Short Film Ideas

Short Film Ideas

As a film student, I would definitely agree that coming up with a good short film story or even when writing a novel and coming up with a good plot, is not easy. You have to find something original, yet it seems like all the original ideas have been swept away already. Because of this, I decided I would share with you all some of my top short film ideas. Some of these have been done before, but with your own spin on it, anything can come across as original.

1. Man or woman wakes up after 20 years, and the world is completely different. Maybe you take a fallout 4 perspective with a twist where the world has faced nuclear war and covered in radiation. Maybe you take an apocalyptic twist, which we can all agree has been done, but what you decide to do with it is what makes it original. Maybe you take a dystopian twist on it where the government is now controlling what everyone says and that man or woman is the only one who is normal. 
2. Effects of drunk driving or drug abuse. This one may have been done before, but not nearly enough or good enough for people to be talking about it. You have a gift of being able to use your art to inspire people, so use it!
3. Aliens. Yes, this one has definitely been done before, but there hasn't been many films where they take a positive outlook on it, or a sympathetic outlook with the aliens. 
4. Mind of a murderer. You have seen this in Dexter and in The End of The F***ing World on Netflix, but I haven't seen many short films that really explore what is going through a murderers head when they murder someone. Maybe you try a new angle, a more sympathetic angle that many haven't seen before.
5. Your day gone wrong. If you're trying for some comedy, this one is definitely for you. Sometimes it is hard to think of something original and fictional, so try looking at your own daily life. Imagine if one day you woke up late for your new job, you use the wrong tooth brush, you hop on a train to work and your pants rip right down the butt, a drunk lady dancing on the train runs into you holding a coffee and it spills all over your shirt, you miss your stop while trying to clean up, and all the while you forgot to put on matching shoes! Insane right? But definitely hilarious.
6. Wedding gone wrong. Okay, this one has also been done before in Bridesmaids, but what if instead of the upcoming of the wedding in the perspective of the bridesmaid, use the prospective of the bride or the groom on just the wedding day. Maybe the bride catches the groom kissing her sister in the dressing room, but if you don't marry him you don't get half of his savings of a billion dollars. Maybe the ring bearer loses the ring,  and while the bride is getting her dress on it rips. This could be: Hi-Lar-I-Ous!!!
7. What if we could just rewind? This has been done in. the movie Click, but that movie was more comical than serious. Maybe you take it to a new original where the main character rewinds back to the 1800s and abolishes slavery, stops the holocaust from happening, or stops a World War from happening. What would society be like now if none of it ever happened? If there was no history of inequality for anyone? I haven't seen a movie like that, have you?
8. What if there was no morals? This could make a great comedy movie, everyone doing everything we see as bad or wrong. Maybe it could make a great drama film as a message.
9. What if life is a dream, and we have yet to wake up to reality? All I can say for this one is it is definitely original.
10. Camping trip gone wrong. I'll admit I'm currently working on producing a horror short film about a camping trip gone wrong, but there is definitely a ton of different angles you could take this. You could make it a comedy where a preppy school girl is disgusted by camping but is forced to go, and when she goes to pee in the woods gets chased by a bear. I don't know, but that one sounds hilarious in my head.
11. Psychological spin. Something I suggest doing to get a great original idea is to look up rare psychological disorders. That's actually where Alice In Wonderland came from, a rare psychological disorder called Todd Syndrome, but it is actually a lot creepier than what appears on film. Study a disorder and choose your spin on it. Maybe you make a horror film, maybe a drama film about mental disorders, maybe you make a comedy film. I wouldn't suggest doing comedy with mental disorders, because that is definitely offensive to those who do have them, but you could always try finding a way to make it funny while not offensive. 
12. Psychological thriller. This is also in the perspective of psychological, but instead of mental disorders, maybe you make a psychological thriller. A script I am currently working on is a psychological thriller about a girl who was raped, and now suffers from post traumatic stress disorder. Because of it, she hallucinates her rapist and shoots him, but comes to find out she shot her friend on accident. It explores sympathy versus hatred for the characters, because each of them have suffered, but each have also done things morally wrong. It's up to the audience to decide what is forgivable and what isn't.
13. Sleep paralysis. This is extremely horrifying and creepy to me, and really hasn't been done much at all! I think this would make a great short film idea or even a short story idea. Maybe it's, "The man that watches me sleep." How creepy is that?
14. Riddles. I seen this short film a few months ago, and I swear it is one the best short films I have ever seen in my life. It's called "Last Call," and was made in 2012. It was disappointingly poorly filmed, the equipment was definitely not up to date, but that actors were absolutely amazing. It was about a guy who calls a woman about to attempt suicide, and he tells her that she can save his life if she figures out the riddle. The woman doesn't understand, and he ends up committing suicide (sorry to spoil it if you haven't seen it but...). She hears the gun shot, not through the phone, but across the hall, and realizes the answer to the riddle is he lives next door. This film was amazing, and I would definitely love to see another short film exploring a riddle, especially since you hardly ever see that.

My advice: With all of these in mind, I hope it got your brain flowing with some ideas. Remember to take your own spin on things. Almost everything on this list, if not everything, has been done. It's how you manipulate the idea that makes it original. I highly suggest not just taking an idea from this list and writing a script or a book about it, but instead taking one of the ideas and finding a different take on it that wasn't mentioned. Also, watch some short films! Most of these ideas were sparked from short films or movies I have seen. The more you watch and read, the more ideas you will have. Lastly, just write! Close your eyes and imagine a conversation taking place, and then write it down. After you have that one small conversation, you can work around it like a puzzle, that's what I do when I write. Sometimes it's easier to just start with a small action you imagine or a small conversation instead of starting from the beginning. In my latest script, I started from the end, and it ended up being the best thing I could do, because as I was trying to find pieces to the story, ideas were flooding in left and right.

I hope this helped, and feel free to comment with any questions! Here's a link to my YouTube channel if you want to see some of my old short films, and soon enough, my new ones: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHwYUvoe_nfh-yVje_h_y1g