16. Tell your favorite joke, limerick or humorous top 10 list with visuals. How many ways might you cinematically answer the question, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" The single-beat gag or punch-line series is a very common structure for animated shorts.

17. Make a movie out of a particularly intriguing (and preferably narrative) dream you had recently. Your subconscious is very likely more creative than your conscious mind. Keep a notebook next to your bed to record your dreams as soon as you wake up in the morning. If you don't get them down on paper quickly, they'll fade.

18. Employ the immersion technique, where you watch a multitude of short films and then relax somewhere and see whether your sub-conscious recombines them in new and interesting ways. Remember — taking from one source is called stealing, but taking from multiple sources is called research.

19. Check the newspaper, a magazine or a history textbook. True stories are very often stranger than fiction, especially if you twist, exaggerate or satirize them. The online parody newspaper, The Onion, contains an endless array of short stories that satirize actual news reports, such as Loved Ones Recall Local Man's Cowardly Battle with Cancer.

20. Play the "what if" game. Just start thinking of odd scenarios that begin with those two little words. What if cows could fly? What if my TV's remote control worked on the real world? What if two suns came up tomorrow morning? The important "rule" of this game is to not dismiss any seemingly silly or impossible ideas too early. If J.K. Rowling had thought, "What if a school for wizards existed?" but then decided the idea was too outlandish, a significant literary and cinematic phenomenon known as Harry Potter would be missing from today's popular culture.

21. Walk down the street, ride the subway or sit in a coffee shop and observe people as they come and go. Pick someone out and invent a story about him, based on appearance, behavior and conversation — but try not to stare. Or perform the same exercise on a zoo animal, where it's probably OK to stare.

22. Perform acting-class improvisation exercises. Be a tree. Pick up a coffee cup and think of something obvious or perhaps out of the ordinary to do with it. Imagine yourself as your favorite animal and then get into character and consider what motivates you while inside this new skin.

23. Give yourself a technical or creative assignment and then try to expand it into a story. You might want to experiment with low mood lighting for a particular setting. Where might such a scenario exist? Who might occupy such a place? Try a typical animation exercise, such as the popular lifting a heavy object, and see whether you can add a subsequent and original punch line.

24. Carry around a notebook or preferably a handheld voice recorder. Ideas have an obnoxious habit of cropping up while a future filmmaker is sitting in traffic, which is not always the best place to grab a pen and start writing.