Now What? - Pt.2 - Filter That

My last entry discussed the little epileptic flashes and daydreams that inspire my work (I reworked that post for clarity today, so if you last read it before this post's date you might want revisit it). Now let's take a look at what to do with those little picturesque seizures. Inspiration for a story or project of any kind can be good as gold, but only if you can turn it into something an audience can digest. If you refuse to turn it into something relatable, then any time you spend on it will be essentially masturbatory - it'll feel good, but you'll be alone with your pants around your ankles.

Here's a little lesson by example: The spark of inspiration for one of my live-action scripts came to me while I was in a pretty dark place. I was depressed and confused and drinking a lot and making all kinds of mistakes pretty much on a daily basis. That kind of intense emotional activity can be terrifically fertile grounds for creative ideas, but it comes with a catch. As soon as I started trying to turn that experience into entertainment I wanted people to see, I hit a wall: Unyielding depression is depressing, not entertaining. Everything I wrote at that time was about me, not my audience - and it wasn't pretty.

The bottom line: Regardless of what story you're telling, it's got to entertain. Titanic and Schindler's List and Toy Story 3 were depressing as hell, but they were still relevant entertainment. 10 years ago I lucked out with my Bad Metal project (as discussed in my last post) because the idea was instantly entertaining and easy to connect to, like I was creating bumper-cars for a 10 year old. But 2 years ago, while careening through life full of self-loathing and booze, the film idea I'd come up with was more like I was killing a hobo - nobody would want to watch it and they'd have a hard time looking me in the eye when I was done.