For those aspiring to be media professionals, inventors, artists, or creators of some sort: read the following article.
If you’ve been in any creative field for a while, you should be very familiar with that feeling of searching for a breakthrough but not being able to find one for weeks, months, even years sometimes. And you should also be very familiar with that very breakthrough you’ve been searching for waltz into your mind when you’re doing something completely mundane. Whether it be brushing your teeth or taking out the trash, we can all relate to that random, spontaneous eureka, why-the-hell-did-it-pop-into-my-head-now moment. I’ve actually been waiting for this feeling for a while now. The last GOOD thing that I’ve written, well, good in my head, was a few weeks before I actually started school in September, and I have yet to film it because the script is set outside during the Spring. It hurts to be in a creative void for any amount of time let alone months or even years. I’m going through one myself right now and it is terrible. I haven’t actually produced anything good since last Summer. I’m hoping something good comes along soon. But this article at least gave me some hope, reassuring previous techniques that I’ve used and inspiring new ones that I haven’t yet considered.
Basically, the article written by Mitch Ditkoff talks a bit about where breakthroughs come from, why they are important, and how much they are valued and why. The rest of the article gives the reader fourteen different techniques or considerations to be aware of while searching for a breakthrough. Most of which I have encountered, some of which I have never thought about. In this entry I’ll talk about the three most interesting that stuck out to me.
#12 Look for Happy Accidents:
Most of these were pretty self-explanatory just like this one. This is probably one of my favorite things in life. The happy accident. Many video and perhaps audio editors are familiar with this notion. There have been times when I have dragged a clip out on top of another clip but complete accident. Sometimes the two scenes won’t even be related, but when I play it back, it looks amazing and I would have never thought to do that otherwise. Several times when I edit to music, I will put a clip in a certain place or cut the clip at a certain place and it will fit the music perfectly. Like a person will sit down directly to the beat, or the scene would cut to black perfectly as the song ends, without even trying. It sounds boring but when it happens it feels pretty good. I like and dislike this suggestion. One shouldn’t necessarily look for happy accidents, waiting for them to fall into their hands. If someone does this then that happy accident will take a long time to come. And even when it does, all the waiting someone went through to finally find it will make it worthless and boring, taking the happy out of the happy accident, making it just an everyday coincidence. However, the fact that he mentions happy accidents and says to accept them is pretty good advice in my eyes. Not all accidents are necessarily bad.
#2 Immerse
I don’t necessarily like this technique. I practice it, however I am not a fan and usually would not suggest this to someone without suggesting the following technique. My father likes to say: “All things in moderation,” and I think that philosophy goes for everything. You shouldn’t eat too much, you shouldn’t diet too much either. You shouldn’t worry too much, but you shouldn’t be too indifferent. You shouldn’t work too much but you shouldn’t just put off work completely. Everything has a reasonable limit to it and those limits should be noted, when it comes to ANYTHING. Including brainstorming. If you spend all day trying to come up with a breakthrough, chances are, you’re just going to frustrate yourself. Which is why I believe Mr. Ditkoff wrote this last technique I’m going to talk about:
#8 Take a Break
You have to take a break from everything, whether it be exercise, writing a blog til 5 am, or creative thinking. All things in moderation applies to this as well. This is where the moderation sets in. Sure, immerse yourself in something for an hour or so then walk away from it, take at least another hour off of it. And then come back to it. Sometimes you’ll get the idea while you’re taking that break. But if you don’t take that break chances are you’ll just frustrate yourself. I think that number 8 and number 2 should actually be combined to make one legitimate, very helpful brainstorming technique.
Finally, I must answer one of the prompts that comes with each of these 14 techniques. I choose to answer number 9’s. The 9th technique being Notice and Challenge Existing Patterns and Trends.
What trends in the marketplace most intrigues you? In what ways might these trends shift in the coming years—and how might your most inspired idea be in sync with this imagined shift?
Many trends in the marketplace grab my interest, however one of the most annoying trends I find is this 3d technology. I personally think that all of the technology is really cool and quite amazing, however I dislike how it is being used in that people are now just producing movies left and right just to make them three dimensional. I feel like this technology of 3d TV’s within peoples homes as well as 3d cameras isn’t going to last very long. 3d video and film in my opinion is just a short trend that companies are using to generate some money. For films such as Pixar Movies, Starwars, and Avatar, I think the 3d approach is just fine and actually enhances the film, but I hope that this trend of just playing with the effect and ignoring the story goes away soon. In fact I know it will, because eventually everyone gets bored of everything. In fact I feel as if that’s one of the reasons this technology was released throughout the market in the first place.
I just bought a 1300 dollar camera so I don’t think that I’ll be filming any 3d movies any time soon or even experimenting with the technology, but I may or may not try to figure out how to add depth to regular 2 dimensional high definition raw footage within editing software programs such as the renowned after effects. Or I might just try to figure out how to create 3d models in 3d monitors. That would be a pretty cool experiment, pretty much what pixar is messing around with right now.
I agree about 3D technology... good post!
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