this part of the filmmaking craft is not your first love, why not follow in the footsteps of great writers from Shakespeare to Robert Rodriguez? Recycle. 

Reusing great story ideas can release your creativity to start making movies. Recycling film ideas gives us adaptations, sequels, prequels, franchise series, and remakes. These can be great art, great commercial successes, and great entertainment.

Recycled ideas from other movies also appear constantly in one-off original screenplays. Practically every shot in any Tarantino movie, for example, is an homage to something the director has seen in another movie. His encyclopedic knowledge of certain film genres, coupled with his own take, produces a goulash that’s pretty much his own thing.

Fast source of ideas for short films: My book of 26 short film screenplays is a set of ideas for short films in a variety of genres. Each idea is already realized as a script, storyboarded in a couple of cases, and licensed under Creative Commons. (More about why Creative Commons is awesome for independent, low budget filmmaking.)

“How can a screenplay also used by other people show off my unique vision?” you may ask.

If originality is important to you, your ideas will shine through the camerawork, cinematography, casting, acting, production design, post production, and other directorial choices you take with the material.

The benefits of making short films from these scripts are both artistic and practical. They are…

Save time. A day spent writing is a day spent not making movies or honing your craft. Life’s short. Grab a camera!

Compensate. If sharp dialogue or plot structure or affordable everyday setting are tough for you to come up with, then use shortcuts to make it happen. Use my book as a reference for ideas.

Explore. Once you’ve got a story to tell, start telling it your own way.

• Cast against type, and see how the story changes in the hands of your actors. Change the dialogue for these voices.
• Change the ending, add plot twists.
• Add or remove characters.
• Refocus the story through the perspective of a minor character. Or the villain.
• Move the time and place to a world of your own choosing.

It all starts when you get the book:

26 Short Screenplays for Independent Filmmakers (Amazon.com usually has the best deal). Enjoy!