CREATIVITY HOMEWORK
How have you tried to facilitate and encourage your own creativity?
well we firstly did it by choosing our own genre, which meant that i was able to research and plan our film according to the conventions of the genre of horror, being the director i was involved in every stage of the process by coming up with creative ideas and insuring that it fit with the genre conventions, throughout the task i had the task of making quick decisions on our film. Being the director in my group made me to use my creativity to see how some things could be used in my groups work, for example we had to decide whether we should have body parts into our film, so my group presented their ideas to me then I needed to decide on whether I agreed with it or I had to come up with m y own idea, so I went back to think of which part would be best to suit where the body parts can go, through this I had to be creative to be able to come up with the right ideas that would make our film look like a good horror film.
Did you experience limits/blocks on your own creativity?
yes especially at first when i was made director of my main task, it meant that i had to come out of my comfort zone and become more confident to being a leader, so because i was a quite person my creativity in my group at first wasn’t a lot because i wasn’t really confident with the subject itself so i wasn’t motivated to work and become creative towards the task we were given.
How easy/difficult was it to be creative while still working to the brief?
Well it wasn’t difficult but it weren’t easy either a lot of research had to be done, from the research i then started thinking of ways they could take hand in my task in order to make the best film which was related to the genre. I needed to be really creative as i needed to have loads of ideas down in order to choose the best idea and look into it with depth.
Did working within conventions stifle your creativity?
Although I had to work within conventions, I could still develop and challenge these conventions if I wished to do so. My group took the conventions and storyboarded ideas that made use of them; instead of limiting us, they helped. We also found musical conventions together as we spoke about which ones we thought best suited our film, in order to keep the team work on track. Having conversations also made me develop my ideas or even come up with a better idea if my first idea wasn’t so good, conversations give me a backbone as i know what everyone in the group is thinking about so that my idea will appeal to all of them in the group. Conversations are really helpful to me it allows me to know what others are thinking and then i can implement my thoughts with theirs so that all i ideas are linked and are director towards on idea that we all share.
to make sure that i was on the right track i always needed to consult my group so that my ideas were right, also getting feedback from other people in other groups helped me add some things to my research and build on my idea as there were some people in my class who were more skilled in films. I had to work mainly with one of my media partners, Chante, we kept looking at all of our research, planning and ideas which allowed us to keep track of each other’s thoughts and ideas. In class, we combined our ideas together to create a storyboard which then became the base, and then we had to build it up and make it in to a film.
About 70 per cent of our shots from our film had been removed and re-filmed. This was because initially, we wanted to have a pan of our wall of credits however when we saw the pan the pan was shot it wasn’t perfect so we had to redo it until it was a perfect pan without any errors. We ended up refilling quite a few times because we wanted every shot to be exactly how we visualised, this trial and error method allowed us to learn from our mistakes and, although at the time it was stressful and repetitive, we had to make sure the filming was accurate, so that at the end we would be pleased with our film.
Well the only way i can encourage my creativity is to build my confidence, if i am confident enough then it means that i will be more comfortable top become more creative as i will be able to say what i think without worrying about me saying a stupid idea. so sometimes i try to put some ideas together on my own first as i like working on my own so that am away from distraction, then i try to work with people i know and m comfortable to be around with, this will allow me my creativity skills to run smoothly as i will be more free to say my ideas.
To what extent was a lack of technical competence/confidence an obstacle to your creativity?
One of the main obstacles that stood in the way of my creativity is that my knowledge of using the equipment made me to only concentrate on me not knowing how to use them instead of trying to find ways it would be needed in my main task. i lacked the technology skills this meant before i started my creativity i needed to firstly learn how the different gargets work so that i was able to see how i could implement them in my task. The worst was the MACS this hindered me from altering anything on our film as i dint know how to use the MACS i didn’t want to make any changes on the films because i was afraid of making a mistake due to this it really hindered my creativity on the Editing of the film because i allowed the lack of knowledge i had on technology hinder me from adding my own ideas to the way the film should look.
