Pinky Miranda Productions

Writer’s block is always an issue. Here are some quick ways to get inspiration!

• When trying to name your main character, it’s hard to get that really great name that audiences will remember. I suggest using some sort of random name generator that comes up with first and last names based on gender. Flip through baby naming guides, family trees, anything you can get your hands on. Make sure that if you’re writing for a specific time in history that you research popular names- there probably wasn’t very many Brittanys in the medivel era.
• When trying to define your plot, you need to chose certain obstacles to put in your character’s way. Think of your own experiences, or even use a random plot points generator to help give you ideas.
• Flip through inspirational pictures or quotes that you can find on the internet.
• Listen to music.
• Draw from your own experiences

Remember, the process of screen writing is, for the most part, rewriting. Once you get through your rough draft, it’s all down hill from there.

~Rika

Since when has it been a natural law in the universe that all evildoers in the movies are bald?

Think back to the last movie you watched. For me, that happened to be Ironman, and in that movie there was not one, but TWO bald baddies.

Hollywood must have something against hair loss.

This is proof that no movie is unique, each is just a combination of several different ideas all mushed together and topped off with a Lex Luther or Dr. Evil.

So next time you go watch a movie, take note of the amount of hair on the character’s heads. If they have little to no hair, they’re either bad guys or good guys gone bad. (Like in Ironman with Obadiah Stane- he was bald, so we all knew he was going to turn against Tony Stark!)

-Rika

There are good movies, great movies, and movies that are just plain dumb. Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3 are unjustly placed in the wavering subcategory of ‘only O.K.’ and ‘boring’.

You guessed it. I’m raging my own personal war against the critics of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. I don’t comment on harsh articles about the trilogy, but you can be sure that I am silently sending thought-daggers to all those reviewers.

Now I am not some long devoted life or death kind of fan. I was dragged to the Pirates of the Caribbean 2, in fact, even though I didn’t see the first one.

Now here’s how I see it: it’s all what you compare the movies against. Pirates of the Caribbean 1 was incredible, a work of art. It easily created its own category of “Fantastic! Movies” (and trust me, a category with its own exclamation mark is pretty special). Then audiences rushed to Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and felt disappointed. Why? Because it wasn’t good as that ‘Fantastic!’ movie that they had walked into the theater remembering.

I walked out of that theater annoyed at the producers for a different reason- I’d have to wait a whole six months for the next movie.

The difference in reactions is simple; I had seen a lot of movies- all of which were worse than Pirates of the Caribbean 2. Compare it to the first one and it’s not so special, compare it to most of the movies out these days and you have a great second installment to the series.

I’d like to question all those critics out there who said that the second one was too confusing- after all, I watched the movie with no idea who these characters were and what was going on and I caught on pretty quickly. (All movies are pretty easy to figure out- just look for the bald bad guy and you’re good!)

The third one was under fire yet again because it was too complicated. What’s so complicated about a bunch of pirates going to save Jack Sparrow and then going to war? Sounds pretty easy to understand to me.

Yes, there was flaws in these movies. But it seems like Pirates of the Caribbean-bashing was about to come an official sport.

I bet half of those people calling Pirates of the Caribbean a failed series are as excited for the fourth as I am.

My advice to those critical critics? Appreciate a good movie when you see it. I know you’re getting paid (most of you) but would it hurt to be even a little positive?

-Rika

Ideas are like soap bubbles- look at them directly and they seem to pop under your gaze. And coming up with ideas for videos- well that’s a whole different metaphor. The point is, when you find an idea, don’t overkill it with a rush of thoughts. Let it simmer for awhile and then put it to use.

On the other side of the coin, sometimes ideas come best from constant attention to a glimmer. Although my recent idea, came when I was eating breakfast out of nowhere, my entry to the Heinz Youtube contest was discovered from hours of thinking and idea research.

Idea research is using inspirational quotes, photos, or any kind of media whatsoever to develop a thought. An example is a short film idea of using inanimate objects to tell a story, any story. So, to develop this idea, I went on Google Images and searched ’sock puppets’. I spent ten minutes flipping through pictures of them and decided that I didn’t want inanimate objects. Realizing that I had three kittens and two cats in my house- I tend to forget about everything when I’m doing my idea research- I grabbed my trusty video camera and started filmed every action of my twelve-day old kittens. That project is still in the making, but I have a feeling that it will turn out well. Even though sock puppets and kittens are completely different, somehow my subconscious mind linked them together. Or maybe it was the fact that my cat Rika jumped on my keyboard at that moment.

Idea research can occur during our daily lives too- we just need to be more alert for them to come to us, more meticulous on describing random details in our heads. Simply describing a yogurt bottle can lead to the conclusion that Yoplait’s Passion Fruit yogurt container is the worst container designed ever and that whoever created it should reexamine the design and come to another conclusion that the so called passion fruit looks like a mutilated limb.

All mutilated limbs and soap bubbles aside, this is simply my method of dealing with a form of ‘writer’s block’ that cripples ideas before they ever get the chance to change into something good. (Writer’s block isn’t just for writers, folks) Every piece of advice you gather for helping you get better ideas all boil back down to idea researching.

Next time you see that faint glimmer out of the corner of your eye, turn your head and let your mind wander. Chasing down ideas military-style will get you in the same place that the yogurt bottle designer ended up.

-Rika