Okay, so I’ve been wanting to make a short film for a while, and I figured a good place to start would be with a trailer. Trailers are like mini-movies, right? So, I needed a script for that. Here’s how I went about it:
First, I brainstormed. I just let my mind wander, thinking about the kind of story I wanted to tell. Was it going to be a horror flick? A rom-com? A sci-fi adventure? I jotted down a bunch of ideas, some good, some… not so good. It was kinda messy, like scribbling on a napkin, but it helped me narrow things down.
Then, I picked my favorite idea. It was this concept about a guy who finds a mysterious watch that can, like, rewind time. Cool, huh?
Next up, I outlined the key moments I wanted to show in the trailer. I wanted to tease the audience, give them a taste of the action, the mystery, and the stakes. I thought about what scenes would be visually exciting, and which ones would hint at the bigger story without giving too much away.
I started writing the script. I didn’t worry too much about making it perfect at first. I just focused on getting the basic structure down. I used some descriptions, a little bit of dialogue, and notes about the music and sound effects I imagined.
- Scene 1: Close-up on the watch, ticking. Ominous music.
- Scene 2: The guy, looking confused, finds the watch in an old box.
- Scene 3: Quick cuts of him experimenting with the watch, rewinding small moments. A sense of wonder, then growing unease.
- Scene 4 A quick shot of someone, or something, chasing him.
- Scene 5: The guy, panicked, “I can’t control it!”
- Scene 6: More quick cuts of action, building tension.
- Scene7, Final shot, the watch, shattered with ticking.
After that, I revisited the script a bunch of times. I read it out loud, imagining how it would sound in the trailer. I tweaked the wording, cut out some parts that felt unnecessary, and added a few more details.
Finally, I had a script that I was pretty happy with. It wasn’t super long, just enough to give a good sense of the film’s premise and tone. It felt like a solid starting point, and it got me pumped to actually start filming!
