I think it's necessary to start with the day my creative writing teacher introduced screenwriting to us with Save The Cat, which is essentially a screenwriter's bible. I mean, every story has a systematic plot unless of course you are making weird or experimental art films.
Anyways, in less than a week's time she wished us luck, and we had to write the first ten pages of our screenplay using Celtx, a screenplay software, which formats everything correctly.
However, all good things must come to an end, and our unit on screenwriting soon reached its end. Needless to say, I was sad and disappointed, so I promptly signed up for screenwriting next semester with the same professor because I was kinda obsessed. I mean, I tried continuing my screenplay after workshopping it in creative writing, but I worried that I wouldn't know what else to write about once I was done with this screenplay.
But you know, inspiration is a weird thing. I mean, you could be jogging around campus and suddenly a girl could come out crying from the gym, and you could think there must be a story behind that. Sometimes, inspiration is just a feeling you get, even if you don't know what to write about. For instance, there's this really magical feeling associated with walking around campus late at night alone or with friends. While everyone else could be sleeping, partying, or doing homework, listening to music or laughing with friends can seem magnetic. That's inspiration in a sense. Other times, inspiration could be a phrase or some words. For example, my creative writing teacher's husband came to talk to us about song writing and he was like, "Yea, sometimes I could be changing my kid's diapers, and a certain word would come to my head." Inspiration truly strikes at random times.
Anyways, one day two of my friends and I are sitting in the study room when one of them asks:
"What's triangulation?" At that exact moment, my other friend and I looked at each other and it was as if the mirror neurons in our brain had synched up. Our eyes widened, and at the same time we said:
"The illuminati." Of course, my other poor friend looked at us all confused and what not because we hadn't really answered her question, but immediately I started drawing a triangle on the whiteboard with an eye in the center. Boom. Triangulation =Illuminati, and I had just seen The Bling Ring, so I was well acquainted with Sofia Coppola and from creative writing my teacher mentioned she made art films like Lost in Translation and that's why she got to break all the screenwriting rules, and for once in my life the dots connected and my friend understood.
We were going to write a screenplay called Lost in Triangulation.
Of course, this sounded really cool and neat in theory, but unfortunately my friend and I had finals and like a billion papers due, so we probably shouldn't have been up until three in the morning trying to write a screenplay, but the inspiration is ravenous. Once we had finished writing it, I was even half convinced we had written a disaster masterpiece.
I suppose it was worth it. I mean, at least, I had new material.