How To Make a Short Film (Writing the Concept)
How to make a short film warrants understanding how to write a short film!
How to write a short film warrants understanding how to write a concept for a short film!
I’ve turned this guide into a short YouTube narrative if that’s your flavor here
A concept is the very basic idea of the film which gives you an outline of the final story for the main character in your movie. Look at the concept of the movie, Wanted (2008).
A guy named Wesley living a traditional life bounded by the structure of a 9–5 job, but somewhere in the back of his mind, somewhere deeper in his thoughts, he knows he wasn’t born to live this way. He was meant to break out and transform into someone much stronger with the journey to leave an everlasting mark on the world. This was the concept of this well-put-together movie.
We’ve identified what is a concept with a solid example, now we have to figure out how to write a concept. I agree upon the fact how sitting down and writing something is one of the most difficult things in the world and a lot of filmmakers would rather jump off a bridge than to sit down and write the movie they want to make.
It doesn’t matter if you’re one of those guys or not, I’m going to give you a simple technique that helped me over the past ten years to write the concept of my films which I‘ve directed.
The technique is made up of a template with 2 points.
Number 1: Identify your main character. In Wanted, the main character is Wesley. He‘s a simple guy, living a simple life with a simple 9–5 job, constantly taking crap from the people around him and lacking the interest to stand up for himself and change his situation.
Number 2: What is your main character’s problem? Wesley hasn’t accepted his life 100% and deep down inside he aspires to change his situation. His main problem is how this thought in his mind about being someone impactful is messing with his brain and stopping him to peacefully accept his current existence. On the surface level, he seems peaceful, but on a deeper level, he knows something’s wrong and it needs to be changed.
When you combine these points, you get the concept of your film. So point number 1, identify your main character. Is the character male or female and what is the character’s day to day routine? Point number 2, identify the main problem your character’s facing. The problem could be on a surface level like somebody trying to kill your character or the problem could be on a deeper level like your character trying to figure out why was he sent to this world?
We’ve cracked the simple code of writing a concept, now let’s look at a simple technique to understanding ‘How to write a good concept.’
We as an audience understand how Wesley’s a simple guy with a miserable life and something’s happening in the back of his mind making him question his existence and teasing him to turn it around. This concept crawls deep into our skin and makes us wanna re-analyze our own lives and wonder what if? This is the mark of a memorable concept.
But let’s look at one of the most mishandled concepts we’ve seen in a long time, which disappointingly came from Marvel, the concept of Iron Man 3!
This film is about a guy who has once again become reckless, stupid and irresponsible like he used to be before he became Iron Man. He used to understand the power he possessed to change the world for good, but not anymore.
Iron Man 3 was one of the most irresponsibly written movies we’ve seen with an uninspiring main character and that‘s the mark of a bad concept where you don’t feel the need to follow the protagonist till the end.
Look at Tony Stark from Iron Man 1 to understand a brilliant concept and look at Tony Stark from Iron Man 3 to understand an uninspiring concept.
We’re living in a time where everybody has the access to cheap filmmaking tools which is great, but the sad part is a lot of those film directors choose to make movies with badly written concepts. A lot of these films are generally filled with sexual content that leaves a negative impact on our generation’s mindset or they usually portray meaningless characters with meaningless problems.
But now that we’ve understood what is a concept, how to write a concept and a simple technique for writing a good concept, I hope some aspiring film director out there will take what I‘ve’ said, add their own twist and come up with an idea that would inspire other aspiring film directors to aim for even greater concepts.
On a closing note, I would love to read your comments on how to write a short film. Follow me here on Medium for some storytelling goodness every now and then.
In the hopes of connecting with story lovers all over the world, this is Mr. Zeecon, in the making of a great story.
