Text: Solveig Hansen, 2018

What happens inside a writer’s mind when the ideas stop flowing?

Adaptation, The Shining, Swimming Pool, Wonder Boys, Barton Fink, Stranger Than Fiction … writer’s block is part of the plot in many movies, and in short films, too. Scouring the Internet, I found three short films that deal with this miserable condition each in its own way: The first one looks inside the head of a writer who struggles to come up with anything worthwhile to write about and keeps experimenting with different characters. In the second film, a writer discusses his writer’s block with a stranger. The third one is about a frustrated scriptwriter (played by Bryan Cranston) who finds himself in the middle of the story he tries to tell.

 
Writer’s Block (6 min)
By Robby Spark

A writer finds inspiration everywhere, right? That’s what our guy in the film hopes for. From his café table, he sees a car with a “Pirate Pizza” sign on the door and on he goes with a story about two pirates dueling on the beach. Day and night and day and night and… until he hits the Delete button. Then he is inspired by a couple in love a few tables away and starts afresh with two lovers gazing at each other and enjoying a meal underneath the starry sky. Suddenly they are attacked by ninjas. Delete. In the end, all the characters, the dueling pirates, the couple in love, the ninjas plus a dozen others, end up on the same beach and the chaos is complete.

If you’ve ever wondered how it looks like inside the head of a writer who tries to come up with a storyline, this is it.

 
Writer’s Block (4 min)
By Jeff Easley

“Ever heard of writer’s block?” “What’s that? Some kind of a disease, like constipation?” “More like a curse.” Two strangers talk in an empty park. One is a writer with writer’s block, and the other … well, see for yourself. They are mutually inspired by each other, but in different ways.

https://vimeo.com/197694952

 
Writer’s Block (13 min)
By Brandon Polanco

The boundaries between reality and fiction are wiped out in this short film, perhaps with a slight nod to The Shining. A scriptwriter wrestles with a scene involving a woman in a tight, black dress and begins to fantasize about her. Or does he?

When Hurricane Sandy temporarily halted the shooting of Cold Comes the Night, leading man Bryan Cranston organized a contest and invited the production assistants to send him a script, and if he liked it, he’d star in it. The winner was Brandon Polanco.

 
See also:
25 films about writing

 
Photo: Pixabay.com