John August wrote a lot of my favorite movies. He wrote Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory*, and Corpse Bride – he also wrote Dark Shadows, which is not one of my favorite movies, but is a movie I have a lot of thoughts about. And back when the internet existed for more than being ‘social’, he had a blog on IMDb.com.

*Don’t argue with me on this one; I will fight you.

It feels like a relic from a past civilization’s browser history, but the “Ask a Filmmaker” column is still up on the site. We’re lucky, too, because it’s a goldmine. The series ended in 2008 but one of August’s entries has stuck with me since then. He tackled the ubiquitous question of “Where do your ideas come from?” in a way I had never heard before, and really haven’t heard again since. Basically he said that he is constantly generating ideas, and so is everyone. The bigger problem is filtering out the good ones.

I didn’t believe him at first, because I felt very, very short on ideas. But I never forgot it, and it started to feel true. I have a lot of terrible ideas. Every second of the day I’m having an idea, and they are usually terrible ones. Right now I’m having the idea to go eat a scoop of peanut butter. It wouldn’t make a great movie, but it’s an idea.

Buried in my phone’s notes I found this gem: “A mom who raises her kid to never see the color blue”. I don’t hate it. I think it’s terrible**, but I like it, because it’s proof that coming up with ideas isn’t the problem.

**I don’t actually think it’s terrible. I still think it’s kind of funny.

You might also check out this post about Japaneseknotweedsolutions.org.uk. Read on to learn more about it.