Where Ideas Come From and How to Turn Them Into Projects
(or, The story behind the making of the film Layers of our Lives)
Photo © Annie Mangen
The toaster was at least twenty, possibly thirty years old. I was visiting a very old, very lovely lady who sold me her barely used car of similar age. As I sat at her kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee and I looked at this piece of retro equipment, I thought: imagine all the things that have happened in her life since she bought this toaster. I took a photo on my iPhone and drove home with a fully formed idea for my film.
The fertile ground for this idea to take root on came about much earlier. In my 20s I read a book about an elderly woman looking back on her life (and having a little crush on her gardener) and it made me realise that we never grow old in our heads. I think maybe we always feel like we’re in our 20s. Conversations with my grandmother have confirmed this. I could write a whole blog post just about this and maybe I will.
Around the time that I saw the toaster, I came across this quote on Nitch:
“I have no romantic feelings about age. Either you are interesting at any age or you are not. There is nothing particularly interesting about being old.. or being young for that matter.” — Katherine Hepburn
And just then my future talent/collaborator for the film walked across my phone screen.
I was watching the instagram story of a photographer friend I had made a film with a few years prior. He was in town for Sydney fashion week and I dropped him a line if he wanted to meet up for a glass of wine. The last time I had seen him was either in Marrakech where we filmed or in Berlin, I can’t remember. On his story, he featured a very stylish, cool looking lady in her 60s with wild white hair wearing adidas sneakers. I immediately knew that I wanted to meet her. And so I did. We hit it off straight away, which to me is always so much fun but never surprising. These things happen all the time if you follow your instincts.
Toaster of all toasters. It took me days to find this in the depth of my camera roll.
Her name is Sarah Jane Adams, model, mother, designer, self-made business woman and just an allround inspiring person.
The rest went its usual way - pitch the film, get everyone excited, make a treatment, get the money, find my crew, etc.
I was happy to be working with one of my trusted cinematographers again, who has become a friend and someone I have learned so much from. We shot in numerous locations in Sydney and in Mumbai, India - a place that is important to Sarah and where she has a long history. Also a ridiculously huge monster of a city. Read about the production here and you can still watch the film in my archive.
“People don’t realize how much they are in the grip of ideas. We live among ideas much more than we live in nature.”
Ideas are everywhere but you have to be ready for them. In the words of David Lynch (and I am paraphrasing): you need to capture ideas as they come to you. If you don’t capture them, they will disappear. Author Elizabeth Gilbert also talks about this a lot. And if you stay observant to life around you and practise your craft daily, then you will be ready to do something with these ideas when the time is right.
Some practical suggestions:
Always document every day life. Carry a notebook, take photos with your phone or record voice memos, whatever is your preferred medium. I use all of them at different times. Pen and paper have the advantage that you will not get distracted as easily.
Go through the material when you come home and try to think of a caption or story around it. No idea is too small. Often it is while we are allowing ourselves to play or daydream that ideas surface.
Capture ideas as soon as you have them. I mean it. I have had ideas that were crystal clear and I was super excited and yet, just a couple of days later I could not remember what they were. Gone! It’s weird but I know I am not alone with this experience. Again, the tool does not matter but make sure you do not lose them. I have an ideas folder on my macbook and regularly transfer what I have captured on the road or wherever to this folder (I use Notion for this but it can just be a simple google document or text file on your desktop).
Think you don’t have any ideas? Practise writing down 5-10 ideas every single day for a month and see what happens. They don’t have to be grand or specific to your work.
Go for a walk once a day. There is something to be said about the practice of walking for inspiration. Many of the great artists and thinkers are known to have done it or do it.
Observing the world around you gives you inspiration, inspiration feeds ideas, ideas captured turn into projects and the right projects (and your enthusiasm) attract the right people. That’s the alchemy of creative work.
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