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creativity
Posted by stephenpick
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Re: creativity November 05, 2009 07:53AM |
Don't teach one over the other. Teach them to value all parts of the production equally - whilst understanding some affect the audience more than others.
Bad sound can make an audience up and leave - whereas bad visuals will be tolerated or accepted if the sound is good. But always remember the context - what if your audience is deaf?
Will a bad script, bad direction or bad graphics mean they don't get employed as an editor? I doubt it.
Of course they should aspire (and you have to inspire them) to produce excellent ideas, then work on those ideas to produce excellent scripts, to direct a crew who want to produce beautiful pictures and direct a cast who want to act/perform in a believable way. Then strive to edit what you have in the a way that engages the (target) audience so they pay attention to your message(s).
But remember, that whilst you may wish to "create" creatives, most people are not born equal (mental, physical, position or wealth) and you simply cannot expect to make every square peg fit every round hole. Luckily video/film production takes all sorts of people with different capabilities and skills. Most medium to large productions are team efforts. If you teach them good team skills, listening skills and communication skills, then creativity can flourish in those environments.
Some people will make excellent online editors, graphic artists or DoPs but suck at writing or actor direction. If the syllabus calls for homogenous student types to be churned out; then you need to rectify that first and have a grade system based on what people CAN do and what they are suitable for - not whether they pass because they tick all the boxes. That doesn't achieve anything useable in the business world as I often have to re-teach key skills and awareness to Runners/Assistants who have BA or MA and they are often less useful and slower to adapt than say a 16 year old straight from school with a keen, opened-mind and a willingness to learn.
Sure, some people are regular "Renaissance men", they can do it all and do it all well. But most people are only good a few things and maybe only really good at one. It is as much to do with inherent capability as it is exposure/time to learn the craft.
However, if you want to nurture creative-thinking, then move away from the Macs (never use a PC unless for research purposes on "how not to make an computer/interface"
), turn off your phones, take the students out of class and get them to experience life - then talk/write about it.
Take them to people-watch in a mall or coffee shop and see how people adhere to or veer away from stereotypes. Tell them to use both ears and both eyes, to look and listen twice as hard as they speak, to take note of the world around them. Useful when creating believable characters and situations.
Ask them to get away from their home town to other counties, to other countries, to Europe and the rest of the world (instead of spending all their money on games/drugs/alcohol and going out - which they can do later when they get paid to be a media lovey
) and not to necessarily go to the usual places that the rest of the Brits hang-out either!
At the very least, get them to read about other cultures and traditions and read or watch the non-mainstream and more radical books and films. Watching mainstream TV and film output is like having a lobotomy - entertaining sometimes but certainly designed to numb you into buying the goods on offer in the commercial break, or the merchandise associated with the programme.
Read all about history, science, nature and technology - get a load of copies of something like New Scientist and watch presentations from TED [www.ted.com] - the real world is usually far more strange and exciting than many works of fiction. New technology and scientific explanations are ripe for stories or supporting stories for the human condition we find ourselves locked into.
Open their senses by spending 20 mins cloud watching and getting them to find patterns or familiar shapes, by closing their eyes and listening intently to the sounds of the world around them. Ask them to find 10 things about the world that they didn't know and then link them in a plausible story, take them out of their comfort zone and confront their fears, their desires, their addictions.
Ultimately you won't develop creativity by boxing them in a room and demanding they develop or likewise leaving them to stay in playing WoW or buried deep in a romance novel. You have to expose them to all of the above and as much of the universe and the history of it as possible.
The best you can do to encourage interesting ideas; is to open their minds and not try to impose limits on their experiences and imaginations.
I'll leave you with some quotes:
?Good writing is about letting go. It?s about losing your self-consciousness. It leads you to your truest self. And to enormous possibility. If you aren?t going to tell the Truth about your life, do something ? anything ? other than write.?
?Good writing has revelations. Readers want truths about their own lives.?
~ Nancy Kelton
?The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.?
~ Tom Clancy
?In Hollywood the woods are full of people that learned to write, but evidently can't read. If they could read their stuff, they'd stop writing.?
~ Will Rogers
?and a couple to remember
?Everywhere I go, I'm asked if the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.?
~ Flannery O'Connor
?Unleash the world on them, before you unleash them on the world or they will have nothing to say.?
~ Ben King
For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]
Bad sound can make an audience up and leave - whereas bad visuals will be tolerated or accepted if the sound is good. But always remember the context - what if your audience is deaf?
Will a bad script, bad direction or bad graphics mean they don't get employed as an editor? I doubt it.
Of course they should aspire (and you have to inspire them) to produce excellent ideas, then work on those ideas to produce excellent scripts, to direct a crew who want to produce beautiful pictures and direct a cast who want to act/perform in a believable way. Then strive to edit what you have in the a way that engages the (target) audience so they pay attention to your message(s).
But remember, that whilst you may wish to "create" creatives, most people are not born equal (mental, physical, position or wealth) and you simply cannot expect to make every square peg fit every round hole. Luckily video/film production takes all sorts of people with different capabilities and skills. Most medium to large productions are team efforts. If you teach them good team skills, listening skills and communication skills, then creativity can flourish in those environments.
Some people will make excellent online editors, graphic artists or DoPs but suck at writing or actor direction. If the syllabus calls for homogenous student types to be churned out; then you need to rectify that first and have a grade system based on what people CAN do and what they are suitable for - not whether they pass because they tick all the boxes. That doesn't achieve anything useable in the business world as I often have to re-teach key skills and awareness to Runners/Assistants who have BA or MA and they are often less useful and slower to adapt than say a 16 year old straight from school with a keen, opened-mind and a willingness to learn.
Sure, some people are regular "Renaissance men", they can do it all and do it all well. But most people are only good a few things and maybe only really good at one. It is as much to do with inherent capability as it is exposure/time to learn the craft.
However, if you want to nurture creative-thinking, then move away from the Macs (never use a PC unless for research purposes on "how not to make an computer/interface"
), turn off your phones, take the students out of class and get them to experience life - then talk/write about it.
Take them to people-watch in a mall or coffee shop and see how people adhere to or veer away from stereotypes. Tell them to use both ears and both eyes, to look and listen twice as hard as they speak, to take note of the world around them. Useful when creating believable characters and situations.
Ask them to get away from their home town to other counties, to other countries, to Europe and the rest of the world (instead of spending all their money on games/drugs/alcohol and going out - which they can do later when they get paid to be a media lovey
) and not to necessarily go to the usual places that the rest of the Brits hang-out either!
At the very least, get them to read about other cultures and traditions and read or watch the non-mainstream and more radical books and films. Watching mainstream TV and film output is like having a lobotomy - entertaining sometimes but certainly designed to numb you into buying the goods on offer in the commercial break, or the merchandise associated with the programme.
Read all about history, science, nature and technology - get a load of copies of something like New Scientist and watch presentations from TED [www.ted.com] - the real world is usually far more strange and exciting than many works of fiction. New technology and scientific explanations are ripe for stories or supporting stories for the human condition we find ourselves locked into.
Open their senses by spending 20 mins cloud watching and getting them to find patterns or familiar shapes, by closing their eyes and listening intently to the sounds of the world around them. Ask them to find 10 things about the world that they didn't know and then link them in a plausible story, take them out of their comfort zone and confront their fears, their desires, their addictions.
Ultimately you won't develop creativity by boxing them in a room and demanding they develop or likewise leaving them to stay in playing WoW or buried deep in a romance novel. You have to expose them to all of the above and as much of the universe and the history of it as possible.
The best you can do to encourage interesting ideas; is to open their minds and not try to impose limits on their experiences and imaginations.
I'll leave you with some quotes:
?Good writing is about letting go. It?s about losing your self-consciousness. It leads you to your truest self. And to enormous possibility. If you aren?t going to tell the Truth about your life, do something ? anything ? other than write.?
?Good writing has revelations. Readers want truths about their own lives.?
~ Nancy Kelton
?The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.?
~ Tom Clancy
?In Hollywood the woods are full of people that learned to write, but evidently can't read. If they could read their stuff, they'd stop writing.?
~ Will Rogers
?and a couple to remember
?Everywhere I go, I'm asked if the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.?
~ Flannery O'Connor
?Unleash the world on them, before you unleash them on the world or they will have nothing to say.?
~ Ben King
For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]
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Re: creativity November 05, 2009 09:47AM |
I think everybody has a movie inside. Some people have hundreds; some have only one. But everybody's got at least one movie inside.
The fastest way to squash creativity, in my opinion, is to get people implicitly comparing their movie to other people's movies in some sort of "good-bad" framework. Oh, my movie's never going to be as good as those movies, so why even bother.
Everybody who makes a movie ? and again, I believe everybody has a movie the could make ? should strive to make a good movie. But the bar for what defines a good movie is really rather low. I think it was Roger Ebert from whom I stole this line, but my rule for deciding whether a movie is good or not isn't to compare it to other good movies. It's to decide, for myself, whether watching that movie was better than staring at a blank screen for an equivalent length of time.
Sadly, many movies still don't pass this test for me, but whatever. It's subjective.
People who are making their first, and in most cases probably only, movie should be encouraged to make it the best their movie possible. It should still be their movie, not somebody else's movie because that's the "right" way to do it. But just because it's their movie doesn't mean it's okay to let it be bad, or to make it badly. People should be encouraged to ask themselves, all through the process, "is this movie as good as I can make it?" It should be entirely okay to stop writing ? or even stop directing, if you can afford to call lunch a little early ? and ask, "Would my movie be a better my movie if it had a time-traveling robot from the future?"
Of course, to answer that question the person making the movie should have at least some working understanding of what his own subjective idea of "better" is. And it doesn't have to be the same as everyone else's idea of what "better" is. Michael Bay, I'm sure, makes movies that he personally loves. I have a ? different opinion. But even if the whole world had a different opinion of what makes a good movie, wouldn't Michael Bay still be making the best his movies he could make? Wouldn't he still be doing it right? Okay, bad example.
My point here is that decisions when movies are being made should be driven by something, not random. And when random things happen (it rains on your location day, the female lead gets a pimple, you manage to shoot a whole day's worth of rushes out of focus) the decision about whether to keep those little accidents or fix them should be driven by something. And that something should be the urge to make the best your movie you can make.
I guess I'd sum it up this way: It is provably impossible to tell whether a movie will be good or not. You can't tell from the idea, you can't tell from the script, you can't tell from the rushes, you can't tell from the trailer, you can't tell from the first half. Sometimes you can't even tell after one viewing and have to go back for a second to be sure one way or the other. Point is, "goodness" is something that can't be guaranteed, and (with a lesser margin of error) neither is "badness." You can't tell from your idea whether a movie will be good or bad, because the movie hasn't been made yet. But if you start with an idea that you care about ? your idea ? and make the movie with constant attention on making it the best your movie it can be, then the odds are really good you'll make a movie that's at least good ? at least to you. Whether anybody agrees with you ? well, screw 'em, the philistines. Let 'em go watch Michael Bay make explosions explode.
The fastest way to squash creativity, in my opinion, is to get people implicitly comparing their movie to other people's movies in some sort of "good-bad" framework. Oh, my movie's never going to be as good as those movies, so why even bother.
Everybody who makes a movie ? and again, I believe everybody has a movie the could make ? should strive to make a good movie. But the bar for what defines a good movie is really rather low. I think it was Roger Ebert from whom I stole this line, but my rule for deciding whether a movie is good or not isn't to compare it to other good movies. It's to decide, for myself, whether watching that movie was better than staring at a blank screen for an equivalent length of time.
Sadly, many movies still don't pass this test for me, but whatever. It's subjective.
People who are making their first, and in most cases probably only, movie should be encouraged to make it the best their movie possible. It should still be their movie, not somebody else's movie because that's the "right" way to do it. But just because it's their movie doesn't mean it's okay to let it be bad, or to make it badly. People should be encouraged to ask themselves, all through the process, "is this movie as good as I can make it?" It should be entirely okay to stop writing ? or even stop directing, if you can afford to call lunch a little early ? and ask, "Would my movie be a better my movie if it had a time-traveling robot from the future?"
Of course, to answer that question the person making the movie should have at least some working understanding of what his own subjective idea of "better" is. And it doesn't have to be the same as everyone else's idea of what "better" is. Michael Bay, I'm sure, makes movies that he personally loves. I have a ? different opinion. But even if the whole world had a different opinion of what makes a good movie, wouldn't Michael Bay still be making the best his movies he could make? Wouldn't he still be doing it right? Okay, bad example.
My point here is that decisions when movies are being made should be driven by something, not random. And when random things happen (it rains on your location day, the female lead gets a pimple, you manage to shoot a whole day's worth of rushes out of focus) the decision about whether to keep those little accidents or fix them should be driven by something. And that something should be the urge to make the best your movie you can make.
I guess I'd sum it up this way: It is provably impossible to tell whether a movie will be good or not. You can't tell from the idea, you can't tell from the script, you can't tell from the rushes, you can't tell from the trailer, you can't tell from the first half. Sometimes you can't even tell after one viewing and have to go back for a second to be sure one way or the other. Point is, "goodness" is something that can't be guaranteed, and (with a lesser margin of error) neither is "badness." You can't tell from your idea whether a movie will be good or bad, because the movie hasn't been made yet. But if you start with an idea that you care about ? your idea ? and make the movie with constant attention on making it the best your movie it can be, then the odds are really good you'll make a movie that's at least good ? at least to you. Whether anybody agrees with you ? well, screw 'em, the philistines. Let 'em go watch Michael Bay make explosions explode.
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Re: creativity November 05, 2009 10:49AM |
IMHO (what I do as a Designer / Editor):
Creativity is subjective. It is opinionated. It is a flow of ideas that is transferable to an electronic medium (in my case). I don't draw. I don't play any instruments (well). I don't paint. I don't sculpt. I am a product of the digital age. Creativity comes easy to some...and is like giving birth to others. I experience BOTH. I am in a position where I have to be creative ON CALL...with people watching me...waiting for me...emailing and calling me...and it has to look effortless and organic in the final product. That is why the tools MUST be efficient. When the tools are efficient, they become transparent. When you don't have to worry about this short-cut or clicking 5 times to get an effect or rendering every transition, the CREATIVITY FLOWS...it allows you to work FASTER...molding and shaping the Design / Story and getting that "instant gratification" that we crave as Artists.
Best thing I can suggest to inspire creativity...is take in and appreciate the arts - all of them. Study Art & Architecture. Study light. Study people. There's so much to learn...it never ends.
I guess acording to jeff I am a philistine because I like Michael Bay....but then again, I am a big SciFi geek and proud of it
There is a place for huge blockbuster VFX films that "make explosions explode"...you can just eat your popcorn and take in the images without debating aesthetic purpose. On the other hand, I appreciate the work done on these epic 3D / VFX scenes and I am a credit watcher as well. I appreciate what goes into each frame and the Artists that create them.
When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.
Creativity is subjective. It is opinionated. It is a flow of ideas that is transferable to an electronic medium (in my case). I don't draw. I don't play any instruments (well). I don't paint. I don't sculpt. I am a product of the digital age. Creativity comes easy to some...and is like giving birth to others. I experience BOTH. I am in a position where I have to be creative ON CALL...with people watching me...waiting for me...emailing and calling me...and it has to look effortless and organic in the final product. That is why the tools MUST be efficient. When the tools are efficient, they become transparent. When you don't have to worry about this short-cut or clicking 5 times to get an effect or rendering every transition, the CREATIVITY FLOWS...it allows you to work FASTER...molding and shaping the Design / Story and getting that "instant gratification" that we crave as Artists.
Best thing I can suggest to inspire creativity...is take in and appreciate the arts - all of them. Study Art & Architecture. Study light. Study people. There's so much to learn...it never ends.
I guess acording to jeff I am a philistine because I like Michael Bay....but then again, I am a big SciFi geek and proud of it
There is a place for huge blockbuster VFX films that "make explosions explode"...you can just eat your popcorn and take in the images without debating aesthetic purpose. On the other hand, I appreciate the work done on these epic 3D / VFX scenes and I am a credit watcher as well. I appreciate what goes into each frame and the Artists that create them.When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.
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Re: creativity November 05, 2009 02:55PM |
Quote
I guess acording to jeff I am a philistine because I like Michael Bay
I was sort of trying to make the opposite point, but I guess I was too facetious. What I was saying was that a good film is one that the "creator" ? whomever that person or humongous army of people happens to be ? feels best embodies the vision they had. Comparing two movies is inherently difficult, unless of course there are obvious points of comparison like a sequel or a remake or something.
I guess what I meant was that it doesn't have to be great to be good. Great is scary. Great is this bar you couldn't possibly hope to live up to. Great is Godard and Welles and Malick and all these guys. Being intimidated by greatness kills creativity dead.
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Re: creativity November 27, 2009 04:02PM |
> Great is Godard and Welles and Malick and all these guys. Being intimidated by greatness kills
> creativity dead.
Excellent point. This is precisely what's wrong with most film-school curricula -- they shove Tarkovsky, Kurosawa, Bergman, Eisenstein and Fellini down your throats, resulting in many artsy-fartsy film students who are utter snobs, but completely incapable of creating new images of their own because they're brainwashed by the "greats". Having one's visualization skills stuck in the '30s is not healthy at all. You take what you need from the greats, and then you move on.
That's why I insist on my film students using films like Die Hard, Total Recall, Pretty Woman and Night of the Living Dead as study material. Not foreign films that they are afraid to criticize because they don't speak the language. Studying "popcorn" films is the best way to learn film technique because those are the films you don't "think" about; you absorb them directly. A Michael Bay film will never invite you to dissect its methods -- that's why it's such prime material for study.
As for creativity, the best way to get creative is to find out what you have to say. Studying other films only gives you tools. Living life is what gives you your unique raw material. So I'd encourage film students to avoid burying themselves in moving images. Go out. Meet some people. Join a community group. Support a cause. Spend time with people you love. That gives you the messages you want to convey, and then technical training and aesthetic studies give you the tools with which you can convey your own unique messages.
www.derekmok.com
> creativity dead.
Excellent point. This is precisely what's wrong with most film-school curricula -- they shove Tarkovsky, Kurosawa, Bergman, Eisenstein and Fellini down your throats, resulting in many artsy-fartsy film students who are utter snobs, but completely incapable of creating new images of their own because they're brainwashed by the "greats". Having one's visualization skills stuck in the '30s is not healthy at all. You take what you need from the greats, and then you move on.
That's why I insist on my film students using films like Die Hard, Total Recall, Pretty Woman and Night of the Living Dead as study material. Not foreign films that they are afraid to criticize because they don't speak the language. Studying "popcorn" films is the best way to learn film technique because those are the films you don't "think" about; you absorb them directly. A Michael Bay film will never invite you to dissect its methods -- that's why it's such prime material for study.
As for creativity, the best way to get creative is to find out what you have to say. Studying other films only gives you tools. Living life is what gives you your unique raw material. So I'd encourage film students to avoid burying themselves in moving images. Go out. Meet some people. Join a community group. Support a cause. Spend time with people you love. That gives you the messages you want to convey, and then technical training and aesthetic studies give you the tools with which you can convey your own unique messages.
www.derekmok.com
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