Charm FX

Posts Tagged ‘Creativity’

How many times have you seen an interesting idea completely trashed in the execution or promotion?

Why does this occur?  How can you avoid it?

Everything begins with knowing yourself…your strengths, understanding what you don’t know and what you aren’t skilled at, what your point of view is, what your response to the content you’re considering is.

It begins and ends there.  Without this you’re lost.

Too many are:

• trying to follow trends
• following some system (systems are fine for technical things, but not innovation)
• getting that shiny object or new piece of software that’s supposed to solve your problem (this isn’t the lottery folks!)

Just being human means you’ve got limitations like the rest of us.  Understanding what those are and working creatively with them can put you ahead of those who don’t.

Make a list of:

• your top two production skills
• the top two ideas you regularly think about & what the common thinking is
• list your current circumstances, i.e. money, time available, materials, help available from others for labor or collaboration, distractions and other obligations, etc.

Work with the first two in ways that explore the ideas you regularly think about in ways outside how most people think about them or implement them.  Use your circumstances as parameters for your process instead of thinking about them as limitations.

Often we never finish something or don’t clearly get our point across when we don’t consider who and where we are to begin with.  You may find your work becomes better from considerations of simplicity and elegance by working within a set of boundaries.

Please post any of your own insights or thoughts along this line below. : )

The exploding growth of social media tools & sites is changing how everyone does everything.

Are Artists different? Should marketers, news and casual conversation be the dominant content using these tools?

Slides and good images of visual art work are still important, but should their first destination be a gallery owner’s desk or the jury of an immense and pricey to attend craft show?

Head shots and a good reel are as important as ever for actors, but are casting calls and agents really the first place to be showing your work?

Is the default course for a first time producer to mortgage their home to produce their film and submit it to large film festival today?

What does your social “footprint” look like? How wide is your “net”? If you’re paying attention, what action steps are you taking?

In the 70s and 80s a common conversation in the arts and media was about how democratized media was becoming because of the “cheap” availability of video cameras. Almost nothing happened because the distribution infrastructure remained in the control of broadcast networks. The same has been the case for the visual arts and most forms of expression.

Art is the first technology! Without creative insight nothing moves forward. Distribution mechanisms are now truly open. Broadcast and distribution is playing catch up to what is trending on the net. Marketers and news is being delivered via net dominating more traditional distribution.

The only thing restricting creatives from dramatically increasing their influence and availability of their work is lack of familiarity with technology, and a choice to not exploit this technology. Reasons include everything from lack of time, lack of money, feeling it’s too commercial or just not being comfortable blowing your own horn.

Maybe these reasons have merit, maybe they don’t. In practical terms judging that gets us no where.

Broadcast and distribution is playing catch up to what is trending on the net. Marketers and news is being delivered via net dominating more traditional distribution.

This isn’t going away. This is how everything is getting done. The real choice is to either learn how to utilize it or surrender to those who are using it.

When the internet and television merge, as they already are doing, we’ll have lost an opportunity. Everyone learning the use of these technologies now has such an immense opportunity over those not using them that it’s hard to verbalize. If you’re reading this, you’re already ahead of the game and I congratulate you.

Please leave your thoughts in the comments below.