Creativity is the ability to think outside of the box and make something new and imaginative. During my AS and A2 projects, creativity was a key part of my designing process, and made sure that I made something new and original. There were however, some constraints placed upon my creativity in both tasks. I had to follow a set of rules and conditions when I created my pieces, and it could be said that this held back my creativity slightly.
In the modern world, technology plays a large role in our everyday lives. It surrounds us, and this is also true in the media world. All aspects of creating a media piece are technological now, from the internet for research, to Photoshop for designing. Whether these new technologies enhance our creativity or not is a big question though. On the one hand, all of these new technologies make it far easier for the modern creator to make an idea into reality. Technologies such as, Photoshop, Sony Vegas, Final Cut Pro, even Microsoft Word, all allow an idea to become something physical. They give us the tools to experiment and mould our ideas into something new and exciting, which would have been lost to a degree before such programs were created. Better cameras and recording equipment also do the same, making it far easier for a budding director to get their story board made into a high quality film that all can see. On a bigger scale, the advancements in CGI have made anything possible for the film industry. Films that were seen as impossible to ever film successfully like, ‘The Lord of the Rings Trilogy’ and ‘Life of Pi’, can now be seen on the big screen thanks to advancements in technology, and the creativity they bring. Therefore, I disagree with the idea that technology has taken the creativity out of media production.
During my AS and A2 tasks, I have thought creatively on a variety of different instances. For both of my tasks, my creativity was hampered slightly by the conventions of the things I was making. These conventions were there to be used and ignored as I pleased, but it was essential that I followed some of the conventions set up by my genre of magazine and music video. Bentley said however that creativity is, “The making of the new and the rearranging of the old.” This means that although the conventions of other texts may have placed some restraints on me, it was my ability to use these conventions for my own work, and change and add to them that ensured I was still being creative.
Another common idea surrounding creativity is that a piece that is too well planned, lacks opportunities to be spontaneous and creative. I once again disagree with this view, as the process of research and planning ensures that the creativity presented is more thought out and intuitive. Without a degree of research and planning, a project can never reach its full potential, as it will encounter problems and issues that only research and planning would have been able to prevent. The fact that planning a task holds back the creative flow is debateable as it is this planning that allows the creator to really think through their work and look at new and interesting ways to complete their goal. Without planning it is likely that many media pieces would fall into the same problems time and time again, whereas with planning, it can be ensured that the piece runs smoothly and gives way for creative resolutions to problems that may come up.
In my AS task, my creativity was more controlled as I was knew to media and was learning as I went on. My magazine was largely based upon the common conventions of similar music magazine designs, and so my creativity was limited slightly. I was also held back by needing to reserve my magazine for one chosen genre of music, cutting off a lot of possible creative ideas that could have come from a greater scope of genres. The design, was largely up to me however, barring some of the conventions of other magazines, and I was able to put forward my creativity into the layout of the pages, and the image editing and typography I used in them. My A2 task had more scope for creative thinking as I chose a song that bordered two genres of music, ‘Evidence’ by Marilyn Manson which is a mix of rock and heavy metal. This allowed me to really play around with the ideas for my music video, and the eerie sound that the music brought gave me a huge opportunity to develop a creative narrative to run throughout the video. I was once again held back slightly by the conventions of similar videos, trying to keep the costume and theme quite representative of Marilyn Manson’s other music videos to make sure it fit in with them and wouldn’t stand out too much.
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