SOMEBODY ELSE'S IDEA
Sometimes, when I'm brainstorming up something for, say, a spec pilot or maybe an original comic book proposal, I get something I call "somebody else's idea."
These are frustrating things because they don't always identify themselves as such immediately. Sometimes they come back because they don't want to be somebody else's idea.
It was Alan Moore who posited the concept of ideaspace. Essentially an answer to that annoying question creator's so often get, ideaspace is that place we all reach into and pull our ideas out of. Sometimes people reach in and all get a piece of the same idea at the same time. It explains volcano, asteroid, Capote, Alexander the Great or turn-of-the-century magician movies getting developed at the same time as other volcano, asteroid, Capote, Alexander the Great or turn-of-the-century magician movies. Mmm...zeitgeisty. Sometimes, I reach in and get somebody else's idea.
What is it? It's an idea I want to see executed...by someone else. It isn't necessarily that I don't have anything I can do with the idea, it's just that sometimes I know what I want to see or read and that comes up in my brainstorming process. I don't want to hammer it out. I don't want the idea to become any level of work or to preoccupy me with thoughts of structure, voice, what-have-you.
I've written in the past about the ability or inability of writers to sit back and simply enjoy something in the medium in which they work. I can do this. I can simply watch something and not dissect it (more with movies than with TV though). If it's really good or really bad, then I can't, but MOR entertainment, I can just shut down and absorb. There's an element of this at work here. Some ideas are, to me, middle of the road. Doesn't mean I can't enjoy them, but they don't drive me enough to want to make anything out of them. I still like the idea though.
So please, someone, go forth and create for me a single-camera sitcom about the British governor of a tropical island in the late 1800s. It should be smart funny. Like M*A*S*H or Black Adder. Also, I want a movie about building submarines. A heartwarming tale of a man and his Seawolf class attack sub. It doesn't really have to be a Seawolf.
Get to it.
These are frustrating things because they don't always identify themselves as such immediately. Sometimes they come back because they don't want to be somebody else's idea.It was Alan Moore who posited the concept of ideaspace. Essentially an answer to that annoying question creator's so often get, ideaspace is that place we all reach into and pull our ideas out of. Sometimes people reach in and all get a piece of the same idea at the same time. It explains volcano, asteroid, Capote, Alexander the Great or turn-of-the-century magician movies getting developed at the same time as other volcano, asteroid, Capote, Alexander the Great or turn-of-the-century magician movies. Mmm...zeitgeisty. Sometimes, I reach in and get somebody else's idea.
What is it? It's an idea I want to see executed...by someone else. It isn't necessarily that I don't have anything I can do with the idea, it's just that sometimes I know what I want to see or read and that comes up in my brainstorming process. I don't want to hammer it out. I don't want the idea to become any level of work or to preoccupy me with thoughts of structure, voice, what-have-you.
I've written in the past about the ability or inability of writers to sit back and simply enjoy something in the medium in which they work. I can do this. I can simply watch something and not dissect it (more with movies than with TV though). If it's really good or really bad, then I can't, but MOR entertainment, I can just shut down and absorb. There's an element of this at work here. Some ideas are, to me, middle of the road. Doesn't mean I can't enjoy them, but they don't drive me enough to want to make anything out of them. I still like the idea though.
So please, someone, go forth and create for me a single-camera sitcom about the British governor of a tropical island in the late 1800s. It should be smart funny. Like M*A*S*H or Black Adder. Also, I want a movie about building submarines. A heartwarming tale of a man and his Seawolf class attack sub. It doesn't really have to be a Seawolf.
Get to it.