LinkedIn Post: The Idea Is The Cheap Part

Source: /opt/gcv-portfolio/captions/uiVu-EWQJQA.en.vtt — GCV Little Five Points livestream on making a scary movie, ~00:09:42–00:09:51 ("every production value in the world and the core idea of it just sucks") + ~00:16:41–00:16:44 ("a good movie will have these four storylines... bad movies cheat")

The cheapest part of the whole movie is the idea, and it's the part that does the carrying.

I've been watching some stuff on the Disney Channel that is capital N not capital G good. All the production value in the world on screen, and the core idea of it just sucks. The story doesn't do the basics. You can spend everything on production and still have nothing if the idea underneath is thin.

A good movie runs four storylines and touches each one. Bad movies cheat. They skip the part where you figure out who this person is and what they're doing and why. You feel it as a viewer even when you can't name it.

Script is where an idea meets reality. That's why I tell people to lock the script before they touch the camera. It's a whole lot cheaper to fix a story on the page than on the shoot day.

Same in business. You can sink a year into the site, the branding, the rollout, and if the core idea is thin, none of it lands.

What's the one idea under the thing you're building, and can you say it in one sentence?

draft from corpus — based on Brandyn's GCV Little Five Points filmmaking livestream (uiVu-EWQJQA.en.vtt)