I’m a big fan of writing down every little good idea in my head on a post it or index card and dumping it on my desk. Every so often I get those bits and pieces together and form some sort of story amongst them, trying to marry ideas. And POW! story.

So figure a starting point. It doesn’t need to be the beginning, it can be the middle, it can be a line of dialog, it can be a character, and build outwards. You won’t necessary use everything.

Then write. Write it for anything, don’t worry about what sets you have (and special effects shouldn’t even be needed.) Then figure out how you can adapt it for your budget/constraints. To be honest, it works this way in a professional, million dollar budgeted production, too.

On my most recent job I was told “write anything” and it ended up multiple drafts later to “you have two sets, imagine it’s being shot with one guy’s cell phone, you have no special effects budget and you can only use one other character. You have to cut three pages out of the twelve written. And oh yeah, you still have to evoke the same exact mood as the big fancy first draft and get across the same amount of information.” And then you do it!