[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]
Film Courage: You’ve made over 70 short films and most of them have a twist or surprise ending. What’s your process for writing a short film?
Blake Ridder, Filmmaker/Writer/Actor/YouTuber: It’s a very mixed process.
I think a short film starts with an idea.
I get ideas from different sources whether it’s my own experience, something I saw on the news and also other films that inspire me.
I don’t think there’s one specific source I always stick to.
I’ve had films where I had an experience from learning English, how to understand the word pardon when I struggled back in school and that element I took from my personal experience into a film.
Then there’s other films that I have watched that had great twist endings and I really enjoy those and that inspired me to write a movie that has a great twist ending.
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Again, the process isn’t always linear.
You start from the character, then the plot, then the ending.
It’s never the way I do it.
Sometime I do it that way, and sometime I start from the ending.
What is the twist?
Sometimes I’ll start with a very specific scenario, a person who’s struggling with English and wants to learn a lesson. Or sometime it could be an object.
It could be anything that really sparks an idea.
Then I build a story around that initial whatever that thing is to build a full story.
That at least works for me.
I think everyone should be flexible and not really stick to the textbook of character, story, then plot and whatever the usual process is because then you are free to really think about anything you want whether it’s character first, whether it’s the environment or the feeling emotion, you want to people to feel when they watch that film.
Then you can build around whatever that thing is.
Film Courage: Do you think about writing short films the same way as doing a magic trick? I know magic is something you have in your repertoire. Is it similar?
Blake: Yeah, magic was something I really delved into for quite a long time, for almost 15 years…(Watch the video interview on YouTube here).
@blake.ridder Here’s my upcoming thriller feature length movie SPILL official teaser trailer.
♬ original sound – Blake Ridder
About:
Blake Ridder is a filmmaker, writer, director and actor, born in Shanghai and raised in the United Kingdom from the age of nine. He began acting in 2017, then wrote and directed his first short a year later. His feature debut, Help (2021), picked up multiple festival prizes and marked him as a fresh voice in contained psychological thrillers. Ridder’s horror follow-up, Manor of Darkness, was released in December 2025, while his third feature, the California-set suspense thriller Spill, is completed and heading for festivals/distribution. Across more than 70 shorts he has written, directed, and appeared in award winners such as The English Teacher (2020). He founded Ridder Films, an independent production company operating in Los Angeles and London, and launched the Ridder Film Festival in 2024 to spotlight emerging genre filmmakers. His behind-the-scenes filmmaking content has attracted an online audience of over half a million followers. Ridder speaks English and Mandarin fluently.
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