Short Film Ideas

[*Y*]

Hey Guys, I have to do a short film and I can't think of anything in terms of the story. Can you please help me? Maybe throw some ideas out in to the atmoshpere. It can be about anything. Thanks!

[Kingsly]

Okay, so this guy has to do a short film for school and cant think about what to write. He:
1) falls asleep at the typewriter/MBP and dreams about wacky things such as saving a complete stranger from ninjas or something.
B) his annoying friend comes over and bothers him, they go party/etc. and he has a crazy wacky night fighting ninjas or something.
He wakes up/goes home and writes the script about it, turns it in and gets an A.
Good luck, I hate writing on a deadline (which is why I have a secret stash of previously written scripts for such a situation!)

[puckhead193]

A short film on how to do a short film......

[*Y*]

Hey I am actually looking to do something serious this time.

[Peyton]

OK, this might sound stupid, but done right it would be amazing.

Have a family. The mother exemplifies every 'yo mama' joke you've ever heard.
The sister exemplifies every 'blonde' joke you've ever heard. Etc with the dad. The movie is shot from the perspective of the son/brother, who has to encounter/put up with the public telling him these jokes (but they are actually true) 'Yo mama so fat she goes to a resturant, looks at the menu and says "okay!"' and that actually happens. So not only is he hearing these jokes (pick the funniest you can find) he is also actually living with these characters.

The dad can be 'yo daddy so dumb' or whatever you can find that would fit.

It doesn't have to be done in a mean way either, maybe have a moral in there that the son still loves them just as they are, I don't know, but it seriously would be pretty amazing.

You heard it here first
I get royalties. And a trip to the sundance film festival...

[fusionstudios]

OK, here it goes...

Shots of a quiet town. Everyone is going about their boring, mudane daily schedules.

Shot of a man dressed in all black sneaking around an alley. He approaches a lever and pulls it down.

The entire town goes black and white. People are shocked, confused, and panicked. The town floods out of their homes, offices, etc. and fonto the streets in search of the cause of the B&W color change.

One man finally wanders down the alley and finds the lever. He turns it back on and everything goes back to normal. Everyone celebrates. The man raises his arms in triumph and walks away.

The "man in black" sneaks out into the alley again, turns the lever off, rips it off the wall, and takes it with him. The scene changes to black and white. Celebrating people look confused, look to the sky, fade out.

Hmmm... maybe it's a little cheesy, but with a sick music track in the background (starts out slow and minor, gets more and more intense, when the color comes back on it reaches a climax and modulates into a major key, and suddenly goes back to the mood in the beggining when the color is turned back off) it might turn out pretty cool. If you find or write a good song to fit the film, I don't think you'd need any other audio. I'm all about short films with hidden underlying messages, and I think this one would fit the bill.

Hope this helps!

[ChrisA]

Originally Posted by Peyton

Have a family. The mother exemplifies every 'yo mama' joke you've ever heard. The sister exemplifies every 'blonde' joke you've ever heard. Etc

No, not a family. What if the __entire world__ really was like those stereotyp jokes. Every one of us belongs to _some_ group The film starts out "normal" with not much happening and then little by little one joke after another untill non-stop continous stereotype joke to the point where it becomes "normal"

But gosh the special effects budget. How to film 1001 Polish people changing a light bulb by rotating the house? to say nothing of the elephans in the cherry trees with red painted toe nails -- to expensive

[hayelz127]

hey i was wondering if i could use that idea fro a short film festival, i would modify it a bit but please? it is so clever!

[iAppleseed]

Do a Music Video!

Originally Posted by puckhead193

A short film on how to do a short film......

Oh that? There was a full featured film about that, and it's called Inception

[MrBlueGlance]

Originally Posted by Kingsly

Okay, so this guy has to do a short film for school and cant think about what to write. He:
1) falls asleep at the typewriter/MBP and dreams about wacky things such as saving a complete stranger from ninjas or something.
B) his annoying friend comes over and bothers him, they go party/etc. and he has a crazy wacky night fighting ninjas or something.
He wakes up/goes home and writes the script about it, turns it in and gets an A.
Good luck, I hate writing on a deadline (which is why I have a secret stash of previously written scripts for such a situation!)

I just stumbled on this forum cuz I myself am making a short film and am having a little bit of writers block or so to speak but great ideas!

[ChrisA]

Originally Posted by *Y*

Hey Guys, I have to do a short film and I can't think of anything in terms of the story. Can you please help me? Maybe throw some ideas out in to the atmoshpere. It can be about anything. Thanks!

Here is what I'm working on. (very slowly with no due date) See boom for how to adapt this for your use

Little girl goes with parents to one of the tourist submarine rides in Hawaii and is looking out the porthole at all the pretty reef animals. She imagines herself being outside swimming 80 feet under water. We see her see herself swimming (with no equipment) and then see
what she sees as she's swimming and then maybe she is/becomes one of those reef animals. and then one of those reef amimals looks inside the submarine porthole and wonders what it would be like to be a little girl inside a submarine. OK you can guess the cycle continues endlessly and we never know if the film is about a fish or a girl.

Problem: You will need an underwater housing and conciderable experiance with underwater videiography to do this short film. That plus more skill then I have with compositing

Technical hint. Some types of fish like to look through the flat plate lens port on the housing (as if they'd never seen a Sony Mini DV cam before) but really they are seeing their own reflection and are teratorial. THey are staring at "that other fish" It looks just like they are looking through a window and "thinking". They will do the same to your dive mask, come 3 inches close and stare at you

Adapt the above to any two people. It's just the old "Prince and the Pauper" story except they only _imagine_ swapping places and I think it's better if you never knwo which is real and which is not.

[johnelwayfan7]

I need 2 make a movie that has to be about 5 min. long and it can't have people in it, any suggestions???

[shecky]

maybe you should learn how to be creative yourself, instead of asking others to do the thinking for you.

[MetalFace]

the first rule of short films is you do not speak about short films.

[NickD]

A guy goes on an epic (Monty Python-esque) quest to find inspiration for his new short.

[diamond3]

Originally Posted by johnelwayfan7

I need 2 make a movie that has to be about 5 min. long and it can't have people in it, any suggestions???

Make the people be cars with your voice in the background. It would be funny, but you might not get an A. Maybe you could do a documentary on how flowers bloom. Instead of using timelapse, just shoot the footage for 5 minutes as it blooms. I have no idea what to do there without people. Can you include a dog or something else?

[Lorryshow]

hi guys im Lor and i am also after some ideas for a short film i need to do for school im want it to be a serious action film thats stirs emotoins kinda i just need a few starting tips 4 a theme !

[kalisphoenix]

Originally Posted by Lorryshow

hi guys im Lor and i am also after some ideas for a short film i need to do for school im want it to be a serious action film thats stirs emotoins kinda i just need a few starting tips 4 a theme !

Imagine a society where people who have committed a crime have to "work it off," no matter how serious the crime -- for instance, if you commit murder, you get sentenced to forty years of "unpaid labor" (much like if you had an immense credit card debt, so immense that your entire monthly salary went to the interest payment). Of course, since prisons are commercially run in order to maximize efficiency and minimize taxpayer burden, there is an economic incentive to find people guilty of murder, even in cases where no murder actually occurred. Police, for instance, might be funded with dividends from the convicts' production.

Your hero, one of these police officers, is on trial for the murder of a child -- but he saw her walk by only seconds into the film, very much alive, and is chasing after her, frantically trying to get proof that she is still alive. But who is keeping this girl hidden, and why?

That's probably overkill for a "short film," though.

[m3gau]

Originally Posted by Lorryshow

hi guys im Lor and i am also after some ideas for a short film i need to do for school im want it to be a serious action film thats stirs emotoins kinda i just need a few starting tips 4 a theme !

Seriously whats the point in making films if you can't be creative! (just thought i'd point that out)

If you looking for themes take something really serious like bullying or Aids or crime and do a short story about it. Bullying or AIDs or something would be very emotional if done right.
(i'd like to point out i'm only giving ideas out cos i have too many and not enough time to make them all and i refuse to be specific)

[Lorryshow]

thats a realli good idea !! , it should be a a movie !! i would pay to see a movie like that !!

[kalisphoenix]

Originally Posted by Lorryshow

thats a realli good idea !! , it should be a a movie !! i would pay to see a movie like that !!

Thanks Now make people pay you to see it, and buy me an 8GB iPhone if you get rich 8)

[RappyaMurray]

Short Films are great because you can make a film using the simplest of ideas ...

If you want check out this little film my friends and I put together extremely quickly with a very simple idea of a boy being chased by a couple masked men http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJuMvVUh3LQ

please comment and tell me what you think constructive criticism is appreciated.

[RappyaMurray]

Short Films are great because you can make a film using the simplest of ideas ...

If you want, check out this little film my friends and I put together extremely quickly with a very simple idea of a boy being chased by a couple masked men http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJuMvVUh3LQ

please comment and tell me what you think constructive criticism is appreciated.

[Spizzo]

Originally Posted by RappyaMurray

Short Films are great because you can make a film using the simplest of ideas ...

If you want, check out this little film my friends and I put together extremely quickly with a very simple idea of a boy being chased by a couple masked men http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJuMvVUh3LQ

please comment and tell me what you think constructive criticism is appreciated.

A tripod would help with that camera shake.

[m3gau]

Originally Posted by RappyaMurray

please comment and tell me what you think constructive criticism is appreciated.

Cool. I made a similar film once. The only thing i'd say was you should have kept the chasers more scary and dramatic (all the jumping over rocks and walls was cool but it didn't work with the atmosphere) like you could have just shown a pair of feet running with out showing too much body. Makes them spookier as you have no idea as to who they are.