When inspiration hits
Tom asked a question here:
“Do you remember when and where an idea hit you for one of your scripts?”
I went through my list and was able to pull up these original ideas and their source:
K-9: Steve Siegel, my first writing partner, owned a business in Ventura, CA. A local policeman there lost his K-9 partner, Sonny, in the line of duty when the dog was shot and killed trying to stop a burglary. We met with the cop, this big strapping guy, who shared stories with us. Then he pulled out some photos of Sonny — and started to cry. Turns out, he was so broken up about losing his partner, he left police work and became a fireman. Both Steve and I thought a cop and a dog partner was a great idea for a movie. That’s where the story started.
Mr. President: Steve and I took a meeting with Rodney Dangerfield’s ‘people,’ this on the heels of the hugely successful comedy Back To School. Of course, Dangerfield’s comic schtick was that he got “no respect.” As we walked out of the meeting and got into the elevator, I said, “What job would a guy who gets no respect most want? President of the United States.” By the time we got to our agent’s office, we had the logline down: “Rodney Dangerfield. Mr. President.” We sold that pitch to Warner Bros. on the basis of one meeting and a 1-page treatment.
The Adventures of Radman: When I started writing with Andy Burg, we used to generate ideas all the time and keep them in a master list. I believe Andy came up with the one-liner “son of a superhero.” Our take on it: As a slacker 14 year-old skateboarding dude starts to go headlong into puberty, his superpowers emerge and he discovers he’s the son of a superhero. Outlaw Productions optioned that script. We got a lot of buzz on it and it led to a bunch of writing assignments.
The Quiet Room: I read an article in Rolling Stone about how parents would drive their young teens to rock concerts and arenas were setting aside a place for the parents to hang out during the concert, appropriately called “quiet rooms.” We came up with a 1-night comedy romp featuring teens, parents, and lots of mayhem, and set that up at Tri-Star.
Duane Moody’s Office Christmas Party: Another Burg & Myers project. I believe we were sitting around one day, shooting the breeze, when we realized that nobody had done a movie on office Christmas parties. We worked up a pitch about low-employee-on-the-totem-pole, Duane Moody, who is tasked with managing the company’s annual Christmas blow-out in order to get a promotion — and, of course, everything than can go wrong, does go wrong. We sold that pitch to Paramount.
Snowbirds: Working with Trailblazer Studios, we wanted to do low-budget movies, so we came up with a set of production guidelines: 5-week shoot, 90 page script, no more than 10 actors, no special effects, small crew, and so on. A big consideration was to only have one primary location — whenever you move a crew, that costs a lot of money. I remember I was on a flight back from LA, thinking about how to do one primary location. Then for some reason, I remembered an interview Larry Mantle, my all-time favorite radio talk show host, had done on KPCC years ago. It was about a couple whose house had burned down in Altadena and instead of rebuilding, they bought an RV and traveled around the country. I thought about RVers — they travel to one place and camp there. By the time I got home, I had worked out a basic set-up. I wrote that script and at one time, we had Academy Award winning actress Brenda Fricker, Bernard Hill, and Caroline Dhavernas attached.
There are lots of other original scripts or pitches I’ve been involved in that never got set up and each of them derived from some moment of inspiration. There are a few keys. First, you have to get into the mindset of looking for and generating story concepts, it has to be a priority in your life. Second, you have to be open to ideas, play around with them before you judge them as inadequate or something you don’t want to do. Third, if you come up with a great idea, jump on it and pound out that script. There have been at least a half-dozen times where I sat on an idea and someone else wrote something that sold for big bucks.
But the main thing is to train yourself to think “story concept” — newspapers and magazines you read, radio shows you listen to, conversations you have, anything and everything is a potential source of inspiration. So be on the look-out for story concepts. They’re everywhere.