Video Idea starters

Cooldraft wrote on 4/8/2006, 7:15 AM

Where do you guys get idea starters for show opens/closers, music videos, promotional video, commercials, etc. Getting tired of waiting weeks for an idea to come to me in the car/shower/sleep. Should I start drinking Vault with Airborne? There has to be an 'idea starter' website somewhere.

Comments

Grazie wrote on 4/8/2006, 7:33 AM

Woah! My kinda question! Luv it . .

Often I can spend days or weeks not knowing the beginning, or the end - but I do have masses of footage.

Media Manager + Trimmer have been a Godsend for me. I can rummage about, twisting and turning stuff, listening to audio and generally "sketching" and drinking in the look and feel of a vid under construction.

It is in this process of total immersion in the clips and enjoying their weight and feel that the starts and stops and finally the BEGINNING comes to mind.

I'd suggest you need to be less tough on yourself and just enjoy your work and keep auditioning the clips - it will come - promise. Take a load of and just watch your work. The piece I'm doing now I must have seen all 7 hours of tapes at least 4 times over and some parts 10 to 20 times over.

This is the way I work with the projects I do. When I don;t have the "space" to do this then fall back on a format . it goes something like this . . I use it to do speeches and presentations too!!!

#1 Tell people WHAT you are going to say

#2 Tell 'em!

#3 Tell'em what you said

. .. so .. . for video it would be:

#1 "This video is about . . " Either V/O OR images OR both

#2 "This is the video . . ." ok .. ?

#3 "This is what it was about . . " some kind of review . .

But then again doing SHORT-shorts: Adverts; Spots; I've seen and NOT done can take a some time plus a lot, A LOT, of creative brains.

Often my idea for the whole video can be summed-up into just ONE image. I then tease that image and I get the opening. Ditto for the end!!

Grazie

Serena wrote on 4/9/2006, 12:12 AM

Well said, Grazie!
Of course when a video has been planned down to story-boarding then I guess the question of "how to start" shouldn't arise. When shooting has proceded according to script then editing can be a quick process. When the world goes its own way without respecting my plans, then I spend a lot of time getting familiar with material I actually shot and usually start cutting in those sections where the work is more immediately rewarding. But this doesn't get me away from the "how to start" because every section has to have a structure. I think this is more often the experience of one-person units, rather than when you can tell the assistant director to "get those people out of shot".
Since this creative process depends on the subject and material available I wouldn't think there is universal method for cutting it short. Sleeping on it works well. When I've got the stuff in mind it's often better to get away from the screen (go for a walk) to let the subconscious do its job. You could try drugs for novel inspiration, but I saw a couple of films in the 70s where the crew were inspired by LSD and it looked like a bad idea!

MarkWWW wrote on 4/9/2006, 5:12 AM

One approach to breaking out of a stuck position could be to use something like Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's "Oblique Strategies".

This was originally a pack of cards with idea suggestions printed on them. The idea was that when you were stuck and/or in a panic about how to proceed with a piece of work it can be helpful to have a different way of looking at things and the cards were intended to provide this - you would pick one (or more) cards from the pack and it would hopefully provoke you into looking at things in another way, thinking of an option you had not previously considered, seeing a connection you had previously missed, etc, either directly (because the card makes sense) or indirectly (when the card doesn't make sense but you decide to see if anything will come of going in that direction anyway).

These days you can find an online version here.

Mark

fldave wrote on 4/9/2006, 7:30 AM

I just go fishing. Literally. Cleanses and focuses my mind, even though I hardly ever catch a big fish.

You need to find your own "special" activity that gets the creative juices flowing.

randy-stewart wrote on 4/9/2006, 7:53 AM

These are some excellent ideas to break the "log jam". I usually go exploring other people's stuff. Watching other's technique's gets me thinking (and usually excited) about trying to do some of the cool stuff that they have done. Grazie's method to fall back on is classic. That's exactly what we are taught in military briefings...tell'em what you're gonna tell'em, tell'em, then tell'em what you've told them. Got a chuckle out of that. Tried and true. Looking forward to other ideas.
Randy

BowmanDigital wrote on 4/10/2006, 12:32 AM

It's always good to look at other people's demo reels or even software company's "case studies" eg.. apple's pro section on their web site http://www.apple.com/au/finalcutstudio/motion/customerstory.html
i think adobe have something similar.
it would be great for sony to have something for the media software apps. I'd love to see customer case studies whom use vegas, acid, and sound forge etc.