Of Ideas, Ideation, and Inspiration

The weather is warm. New York is alive again. I am in my windowless room in front of my laptop. Something doesn't quite add up here.

Robert Downey Jr. pretty much summed it up last night at the Oscars when he described screenwriters as "sickly little mole people." What other person would forgo the sun's victorious reemergence, to sit in a dark and hot room recording imaginary events onto his MacBook Pro? Think about it.

Since I am a natural born procrastinator, I of course am not actually writing what I should be writing right now. Instead, I am writing a blog about how I should be writing, but am not. Kind of meta in a way. (Not really). It's just that I've spent the greater part of the last two weeks developing this feature script idea - of which I have to hand in two scenes tomorrow - and now it just seems more interesting and entertaining to reflect on the idea as opposed to...you know...actually writing it. Fitting. (Not really).

When your life is such that your realm of immediate experience grants you a sublime level of inspiration, what choice do you have but to draw from it? When a film has so affected your consciousness of late, what choice do you have but to glean idea after idea from it (I'm referring specifically to The Science of Sleep)? What I'm saying is that the best ideas seem to always somehow gravitate to you. One never has to reach for the inspiration behind their best work, they just find it around them.

I created a character way back in 2006 whose experiences I used as a vessel to express everything that I was in some way thinking, feeling, or experiencing at the time. His name was Will Stewart. I haven't made a film as personal to me since then. With half of grad school almost in the bag, this crazy city beginning to have more and more of an influence on me, and my interactions and friendships in this absurd place taking my mind in places that it's never been, I think I have enough fodder to make another personal film.

Inspired by Woody Allen's meta-odes to New York City "Annie Hall" and "Manhattan" as well as Michel Gondry's masterpiece, I am putting on my meta-narrative hat again for the first time in 4 years, resurrecting Will Stewart, and putting him smack dab in the middle of this mad metropolis where he will embark upon his own journey for happiness and spiritual and emotional fulfillment. If you saw that old film of mine and wondered whatever happened to Mr. Stewart after that fateful day, you'll soon find out. There'll be romance, music, jokes, and somebody will die in the end (not really).

Two scenes in. It's nice to meet this guy again...

Ryan the Sound Guy