Some creative prompts for a short film

 

This sounds like a super fun project, and I've always had weird film ideas bounce around on my head so here are a few:

1. Sleeper Agent
1. Class is going as usual but after a certain key phrase is uttered by your teacher, a classmate of yours gets up and leaves the room. You follow him, trying to figure out his weird behavior and find him planning some elaborate spy mission (imagine one of those bulletin boards with newspaper clippings and red yarn connecting everything). Pleading with him you end up saying the same key phrase and he snaps out of it again. The short film is spent figuring out what exactly happened to your friend.
2. Educational Video
1. This one might be a bit boring on the surface, but it could be cool to take some hard topic and create an exploratory educational video presenting it to your class mates. I imagine it to be in the style of a Vsauce video, in that it generates interest and intrigue around otherwise difficult topics.
3. Day in the Life of a Dollar Bill
1. Originally a fifth grade creative writing assignment, but after a while I realized how it could make a pretty good short film. You can go in really any direction: have the bill be apart of bank robbery or just be involved in daily transactions.
4. School Apocalypse
1. An announcement interrupts class with the news that some zombie virus/pandemic disease has been found in your school and the government has placed the entire building under quarantine. Make a sort of survival film as to how your main characters survive without infection and/or make their final escape.
5. Bring Artwork to Life
1. This is inspired off of this long and boring foreign film I once watched about the events leading up to what was depicted in some biblical Renaissance painting. It showed everyone going about their daily life leading up to the setting of the painting and in the final scene the camera sort of zoomed out to show an image identical to the original artwork. The concept was really cool and you could use a painting from one of your school’s art students or just anything that you think you could successfully visualize.

This is all I can think of, but if something comes to me later I’ll be sure to add it. Let me know if you use any of my ideas and good luck on your film project!

Edit: the film that I’m describing in my 5th film idea is “The Mill and the Cross.” Not remembering the film was bothering me all day, so after a google journey I finally found the title.

• A person creates a clone of himself/herself, and the film deals with the struggles of the clone in society, and how they do not accept him.
• A student fakes his/her death, the film explores both the process of him faking it, and how his teachers and family react, and how they begin to discover the truth.
• A seemingly random event leads one teen on a soul-searching journey into the truth of her own past.

Road signs come to life and re-arrange themselves, with comic outcomes

The perspective illusion of a tunnel looking smaller at the far end turns out to be true. People walking through come out much smaller.

The view from on top of a stone being skipped on a lake

Start with a restaurant customer ordering a meal. Follow the whole sequence of the order to the kitchen, the food being cooked, taken to the pass, and end with it being placed in front of the customer.

A teenage couple skip school for the afternoon and explore a town neither is familiar with, ending with what is obviously their first kiss.

The preparations at a historic hotel for someone’s wedding, ending as the ceremony begins.

A day on board an inshore fishing boat.

Writing a poem, from inspiration to first public performance, narrated by the poet

Timelapse of a Cumbrian landscape, from a fixed camera position, over a single year, without commentary.

The story of a divorce, narrated by the judge at the divorce hearing, with flashbacks as well as the hearing.

A woman in the 1950s discovers that her husband is a soviet spy.

Restoration of an antique gilded chair

An elderly couple, who were once the teenage truants from the earlier film, return to that town for the afternoon.

Three non-cis couples meet at the seaside and discuss their relationships in picturesque surroundings.

A “slow cinema” afternoon at an RSPB reserve open day, with a variety of visitors.

The guided tour of the Tower of London, following one group escorted by one Beefeater.

One part of the Tower of London, comparing the experiences of four tour groups with four different Beefeaters.

Follow the manufacture of a bespoke, hand-sewn, suit of clothes in Saville Row, interspersed by the creation of elaborate embroidered garment in Kenya.

The practice, and performance of a peal of a Little Bob Major in a country church.

Time lapse of a flood, from dry to dry via disaster and recovery.

One day in the life of a mine rescue team.

Writing a poem, from inspiration to first public performance, narrated by a literature academic

The Tar Barrel Run at Ottery St Mary

An investigation into how fresh herbs can be grown all year round in a temperate climate zone.

An instruction video for the use of a prismatic compass in orienteering.

A ballroom dance competition.

Lavender production.

The hatching and rearing of a clutch of Owls.

Writing a poem, from inspiration to first public performance, narrated by the poet’s teenage daughter.

Road signs come to life and re-arrange themselves, with tragic outcomes