I love how polarizing this video has been. But to clarify my point - while there is obviously value in a strong concept, it PALES in comparison to things like characters, taste, pacing, voice, etc... in other words, good writing. A great concept has very rarely made me fall in love with a film, but those other things always do. Yet most of us use not having a jaw-dropping, high-concept story idea as an excuse to NEVER write/make a film. In the video I showed that any great film can be boiled down to a simplistic, lame-sounding idea. That simple idea could be all you have right now. But if you get STARTED with the seed of an idea that truly fascinates you, you will develop it into something great.

"idea is not as important as execution" is literally applied to everything not just film.

there's two kinds of films. a rehashed story done well with A list cast, great cinematography and great music, and then there's the unique idea, Matrix, Star Wars, which you may want to argue aren't truly unique, but they were unique enough that "no one did them before." and an indie film isn't going to have a budget to afford to be rehashed, which means that the screenplay needs to be even better. so I argue that the 'idea' better feel fresh to your investors, because the market is flooded and going viral is harder than ever, but yea, I get your point. I just think its a smaller piece of the puzzle. no one thing makes a great movie. just make sure that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts and tell a great story.

Hey man, I thought this was great! I find myself getting stuck in my head in the concept phase too often, killing myself to come up with something good or "original". But you're totally right, execution is what really matters.

The crowning example of this to me is Moonlight (2016). It's hard to get other people to watch it, because it's hard to describe the "premise" of the film in a concise elevator speech. The most I can say about it is it's about a black man questioning his sexuality, growing up in poverty in Florida as seen at three different periods of his life - sort of an unremarekable description. But it's 99% the execution that makes this movie so special to me, and so beautiful.

It's not that cut and dry. A simplified, big picture plot description is one thing, but the writing of those individual scenes, the dialogue, etc., and how it all comes together, is not easy to pull off. Even if you choose a plot that's already been done, you still need tons of ideas for the scenes that will populate your screenplay. Your writing has to be very, very good on those individual scenes, or your film is going to be hot garbage.

Finally I found a youtube filmmaker thats an actual a filmmaker with good advice. Thanks for this subbed!

This video came just at the right time for me, I'm literally stuck in a writting rut because I've been felling that my ideas aren't good enough, thank you so much for this reminder and wake up call.

Great video for someone who always get their ideas stolen. Ultimately, they are not you. Do yours anyway. Also, it's great to see the seven or so basic stories.

A good example of this is the times similar movies come out of hollywood at the same time, some times even coming from different versions of a single script. White house down vs Olympus has fallen, Deep impact vs Armageddon or Mirror mirror vs Snow white and the huntsman, all tells bascially the same story and was released in the same year as their counterpart, but they are all just so different.

Probably the best explanation of how to look at an idea for a movie before deciding on whether or not you will make it. Thanks so much.

I've been binging all your videos. As an aspiring filmmaker I find all these updates invaluable.

When I was freelance editing, a lot of people wouldn't have an initial conversation about the film because they were so afraid their idea would get stolen... they always thought their film was very unique and everyone would want to take their idea. It often just ended in stalled conversations and moving onto a different gig. Those films ended up going nowhere and often never got edited. Had they have just focused on the execution, explained what they wanted, their film would have gotten edited and out there. It's definitely better to have a film that's 90% ok but exists as a film, than one that is shelved. Even the best films have goofs, errors, plotholes etc. otherwise what would Cinema Sins do all day. it's not worth getting caught up in it to sacrifice the greater goal.

It was in 1975 in Cleveland Heights. I was 12 years old and my then best friend and I would get together in his room in the attic and write stories that came to our minds. Our best idea ever was a science fiction story that involved a boy bored out of his mind because he lived in a boring place with grownups who did not care about his problems. Then one day a pair of robots from another planet fall out of the sky and tell him that he must go on an adventure. One of the robots had a cylinder body with a dome on top and his name was AD-1. The other robot, can’t remember the name but it was also a combination of letters and numbers, was more humanoid in shape and spoke with a British accent. Me and my friend were both Star Trek fans so we tried out a few titles that were all Star Something, but none of them quite seemed to fit so we kept the working title on the project. It was the “AD-1 story”. Eventually, my friend moved to Florida and my family moved back to Japan. The project was never finished. A few years later when Star Wars was released, I was totally furious. I kept saying “How could this be happening?” I learned two valuable lessons from this experience. One is that there is no such thing as an original story. All stories are old. The other is that it never makes any sense to fear that your ideas will be stolen. We all have the same ideas anyway. If I had a dollar for every million dollars ever made by story ideas I can claim to have thought of first, I would be retired by now. It is not the ideas that count, but the quality of the work you put into it.

I think I’ve seen most of your videos and for some reason never subscribed, so… finally did, I enjoy your content and your humorous way to talk about all this stuff that we love.

The raw talent factor should not be underestimated. Keep up the good work!

Good advice, same thing with painting, countless portraits were painted but how these portraits paintings were excuted.

This is great man! The key to creativity is to already be working so when it hits you have the skill set to use it

Great video and important advice. I would add that what also makes those films great is theme, 12 Angry Men has that banal-sounding plot but it's really about how one man can make a difference etc. But the only way I've ever found really good themes in my own work is through writing it.

Great stuff! Your content is really inspiring and helpful.

Such powerful wisdom =) thank you brother, I really appreciate this channel/your work 💛

Thank you! This is some of the best film making advice I have ever heard!

5:12 the cat slowly getting up is so cuteeeeeee

This was amazingly helpful. Thank you.

U don’t know whether you know it or not but what u said is brilliant words it helps me a lot

omg!!!! this had me rethink my whole life!!! wow

This is the most mind opener thing I’ve heard in years!

Thank u so much , is what i really needed to hear , u nailed it,THANK U!

it seems as though your cat is receiving a download from the mothership.

I needed this

i would say the idea is just as important as the execution. it also depends on what you mean by execution.

Sorry to hear about your idea being stolen man. The silver lining is this is a very important and insightful video that will help other writers!

What you said helps me move forward more comfortably with my "unique" franchise of shows. The idea that's haunted me about some corporation or hack stealing my idea has had me progressing tentatively. Truly, my world is fairly unique, but I have been told before "no one can make your shows." Still, I'm going to proceed with a series synopsis to the copyright peeps. I know you can't trademark an idea, but you can copyright characters, names of shows and certain other finite entities...Do you have an episode on that? Specifically, how to write a synopsis for a series to protect some of your franchise? Anyways, your takes are a breath of fresh air and I feel like, in another parallel universe, we made films together as kids before the drudgery of adulthood sunk in. Anyways, I'm out to prove that we can get it all back, and be kids again in this. When I get monetized, I will come back and donate some humble amount as a show of my appreciation. Thanks.

Wow. Great perspective to looking at it. Thany

I agree . I'm hip .

Is that cat real? Bro is LOCKED IN

Great perspective!

Good points!!! I'm writing a comedy about 8 women breaking out of prison. Trying to figure out a logical plan to get them out. To me it's a puzzle. Does this action fit with each other following action and make sense. How to dispose of the guard. Using stealth. Done with weapons. What weapons? Taken hostage? Knocked out? Etc....

High concept is fun or interesting but it won’t matter without everything else in place.

You’re right … in fact, that’s right. It’s all about the execution of the idea.

I think what you meant to say in your pinned comment is, it's not the concept. It's the quality of the story being told( as seen through the writing of the screenplay, direction, and production.)....and you're right. But if you wrote a book about this, you could really flesh out the idea, and provide a really powerful tool for people who want to tell visual stories, but don't really know how to execute on that.

You're right . It's all about the execution of the idea .

I agree with not waiting for a perfect idea to try to do stuff. But I also feel if the idea is not good enough then people will not be drawn to it. Execution is important but it’s not everything. There’s plenty of films that I would say wasn’t executed well that became hits. Many documentaries seem just thrown together but if the information is cohesive than it’s good. So the idea of what your trying to create is more important than execution.

Thanks alot

thanks dude

I couldn't help but stare at your cat because it was sitting so eerily still for almost 5 minutes

Thanks

thanks

Yes, but a good idea with good execution will always be better than a bad idea with good execution. Therefore, the idea does have value.

I agree but I think that most of the examples you picked weren't the best to make the point, Drive is a great example, as is 12 angry men and Pulp fiction in some ways but Shawshank, Godfathers and Fight Club were all based on books and/or "idea driven plot or concepts". But it's an interesting topic to go deeper on.

God that was so good, thank you 🙏

I've heard this from several producers and script readers. I think it's fair to say that you don't need a great idea to make a great script. But I've seen some dumb ideas that made a good script almost impossible. Rather than "Ideas don't matter", I think it's maybe better to say "The skills required to tell a story are more important than the idea of the story". Having tried to sell scripts before, sometimes an Idea can also break you, rather than make you: If your fantastic script with phenomenal characters and amazing dialog is in a genre that's not in favor at the moment (or, God forbid, a genre that's seen as 'played out'), good luck. Also, if you're looking to make a franchise (Star Wars, Predator, James Bond, the MCU, etc.), then your Idea becomes much more important, and needs to be something sustainable. James Bond and the Fast and the Furious series, for example, have paper thin characters with no real growth. Don't get me started on Sharknado, where the idea was literally the only consideration. So, my humble advice is: Work on writing solid characters and dialog. Once you have that, you can take even a simple idea, and turn it into a story people want to watch... :)

Besides, even if you have the greatest idea, if the execution is shit, the end result won't be different

Yeah, I really like this idea. It's how you tell the story that matters. It's what you do with that 2 hours of screentime. Some people can really fit a lot of content and storytelling into a movie, while some others fall flat. You can tell so much story and have a ton of character development in a single shot, just depends on how you frame it and what you place inside it. I always think about peter jackson's Lord of the Rings as an example of how to jam pack a ton of visual shots of the world and how to really see the environment. He also tells so much story in that movie. It's all about perspective and creativity.

My favorite movies are crime flicks because of the great characters. Every single one of those movies has the exact same plot - protagonist starts small, makes it too big and in the end gets caught and regrets it. But there are so many things about each of my favorite movies from that genre that are so unique, interesting and I can't rewatch them enough, they're just the most entertaining movies for me. One of my all-time favorites is Tarantino, even he says his movies are just the typical "heist gone wrong", "a fighter goes down in the fourth round", "thug falls in love with the boss' wife" story tropes that are never really explored in a fun and satisfying way. Even about Django he says it's about this old TV series that a whipped black slave finally gets his hands on the whip and decides NOT to take revenge on the slaveowner... at which point he says you could hear all of USA TV viewers collectively yell "NOOOOOO" and he says you won't see that in his movies. His movies are all too simple when it comes to the idea of the story, but the execution is unique.

Look at his lil cat in the background I love him

Fight Club sounds amazing on paper.

I just wish the idea i had would be made into a movie. It's never been done and its unique. It's a sci-fi story that's down to earth kind of like apollo 13. I just can't believe it's never been done before.

That cat is your boss? 😅❤️ Great video, thanks!!

I have this idea and needs making it a story can you help

Thank you sir

Quest for a fire script 🔥 👏

The Godfather is a very old tale. An aging king wants to leave his kingdom to one of his sons. The oldest is strong but very hotheaded, the middle one is very weak, the youngest is perfect but doesn’t want it. Stories like that have been around for thousands of years.

Can you help in making out this idea

After watching half this video, I have learned that ideas for movies are indeed very important.

your neighbor is an absolute savage lmao, that dude is a menace to society lol

What if my problem isn't that i don't have an idea, but that i don't know how to execute my idea in a way that gets people on board

what movie is the thumbnail?

this is good advice, I would add on to that it's not the movie idea but really the major active theme in the work that will motivate everything after that, including execution. Working with a unified theme that says something (war leads to death, love leads to true happieness, etc etc) that will dictate every choice that comes after

My is always on point

David Lynch famously says: "Ideas are everything" What say you to this, sir!? I'm of course just being playful. Because even with Lynch it's like yea i got the idea, but what makes his work effect people the way it does and live on, is his own wholy unique approach to fleshing out his ideas. Through his hyper creative/ at times avant-garde style that we love him for.

I had to watch this video twice because the first time I was just waiting for your car to move to see if it was real.

Your cat is abbbbbbbbbsolutely gorgeous.

My problem is my ideas require too big a budget, too many actors and too many locations. Limiting the ideas makes my creativity go mad.. it’s like I tell myself go big or go home lol

Btw... you got an amazing voice!

Really great point that I’ve also struggled with, though I do think a lot of people jump to shooting things before they fully understand the characters, world and others elements of the idea which in and of itself can be a trap.

Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.

"Ideas are not important" Nolan: Excuse you

great video, but why is your cat frozen??? 🤣

Screenplay is the key.

The most horrifying moment is when cat in the background starts moving after 5 mins of the video. 5:12

Didn't noticed the cat until it strecht.

“Ideas are not as important as execution”…..”ok so I have a story idea about cavemen, best idea I could hope to come with”….. maybe you should spend a little more time developing your ideas. Contrary to this video I’m confident that ideas are just as important as execution. When you say idea your defining it as the premise but ideas are more than that. They take many different forms.

I can see someone getting paralysis from analysis about coming up with THE concept. I also understand not sitting around so long waiting for it that you end up doing nothing, but I'd argue that a great idea is the gas. (I'm the type to where great ideas inevitably hit me like a ton of bricks eventually, but I digress...) Yes, you can learn a ton by just "hitting the gym" on a regular basis. The muscle of film logistics and creative problem solving can really pull out some self-discovered gems, academically. But I'd also argue that being passionate about a project and the vision you have for it can really push you to put your heart and soul into it, and audiences tend to feel whether or not your heart's in it. But either way if the end result is something you're truly proud of then I call that a win. What's tough is that financial success does lead to more opportunities and creative control, so it's not like you're passion piece can get away with just being for you. So getting into a rhythym for the process - "hitting the gym" even when the idea isn't perfect - has great merits towards knowing how to execute.

I think instead of a great “idea,” you should think about “what story am I telling and why I am telling it?” “Is this story personal to me?” Because if it’s not a deeply personal story, then why are you even making it? The most crucial thing when choosing to tell a story on film is: “how important and personal to you is your story?”Does the story your telling move you deeply and do you feel absolutely compelled to tell it because it is coming from your heart and soul? If a story is emotionally meaningful (and not just sad but maybe something that fills you with joy or elation) and is important, than you will find a way to make that film. Regardless of budget, gear, etc. You can use the resources around you (what friends do you know? What locations do they have access to?) It’s so important to know what your story means to you and why, don’t get caught up in the thought of “what’s a great film idea?” Not the right approach to making a film in my opinion. A director’s film has got to mean something to them, plain and simple. Thanks for your videos!

Well yes, but i still need ideas to execute the idea haha

In terms of being a broke indie filmmaker I disagree whole heartedly! Not having a big budget to execute things makes exploring IDEAS Big Hollywood won't/can't touch the SOLE currency for an indie filmmaker to spend.

The 7 basic plots is like saying there are only so many genres. It even includes comedy and tragedy lol. I'm surprised the rest aren't just action, drama, romance, horror, and crime or whatever

At 4:45 when he started talking about a horror movie he and his friend tried to make, the cat just stood up.... there is something creepy in your suit beware

Just think of a concept and go from there. Recently was inspired by doodlebob and started the idea quite basic- someone finds a pencil on the floor and can bring stuff to life - moving on a few weeks and it's turning more into a comedy adventure about the mishaps of an imbecile and a book as they learn to get along. Still not much but slowly getting closer to a full idea. Obviously can't put whole thing here though

homie is using the imdb top 250 im dead lmaooo

If you can help

the movies you have elenced are actually all high concept, they talk about trivial and common desire or need. That what makes a good idea to me, it's not about telling the most fucked up thing but writing about something that's universal and everyone can realte to. "12 angry men" talks about injustice, something that is evrywhere and anywhere. "The good the bad and the ugly" talks about finding a treasure/money? something really understandable. And I can go on with Fight club and the goodfather too

Think of a single word. Now imagine that word is the title of the most impactful movie ever made. (Usually there is some variation of the word that works best) What does it look like? Just something I have been doing to amuse myself.

i make my movie on a budget about 100$ but its more for fun but i enjoy it

Well, it depends on whether or not you want to produce art or commerce.

Hi

Hero

... okay, man. I agree with you, that good movies are about good execution, not the ideas. But it has nothing to do with how movies are made from a business POV. Now before I go to far into why, lemme explain where my experience comes from. I'm a repped writer, with several projects sold and in development with large studios -- from CBS studios to Disney +. I meet with production companies like Anonymous Content, UCP, and Harpo on a weekly basis. Before I became a working screenwriter, I was an art director for film and TV, including Better Call Saul, TWD, and a dozen other projects. So bearing this in mind -- I want to point a couple things out. Most of those "simple idea" concepts are based on best selling IP, from FightClub, based on a best selling book, to Batman being one of those most successful comic IP of all time. If those ideas weren't based on valuable IP they wouldn't get made, unless done on a micro budget. If you want to sell your own original IP, again unless you are funding everything yourself, the IDEA DOES MATTER. Why? Because studios, don't read scripts. I repeat, they don't read the script until they are already sold on you and the idea. Original scripts are sold through pitch decks, verbal pitches, and story treatments --- and then later, the script. And when your original material is being reviewed, the IDEA and who is attached to the project, is everything (when it's not based off a previously successful IP). Your advice, apart from purely an artistic perspective, or unless you are adapting someone else's IP that's been bought by the studio like Stephen King's The Shaw Shank Redemption, is completely useless if you actually want to work in Hollywood. Novel ideas, well-explained with attachments, are critical to selling original ideas. People who are well established in the industry understand this. If you want to make a good movie, you have to sell them on the idea first.

This is the lightning bolt