Normally, we create out of a desire, out of inspiration that comes in many different forms, whether it be business ideas, marketing concepts or works of art. By being part of a month-long initiative to create something every day, the onus is switched from inspiration to perspiration – we are forced to work to conjure something to post or begin.
Of course, creation-to-order is nothing new – media and ad agencies1 develop fresh, innovative ideas every day, under pressures from clients only too happy to take their business elsewhere if they’re are unimpressed.
So can creativity be forced? Is it possible to access the hidden banks of ideas in our heads to keep the creativity waterfall flowing, or are the people who do it day-in, day-out simply overwhelmingly talented and in touch with their creative hemisphere in their heads?
Truly creative people are able to create from nothing in an instant. It may not be a polished, finished product or idea, but their brains work in such a way as to always be able to supply something. But I also believe that there’s no such thing as a “non-creative” – everyone is capable of it, one just needs to learn how to harness the creative muscle and make it work for you like anything else.
As I headed to bed this evening, it occurred to me that I hadn’t written anything on the blog today. Sure, I busied myself with updating and catching up on The Indie Film Hub, which had also been hit by my minor health detour last week, but did that qualify under #Trust30 rules?
What is “creation” – how do we define it? How do I define it is probably the more pertinent question; the one thing we can safely say about all art and creativity is that it’s entirely subjective.
For me, this blog represents creation; the Hub represents curation, a very different thing. Even though I create new content to post every day, what I’m actually doing is curating the content I believe to be of value to other filmmakers and people who work in film. The content itself – the lessons, the examples, the information – is all created by the hugely talented people whose blogs, websites and newsletters I read every day.
So what is creation? For me, creation is about intent. Creation is about originating something that serves a purpose. It doesn’t have to be a higher purpose. It doesn’t even have to be a purpose that matters to anyone else. When I first started blogging, I wrote entirely for myself, to motivate me and to explore my life and my feelings. That’s a purpose. That’s creation.
By that definition, I suppose the Hub does represent that. So why doesn’t it feel that way?
What’s your definition of creation? Is it word-count, impact, intention? Or is it more ethereal, more intangible?
After the travails of the last three weeks1, it’s time to get back to the business of blogging and creating top-quality content for all my readers again.
#Trust30 is a month-long commitment to create something new every day for 30 days, whether it’s blogging, writing, painting, filmmaking or anything in between. The aim is simple to create.
I’m committed, are you? If you’ll be taking part, leave us a link to your site in the comments so we can all help to hold each other accountable.
detailed in 3 posts on my Journal Blog here, here and http://www.olilewington.co.uk/smilethroughit/2011/05/31/the-sage-concluded/ [↩]
Inspiration comes from many quarters all around us. Sometimes it’s something we see, sometimes something we here. A lot of times for me it’s things I read.
Poke The Box is all about starting, initiating, changing the status quo without fear of failure. Reading it struck a chord with me. Not only had I decided to give up fear for lent, but I was also living a more fearless life, committing myself to things and driving myself forward in several areas of my life, albeit slowly.
While going through my RSS feed one day, I wondered if it wouldn’t be nicer to have a single place on the ‘net that collects all of the best content, particularly for filmmakers. There’s Hollywood Wiretap – a great site for news on big studio movies – but nothing really similar for blog posts and articles that are aimed at, written by and for the benefit of independent filmmakers.
TheIndieFilmHub.com was born in mere moments and, no sooner had the idea come to me than I had set about making it happen. This project, which launched yesterday, is my poke at the box, my attempt to get something shipped when other projects and ideas have been stagnating or not progressing as quickly as I’d have liked.
The Indie Film Hub is a place indie filmmakers can go to find the best, most useful, most relevant and entertaining content on the web, all personally curated. Every post on the site is hand-picked by a real, genuine human being – no bots, no aggregators, no automation whatsoever.
I hope, in time, it will become a great resource for filmmakers and be the first stop on their hunt for content. But if not, at least I started something. At least I poked the box.
In today’s world, it’s harder and harder to find anywhere that doesn’t have Wi-Fi access. Much to my surprise1, one of those places is the campus coffee shop of City University2, which has a connection so slow as to be pretty much useless.
Unfortunately for the new website I’m planning and prepping, it just wasn’t as viable a work option as I’d hoped. Instead, with no real ‘net access to speak of, I managed to write a rough draft of the first two thirds of my new eBook3.
I’ve been planning and meaning to write the book for the last couple of months, but something always gets in the way, whether it’s my own procrastination, a feeling of too little time or a simple perception of “writer’s block”.
Today, by getting away from my usual distractions and by having almost literally nothing else to do, I settled down, I focused and I ploughed through way more, way faster than I ever thought I would.
The next time you have something you really want to do but can’t seem to find the time, see what happens when you move yourself away from your usual workspace and take yourself to a place where you can’t be distracted by the usual things. Be it a park, a library or anywhere that doesn’t offer fast-as-lighting internet access, find the place that fits and see just how much you plough through.
I see many more days of internet-off writing ahead of me. Let me know what you think if you’ve tried it, or if you have your own tricks for getting super-productive.
where I accompanied my fiancée to calm her nerves before her exam today [↩]
which I have also now announced to the world, giving myself accountability and therefore less ability to avoid it, but more on that in a future post [↩]
Sometimes the best thing a writer and filmmaker can do is get out from behind their screen and make a conscious effort to connect with what’s going on in the world around them.
A Twitter buddy of mine this week posed the following question:
Would you use [product placement] to fund / part finance a film?
Followed closely by this Tweet, which makes no secret which way he’s leaning.
All this is, of course, highly appropriate just now with the UK about to start allowing product placement for the first time.1
I do think product placement has a place in helping to fund the TV and film industry over here. Apart from anything else, who are we to turn down sources of funding to get things made – not just for us but, potentially, more and better off-the-wall, risky TV drama and other formats it may help fund?
The issue for me always comes with the compromise that a filmmaker or an artist has to accept in order to allow for product placement. If you have to change elements of your script to accommodate a product you need to take a long, hard look at the reasons behind it and not fool yourself that it’s a “creative” decision.
That’s not to say all changes in the name of placement are a bad thing2 but I would always shy away from placement-based rewrites that affected anything more than a passing glance or irrelevant detail.
The key decider for any product placement-based changes has to be this: if someone were offering you the same sum of money without a product to push, would you make the changes they’re suggesting just because they’re giving you the cash?
If the answer’s “yes” then either a) they’re surprisingly good story analysts and you struck luck or b) you’re a sell-out and I wish you a long and happy career. Just don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re making great art as you pander to the the money-men’s whims.
It’s entirely possible to incorporate product placement in a creative and ethical way, but we should all beware of those people who will become slaves to the product, rather than serving their story.
The BBC have got a great article on it and its perceived impact here [↩]
you wouldn’t see a huge amount of harm in switching a character’s car from a Ford to a Seat, for instance, as long as it says the same things about his life, social status etc [↩]
Welcome to another new LOWDOWN, that part of the Production Office that brings you tips and tricks on all the tools you need to enhance your career as a filmmaker and creative.
Today, it’s Productivity.
Anyone who follows my blog will know I’m pretty hot on productivity. For far too long I spent my days being busy, but rarely productive. Since harnessing some of the tools I’m talking about today and putting some best practices of getting things done into place, I’ve become much more focused, much more productive and much more successful.
Let’s have a look, then, at some of the tools you can use to make your life easier.
EVERNOTE
Evernote comes at the top of the list today for two reasons: number one, it’s the tool I was most recently introduced to and two, it’s the tool I now find the most invaluable.
Evernote is a desktop and web-based app that you can also get for almost all smart phones. It’s free to get started, but if you go over a certain storage limit you have to start paying. That said, I’ve used it quite a lot and still not exceeded my free allowance.
What Evernote does is to collect together all those bits and pieces of things on the web that you want to take note of, as well as allowing you to compile your own To Do lists, projects and other notes. It’s the simplest, cheapest and easiest way of keeping track of just about everything you need to remember. The Evernote logo isn’t an elephant for nothing.
THINGS
The second tool that works hard to keep you on time and on-topic is Things. The biggest down side? It’s Mac-only. So all you Windows dinosaurs can’t take advantage of it. You also have to pay around £30 for it, which puts it a step below Evernote to begin with.
Once you get past those elements, though, Things is brilliant for tracking To Do’s, project files, notes and reminders. Most usefully, though – and what helps to elevate Things to a point worth paying for – is it’s interaction and syncability1 with iCal and iPhone. If you use Apple’s MobileMe syncing solution to share your calendar across all your home computers, like I do, Things swaps and shares data seamlessly with not only all of your computers, but your phone as well. An invaluable way of keeping track of everything you need to know when you need to know it.
BASECAMP
There are numerous online project management tools that help you and all your collaborators to keep track of all the strands that make up your project, but the best one I’ve found (and used) is Basecamp.
Unlike other, equally useful online tools like Huddle, it’s Basecamp’s pricing structure that really makes it stand out. You pay a flat monthly fee from $24 (£15) and upwards that allows unlimited numbers of people to join your project and work on things with you. Huddle, by contrast, charges you per user per month, meaning a major film or creative project would quickly rack up sizable fees.
Basecamp2 is best used for sharing documents and keeping track of project timelines and goals in a way that everyone involved can see. Not only is that a great motivational tool – if everyone know what you should be doing, you’d better be doing it – but also a great way of making sure key things don’t get missed and that everyone knows the timeline their working to and the goals their aiming for.
There are hundreds of different tools of productivity for you to explore, but I’d suggest you limit yourself to trying one or two at a time, otherwise you risk undoing all their good work by spending all day getting to know them and setting them up as opposed to using them to help get your work done.
For more o productivity, keep an eye on my blog here, as well as checking out the99percent and lifehacker, my two online bibles of productivity tips and tools.
Starting a debate is a great way to engage your creative muscles. Not only does it force you to examine your own perspectives, it also opens you up to taking on board new ideas.
Great debates create new angles to examine problems and new ways to solve them.
As a writer, stirring debate can also help you to write both sides of an argument. I frequently start writing scenes between two characters and realise that it’s totally one-sided because I agree strongly with one of the characters. By entering a debate with my friends and Twitter buddies, I can get different views and arguments that help me round out my characters in a much more successful way.
What debates have you used to aid your writing or creativity? How did you get them started – is the interactivity of Twitter the best way to go, or the public discussion of Facebook?
One of the interesting things about taking on a challenge like #Trust30 is the imperative to create.
