31 outlines in 31 days

The aim was to write the outline for a short film each day of the month - for the whole of July. I got the idea from doing the Bath Photomarathon. A sort of writing challenge - a' writeathon'. I wanted the outlines to be for a short film of 5 - 8 minutes in duration that would be easily producible. I largely stuck to these criteria.

How did I do? Well if I'm honest, I didn't manage 31 out of 31. Life got in the way several times. The 10th to the 15th in particular - as I tried to clear the decks before my leave!) But looking at the 21 outlines I did write, I notice several things:

1. I never failed to write one when I started
2. Sometimes they came easily but mostly they didn't
3. I never spent more than 45 mins writing any of them
4. I wrote several a day at times to 'get back on track'
   
5. Some are boring, some are obvious, and some might have potential (in that proportion)
   
6. I got better at it and worked out ways of doing it more easily
   
7. The repetition and process helped. Sometimes 2 different ideas ended up in one outline
8. I enjoyed it and laughed a lot
   
9. I was pleased with some of my ideas
10. I was pleased to get to the 31st

I found a number of ways of getting going:

• save up ideas during the day (this felt like cheating)
  
• taking any idea and thinking it out. Any idea will do...and like waiting for a bus, a whole bunch tend to arrive at once
• sitting somewhere different
• listening to music
• pretending to be someone else
• start with an object, image, character, a story, a line of dialogue
• taking something that already exists and re imagineering it
• doodling
• what ifs...
• moving around
  

Was it worth doing? Yes I think it was. Leaving aside some of the ideas that are worth developing, there is definitely something to be gained from really immersing yourself in an activity. It focused my mind on lots of issues around storytelling. There are some re occurring themes - the film-making process (constructed reality if you want to be fancy), mundane things behaving oddly, and strange romances. In the future I would like to write some outlines that are more associational than linear. I think that the time constraint defines the type of film. The short film is almost a genre of its own. (One of the outlines is about this.)

Would I do it again? Yes, but not for a while. I think that I might apply the idea to photography or songwriting. I intend to develop some of the outlines too. Again I think that applying a pattern to their development might be interesting. Do 1 a week? Pick 4 for a month? I might try that next. First comes a weeks holiday.