How do you come up with scenes?

[Agent]

Usually I just try to visualize the scenes I'm writing in my mind... But your way sounds much more fun, so I'm going to have to do that from now on. ;)

[Ward]

Ugh,ok. As a side hobby, I cast and paint lead/tin toy soldiers. Once in a while I will use them as a layout for a scene just to keep the location of all the characters straight. I wish I had done more of that in my book, since my wife just found a place where I blew up the same space ship twice. Ooops!

[Doc]

I usually just watch the movie version in the theater of my mind and just type down descriptions of what is playing. But I can see the advantage of staging rehearsals.

Could be worse. You could be drafting your friends and family to play the characters...

Doc

[A.G.]

I often jump up from my desk with a tape measure or pace out a scene.
I find the biggest boost comes from starting an open source animation program called blender. I find that building a 3d model often helps me to visualize the details with more accuracy.
In my mind, I may have seen a concrete landing pad, supported above the water by columns but in blender I have to put in the details or it just looks like garbage. Before you know it, there are large chunks of concrete missing from the columns and water stains everywhere. Maybe there are jury rigged lights with corroded power conduits stapled in a haphazard fashion to the sides of the low concrete safety walls...

Then I can animate the scene and turn it into a trailer...