Ideas Start to Come Readily, When You Let Them

My first movie short was about mercenaries out to find Darth Vader and kill him before he could destroy the whole world.

My second movie short was about a band of Pirates who set sail to find the fabled "Lost Guitar of Lazarre," a musical instrument that gives magical musical abilities to anyone who wields it.

I'm quite cognizant of the fact that with these 2 movie scripts I'm missing out on the other half of the children population.

So I'm working on a "princess" script -- a character that (I am told) is a staple of every little girl's playtime imagination (I have 3 young boys, so I wouldn't know).

My first iteration of this princess script ended up with only 4 characters -- something that won't play well at a birthday party... because most parties have at least 8 kids in attendance and my goal is to put everyone into the movie.

While trying to adapt the script for 8, I came up with another movie idea which I promptly scribed. It's a short movie about animals in a wildlife preserve that become mysteriously sick. The children portray the caretakers and veterinarians who care for them and solve the mystery. I'm going to dress the kids up in pith helmets, safari shirts and use the abundance of stuffed animals that have survived my 3 young boys as props.

It's a neat story, quite appealing to little girls, and a little nearer to my own heart in that one of my earlier screenplays is about a man-eating tiger in British colonial India. (I was an aspiring Hollywood screenwriter at one point).

Anyway, the point is, there's a seemingly endless resovouir of ideas and creativity inside each of us. I help kids tap into that pool through my movie shorts. They, in turn, help me tap into mine.

What fun.