Tuesday, May 06, 2003
Lesson 14: Embrace the Ordinary, Then Blow It Up
Yesterday was a pretty typical day: my husband and I were in desperate need of socks. So I took our laundry down to our condo’s laundry room—only to find the two washers crammed with somebody else’s laundry. The dryers: ditto.
Because I was a reasonable woman, I let a couple of hours pass until I dumped out the laundry—careful not to let any of it drop on the floor. I got my laundry done, while marveling at someone who couldn’t be bothered to leave a note apologizing for the laundry he or she left behind.
But what the laundry leaver DID leave behind was the seed of a story. What kind of person would leave laundry behind? Why would he doing it? What kind of laundry was it? What kind of life does the person lead that he underestimates either his time or his quarters so that the laundry just gets left?
These are small questions, to be sure. But what if, say, I hadn’t just needed socks—I couldn’t live without them? What if the person who left the laundry behind isn’t just a little careless or having a rushed day—but is, a la “Pacific Heights” or “Single White Female,” a truly Bad Neighbor? And what if the fact that I scooped his laundry out of the washers and dryers is some kind of Final Straw?
Many movies, both thrillers and comedies, have been ignited with less. In the film Changing Lanes, all it takes is rushed lawyer Ben Affleck refusing to trade insurance cards with Samuel L. Jackson to bring each of their lives into (necessary) crisis. In the film Meet the Parents, a common-as-dirt occurrence—the temporary loss of Ben Stiller’s luggage---creates so many problems for him that it nearly kills him.
So, the next time the UPS guy doesn’t show up when you expect, or library lists one of your books as overdue, when you know you brought it back in plenty of time, ask yourself: How Big Could I Make This? And how could you combine this mundane catalyst with a crisis large enough to make it movie material?
Yesterday was a pretty typical day: my husband and I were in desperate need of socks. So I took our laundry down to our condo’s laundry room—only to find the two washers crammed with somebody else’s laundry. The dryers: ditto.
Because I was a reasonable woman, I let a couple of hours pass until I dumped out the laundry—careful not to let any of it drop on the floor. I got my laundry done, while marveling at someone who couldn’t be bothered to leave a note apologizing for the laundry he or she left behind.
But what the laundry leaver DID leave behind was the seed of a story. What kind of person would leave laundry behind? Why would he doing it? What kind of laundry was it? What kind of life does the person lead that he underestimates either his time or his quarters so that the laundry just gets left?
These are small questions, to be sure. But what if, say, I hadn’t just needed socks—I couldn’t live without them? What if the person who left the laundry behind isn’t just a little careless or having a rushed day—but is, a la “Pacific Heights” or “Single White Female,” a truly Bad Neighbor? And what if the fact that I scooped his laundry out of the washers and dryers is some kind of Final Straw?
Many movies, both thrillers and comedies, have been ignited with less. In the film Changing Lanes, all it takes is rushed lawyer Ben Affleck refusing to trade insurance cards with Samuel L. Jackson to bring each of their lives into (necessary) crisis. In the film Meet the Parents, a common-as-dirt occurrence—the temporary loss of Ben Stiller’s luggage---creates so many problems for him that it nearly kills him.
So, the next time the UPS guy doesn’t show up when you expect, or library lists one of your books as overdue, when you know you brought it back in plenty of time, ask yourself: How Big Could I Make This? And how could you combine this mundane catalyst with a crisis large enough to make it movie material?
