Time to create some more ideas.

Have a film pile-up. List a couple of movies, pretend each is a car and start ramming them into each other. Take a look at the wreckage and see if you can make a new movie. So totally randomly here's my attempt.

'The Omen' (horror, the devil etc.) Vs. 'The Money Pit' (Tom Hanks tries to renovate a house with hilarious consequences).

Hmm...OK how about a film about a yuppie couple who move to a house in the country. After a housewarming party a neighbour (well, neighbour in the country means 15 miles away) suggests a local builder that could help them out. The yuppies don't seem to notice that his mobile number has 666 in it, nor do they seem that that worried when the builder starts suggesting a deep red colour scheme throughout the house. It is only when they discover that their bedroom ceiling's plastering resembles a pentangle and the builder's rennovations include digging down through the cellar into an ancient burial ground that they start to worry - but by then it is too late.

OK, so maybe Hollywood won't be knocking at my door just yet, but you get the idea. There's a school of thought that says you shouldn't look for ideas for movies in other movies and that you should do something original. These are the people that hate Tarantino. They've got a point - but its still helpful to start smashing other movies up to kickstart your inspiration. Besides, I've a horrible feeling that this is how some films get made. Imagine, there's this producer chewing on a cigar shouting 'I got it!! 'Die Hard...on a boat!' - before setting cameras to roll on 'Under Seige'.



Ideas come from everywhere

Sitting in an empty room isn't going to inspire you - read a daily newspaper, get out to the theatre or nip down the pub. Don't push trying to get ideas, they'll come. Just get ready for when they do. Scribble as much down as fast and as soon as possible. Consider having some sort of film-makers journal so you can keep everything from getting lost. I've got a book now that's stuffed full of ideas - sometimes I'll come back to it and add things, sometimes ideas mature and start flowing into each other. Keep doing this and you'll start to have a number of projects, ideas that you can work on from time to time. This is exactly what real film-makers do (whoever they are). An idea can lounge around for years before finding that the situation is right to make it. French Director Luc Besson waited years to make 'The Fifth Element' after having the idea as a teenager.

Just because your film has a simple concept it doesn't mean your film has to be one dimensional. Don't think for a minute that simple concepts mean simple movies. All it means is that you know what your movie is really about. Get stuck developing it and you can always get back to its core. Everything in the movie stays relevant to the central story.