Q1a: CREATIVITY

creativity

**don't forget to have a look at the list of posts linked to creativity**  NB: edited for CIAE spec

9 BASIC POINTS

Some general advice on how to approach the 1a topics:

1. DON'T write out the question - good practice in a longer essay, but not when you've only got 30mins
2. Any plan should be very brief, simply the themes or topics (see point 5) you intend to explore (hopefully remembering the examples won't be a problem)
3. Clearly state the AS + A2 briefs you followed [opening 2 mins of feature film; MVid]
4. Provide a BRIEF synopsis [narrative outline] of each, including title + genre - you MUST enable the marker to have a sense of what you produced
5. Pick out anywhere from 2-5 themes or topics [ANALYSIS, ARGUMENT] to use as frameworks for comparing and contrasting AS + A2 
6. For each of these it is absolutely vital you provide specific, detailed denotation [USE OF EXAMPLES] from both texts
7. Use semiotic TERMINOLOGY as you do so, but also concepts such as convergence, web 2.0 etc
8. As you finish each topic/paragraph, double check: have you provided specific denotation/examples to illustrate your point? If you don't you could potentially lose all the marks for examples as the examiner will have nothing to go on - you have to make it easy for them to visualise what you mean
9. For many of the DCRUP topics its worth addressing some of the things you rejected; giving a sense of your decision-making process, or of quality control if you like

FURTHER BRIEF POINTERS

Do read the much more extensive detail below, but here's a few briefer points to guide you on this:

CREATIVITY WITH... - Q1a will feature 1 or 2 CRUD concepts; it isn't necessarily helpful to prep this one in isolation, but rather prep 4 answers, combining Creativity with the remaining CRUD in turn. Nonetheless, when doing this consider...

CREATIVITY IS... - Your decision-making process, spanning from early research (espec influence of existing texts/[Use of] conventions + your target audience) + planning (how did available locations, cast, props + other mise-en-scene to name but 4 influence your work?) R+P: Whats the relationship between almost bureaucratic efficient time management + shot-by-shot planning + more spontaneous creation through taking coverage/seeking inspiration whilst on set/location? (see the eg quotes from filmmakers like Loach + Considine below; without too much effort you could find such quotes from music vid directors too). For both R+P and Post-Production analyse the role of audience feedback and how it altered your creative vision (improved? expanded? complemented or supplemented? think too of examples where you stood by your creative ideas despite negative feedback). How did Digital Technology facilitate gathering audience feedback, and how did you make this more useful/pertinent than at AS (think web 2.0 here)? With both Digital Technology and Post-Production how did software and hardware (separate points really) influence your creative process; did editing/filming see your ideas change from storyboard/animatic stage? Did any superior equipment, or experimenting more with manual controls, widen your options? Was the influence of Use of Conventions limited to early planning stages, or did you employ some new influences at a late (Post-Production) stage, perhaps as a result of experimenting with the software (Digital technology)? Did you Research a wider range of texts (and text types or formats) to seek useful Use of Conventions at A2?

You can see from the above paragraph that the CRUD concepts are tightly interlinked.

AUTEUR/INFLUENCES: BINARY OPPOSITION OR INEVITABLE IN POSTMODERN AGE? - As repeatedly flagged up below, look for specific influences (Use of Conventions/R+P), especially an individual director. You need to be clear on their individual hallmarks. At AS its hard not to spoon in bits of Carpenter and Craven especially (or other relevant directors for your genre); the potential range of influences is massively increased for the A2 brief. Do consider too though what are the early signs of YOUR distinct/unique style, looking across all the work (incl. practice projects) at AS + A2? Do you see certain editing styles; themes (maybe aspects of representation: feminist aspects for example); quirkiness or other features emerging - do you think you can begin to define your style, or is it still too early? Are there common features across your AS/A2 despite working with different people? [Use of.../R+P:] The pomo point is simple enough: is it possible to make a media text today that isn't a form of bricolage (assembling existing ideas but trying to be distinctive by juxtaposing contrasting elements)? [NEGUS could also be applied here: basic: generecist; developing: pastichist; distinctive: synthesist] Was there any idea, no matter how oddball it initially seemed, you couldn't justify with an existing example [Use of.../R+P/Dig.Tech]? You might even address the point to what extent you've created a simulacrum (Baudrillard) of place/gender/age; artist; character archetypes etc across the two years.

ART V COMMERCE/AUDIENCE: ANOTHER BINARY OPPOSITION? - What I'm driving at here is the tension between making something which works commercially (a film which attracts a sufficiently large audience; a video/d'pak/ad that sells the product) and something which is an individualistic (within the group context) artistic statement. Can these be reconciled, or is the need to reflect [Use of] Conventions so overwhelmingly vital that your wilder, more expressive ideas had to be abandoned? Its worth considering how you developed non-linear aspects + probably enigma codes (open ending?) in A2.

MORE THEORY? USE http://prodeval.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/characteristics-of-music-video.html - There's plenty of pertinent brief quotes from a range of media theorists in there. Some selected material on audience or genre theory (just make sure you don't repeat yourself in 1b or you risk being marked down) might be useful. Web 2.0 and postmodernism really should feature.

BOTTOM LINE... - Its only 30mins, so you can only cover a few points in any detail; for any point you're considering pick out specific AS and A2 examples to very clearly + precisely illustrate your point, stressing the development from AS to A2. 1b is the more theory-packed, but even so a 1a answer should be citing at least three theories/theorists.

For this particular topic its important to give some sense of process - a sense that there was a decision-making process. So, give some examples of possibilities you considered but rejected as well as addressing what ended up in your final cuts.

Also, don't get hung up on trying to prove everything you did was original; factors which mitigated against your creative expression are relevant to the question, and you could of course use the postmodern argument. Assuming much of your work was directly inspired by certain films/shows/directors/scenes, how did you manage to (re-)create similar effects?

You could combine aspects of the list below into possible themes or topics (Media Language stands out as the key concern) such as:

• EDITING/SFX/USE OF ICT
• HARDWARE (camera/s + manual controls, dollies etc)
• TITLES
• DIRECTING/CAST
• MISE-EN-SCENE (incl COSTUME, PROPS, SETS etc)
• CINEMATOGRAPHY
• SOUND/MUSIC
• R+P; INTERTEXTUALITY
• (links into) GENRE
• (in turn links into) NARRATIVE

[ORIGINAL POST]
I'll remind you firstly of some of the prompts suggested earlier:

•     What features of your work would you say are original to you?
•     Which media texts and producers have influenced your creative decisions?
•     How successfully does your work engage its audience and provoke its interest?
•     Consider some of the creative choices you had to make during the course of your production – how to use cameras, lighting, dialogue, colour etc. How did you make these decisions, and how did these contribute to the final production?

Spider diagrams are one useful way to approach your notes in preparation for this. We will practice at least one timed question, in class, for Q1a + Q1b, so be ready for this, though you should also start practicing this at home, perhaps swapping with a colleague to mark and feedback on these. (It would make sense to work closely with your group partner/s at AS/A2 to help each other work out which examples from your work best illustrate the various points below)

Some broad concepts to consider for this topic:

AUTEUR?

LIMITATIONS

THE TASK/REMIT

GENERIC/FORMULAIC v ORIGINALITY

PROGRESSION

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK
PLANNING v SPONTANEITY?

There is overlap between all 5 DCRUP topics, so detailed preparation for any one will help with preparation for any other. There is again clear overlap between all the 7 broad headings above
, so use these simply as suggestions and organise your notes in whatever way you find most useful.
It might be an idea to use the concept of auteur as a centrepoint to your response on Creativity, discussing and evaluating the other points with reference to this - I'll try to hunt down an essay plan from a few years back on the auteur concept to further help with this, and post it at the bottom of this post
It is worth making some links into industry practice; linking the way you worked - or, perhaps, the way you'd ideally have worked - with the way a typical feature film crew would work.

As you work through this always remember to illsutrate your points with specific examples from your work.

You should not write a long intro for any DCRUP topic. HOWEVER, a BRIEF summary of what you did at AS and A2 should be your starting point:

At AS I created the opening two minutes of a new feature film (following on from a basic preliminary task), working within the slasher sub-genre of horror. I stuck with this genre/I chose [genre] at A2, creating a teaser trailer/short film.

AUTEUR? [some possible points to address]
A term used by French theorists in the film journal Cahiers du Cinema from the 1950s to proclaim the director as 'author' of a film, partially in an attempt to put cinema on the same level as literature. Hitchcock, with films such as Psycho, was the first Hollywood-based director to be proclaimed an auteur, breaking with the previous tradition of Europeans viewing Hollywood as trash cinema.

Fundamentally, in what ways is your personality, perhaps even your own ideology [belief system, values, outlook on life], stamped on your AS, A2 work?

Do you think you have developed a style that others could recognise between the 2 productions? (What would signify this/how would it be identified? Even if you worked on different genres, consider the cases of Danny Boyle and Quentin Tarantino, who both work in a variety of genres yet have quite distinctive styles. Then you have the genre auteurs such as John Carpenter and Wes Craven - though its arguable that if there if isn't some social issue explored in their work they can't be termed auteur)

If working within a group did this submerge your 'voice'? Or did your creative visions work seamlessly and in harmony, like the Coen brothers? Did your production benefit from having additional creative minds, or would you have preferred to work alone (if you did work alone, consider the opposite)? Are there aspects which clearly mark out the distinctive contributions/influence/style of each individual group member (or perhaps just 1 of the other 2)?

Did you/your group take every single shot, or was a camera operated at times by colleagues? [consider the common practice of having 2nd units, including 2nd unit director]

Did you act in your own production (or make a cameo, as ol' Hitch did in every one of his movies!)?
If in a group, was there a particular area of focus for you? (scripting, storyboarding, sound, set dressing/costume/make-up/SFX [mise-en-scene], editing, cinematography, directing, producing [organising resources and shoots] etc)

What about actors/cast? Did they have any creative input?
Consider the potential importance of actors' IMPROV (improvisation); this excerpt from an article on Russell Crowe provides good eg's:

Some of the best lines in the movies have been delivered by actors straying from the script. Bogart's immortal, "Here's looking at you, kid," in Casablanca was something he used to say to Ingrid Bergman while they played poker between takes. Robert De Niro dreamed up Taxi Driver's "You talkin' to me?". The script simply read: "Travis speaks to himself in the mirror." Jack Nicholson's "Here's Johnny!", Orson Welles's "cuckoo clock" line, Brando's "I coulda been a contender!" from On The Waterfront – all improvised. It comes naturally to the greatest actors. And the wisest directors know when to let them roam free, as Ridley Scott clearly does. After all, he directed one of the most quotable monologues – not in Gladiator, but Blade Runner. Rutger Hauer's dying lines – "All those moments will be lost, like tears in the rain" – were improvised. If you can't do it, Crowe, you belong in the B-pantheon.

Was the editing process actually the key strand of your creativity, rather than directing?

All of the following can be linked into this question of auteurism

LIMITATIONS  [some possible points to address]
EQUIPMENT - consider what more you might have achieved with:
    HD camera; steadicam; camera riser; crane (+ helicopter!); tracks and dolly; lighting rig; boom mic at AS;
Cast/actors: presumably you worked with untrained, inexperienced actors? (If you did work with drama students, do you think this helped?) Are there specific shots (eg CUs) or scenes (violence perhaps) which you felt suffered from unconvincing acting? Did you, as (co-)director do all you could to prepare and brief your cast for their roles/scenes? Could you have done more?
Look at the quotes which end this post and consider, for example, the intensive way in which a director like Mike Leigh works with his cast to develop a script, fully immersing them in the creative process.
Time: with more time (I think you've had more than enough!) would you have had scope to be more creative? Consider any planned, but abandoned, changes you might have made with more time.
Were there sets/settings you had to give up on because of access/permission issues?
There were limitations on use of strong language and nudity/sex; did this have any impact?
What about make-up/SFX? What creative solutions did you have for shooting violent scenes for example? [or implying nudity/sex]
[Look at points under AUTEUR?] Was working within a group a limiting factor?

THE TASK/REMIT [some possible points to address]
Make sure you state clearly which remits you followed at AS + A2 [opening 2 mins of a new feature film; short film or teaser trailer + ancillary tasks]
If you'd simply been tasked with 'producing some film work' would you have created better work? [unlikely, the point being that having some basic structure was surely helpful?]
Any thoughts on why you chose short/teaser?
Were there any aspects of this you particularly struggled with?
There was a clear steer, especially at AS (and for the teaser remit) to provide genre anchorage...

GENERIC/FORMULAIC v ORIGINALITY [some possible points to address]
What scope did you have for originality?
In what scenes/shots/aspects was your work original? [this might include aspects of your representations]
Considering the postmodernism argument, is it possible to be original? It might help to consider if Scream (Wes Craven, 1996) was original or simply a genre 'remix'.
How did you reflect genre + general conventions? [shots, sound, editing, settings, mise-en-scene, characters, intertextuality etc] Was reflecting these restrictive?
Did you attempt a hybrid genre? [reflect on industry practice]
Have you seen any low budget films set locally (even in W.Yorks/Yorks) within your genre?
Have you been particularly influenced by any directors/films?
Consider the influence of Alfred Hitchcock as an example of how this can be reflected within real media texts: Brian de Palma directed Obsession (1976) as a tribute to Hitchcock, attempting to emulate his style (his later film, Dressed to Kill [1980] also reflected this clear influence; Gus van Sant took this idolation a step further with his bizarre - and abysmally miscast - shot-for-shot remake of Psycho [1998]). Having suggested a possible new direction for slashers with the fantasy element of 1984's A Nightmare on Elm Street, Wes Craven added postmodernism to the mix with 1996's Scream ... which, with Scary Movie, was swiftly remade as a spoof by the Wayans brothers in 2000.

PROGRESSION [some possible points to address]
What did you use at A2 but not AS? - garageband, boom mic, Final Cut Express 4, YouTube, (?)Photoshop, LiveType
Be specific on what sort of editing tools in particular you used at A2 but not AS: what advanced features of FCE did you use, and how did this enable you to produce more sophisticated work?
What lessons did you learn, especially from the flaws, from your AS work (or your approach - planning, scheduling etc - to this), that you applied to your A2 productions?
If you worked within the same genre, what refinements did you make?
If you worked within different genres, what did you learn about genre and how this impacts on creativity in particular?
Did you use YouTube, Facebook etc to get audience feedback at A2? Did this help to get feedback from a wider (global?!) audience than before?
Did you use a blog any differently? Did you create different types of content for it? [v/podcasts, video features etc] Did you make any effort to promote it, and attract followers?

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK [some possible points to address]
What role did this play in your productions? Think about specific changes you made based on aud feedback; did this generally help you to create a better product?
What difference would it have made if you hadn't sought any feedback?
Was eliciting this [finding ways to get some] part of the creative process?

PLANNING v SPONTANEITY [some possible points to address]
The '?' is intentional: these 2 are not necessarily a binary opposition and can certainly be complementary; part of a balanced Media student's diet!
Obviously the point on planning links to TASK/REMIT - you had to evidence planning
Was this a brake on your creativity fundamentally, an aid, or both at various points?
Commutation test: if you had simply grabbed a camera and begun shooting, how different (better? worse?) would your production have been? Could you have planned better to produce more creative work (or the opposite)?
What role did research play - and did it enhance your creativity? [surely it would have helped provide ideas on how to shoot + edit various scenes?]
Consider the following quotes from prominent Brit directors + actors (and think about any DVD extras you may have watched, or articles you may have read, on similar themes - also useful on the point on ORIGINALITY]

Ken Loach on creative freedom

You may remember from last year the point being made that certain key British film-makers, auteurs even, struggle to get financing for their productions in the UK as they work without scripts and improvise the narrative with their cast. Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, old-school social realist directors both, routinely get lavished with critical praise by European critics for their films which typically explore under-represented sections of British society - yet have to cobble together budgets from multiple European sources. Official funding bodies like the UKFC often won't sign up to a project without a script in place.

While there could be few greater opportunities for creative expression than your Media coursework, to some extent you share the constraints Loach outlines in the quote below. Unless you create a clear evidence trail of your planning, research, production and post-production process, aiming all the time to link your work to the actual practices and output of the film industry, you will not achieve one of the higher grades. Loach and Leigh are, in essence, mavericks in their approach, but their free-wheeling approach is something to consider in the context of the issue of 'Creativity' for Q1a. What constraints are there within the context of coursework production on your creativity? (Do remember though that Leigh will often spend months working with his cast evolving a narrative - his classic film Naked makes an interesting (if controversial) case study; neither are quite as free-wheeling as you may think). You could also look into the notions around Dogme95, made (in)famous by Lars von Trier.

Loach noticed that his idea of film-making had a lot in common with Cantona's idea of football: "As a player Cantona judged himself on his risks, and I could relate to that. Football is very much like making films in that you have to live dangerously. Some directors do everything to storyboards; that is like a manager telling his players exactly what they have to do, preventing them from improvising or making their own decisions. There is something dead about that - it produces mechanical teams and mechanical films. We always want a sense of danger on the set."

Tim Adams (31.5.09) “My sporting life”, Observer [online]. Accessed 31.5.09 at http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/may/31/ken-loach

Paddy Considine on Creative Freedom

See the article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/sep/27/donk-shane-meadows-paddy-considine, eg this (censored by me) quote:

"I can't deal with all the f--king waiting around," he says vehemently. "I'm writing a script at the minute, and the stipulations are mental. Six weeks to write it, five weeks for them to look at it. Then another little bit of money to go forward. All this constant stalling. It's all geared towards how the industry people work. Well, you know what? Creativity doesn't work like that."


He pauses for a moment as Meadows nods his approval, then he says: "I think a lot of people in the industry, the business people, they take the energy that we possess for aggression, and they're frightened of it. But it's not, it's f--king passion. When I'm ready to go, I don't want to wait around for ever, I want to get on with it."

See also the below guide with some points you could consider, and a few theorists thrown in to boot:

   Q1a Prep Points 2012 by DB3@IGS