Blog 1b

The Article by Ditkoff had many valid points in my opinion. His article was about about how inspiration comes about, and it brought up many valid points. I found it interesting that each part of the article explained exercises on how one can achieve inspiration. Overall the article seems pretty good, my only criticism is that it seems to think that you can make breakthrough ideas happen. I think that sometimes breakthrough ideas just happen. You can’t do certain exercises, it just happens. When breaking down the article and looking at three sections I look at. One of the exercises; immerse yourself is a very good on in my opinion. First off I think this is good because many times people can be inspired to do things based on things that others have done. Also immersing yourself in your craft gives you a blend of different viewpoints and facts. That can lead one to mixing different ideas together and creating new breakthrough ideas from these. To become completely self absorbed in what you do is immersion. One can have a much better chance of being inspired by being around certain elements     all the time. Although I do not think it guarantees anything it makes the chances of it happening much better. I would immerse myself with other people and view the works of others as well. I would watch independent films and mainstream ones and go into creative sessions with other people I know. That is how I would make myself immersed. 

The one that I think is very good as well is taking a break. Sometimes the harder you try for something the farther the way it goes away from you. That is why I think that taking a nice long break is a very good idea. Just going for a walk or doing something were you are not around technology is the best. Sometimes media activity can not be counted as a break. Something with out being connected could be the best thing in my opinion. If I was taking a break I would go for a walk, or sit on a park bench or get some food, or just relax and watch my favorite movie. I would make sure to have a pen and notepad handy but not plan to use them. You can not plan inspiration. Breakthroughs can not be forced as well. Then Ditkoff also has one that says to brainstorm. The classic example, its interesting that it is not at the beginning. I think brainstorm is good but sometimes it only goes so far. The only problem I have with brainstorm is that I feel like it can be considered a combination of many of these different pieces of advice such as hangout with a diverse group of people or use creative thinking skills and techniques. When you do these though you do not sit down and say, I am going to brainstorm. The exchange of ideas and opinions however could be considered brainstorming. Brainstorming is not as specific. If I were to brainstorm 80% of the time I would do it with a group of people, I think it helps when you have you other people. Sometimes however it is better to be by yourself for self reflection as Well.

What is the topic of your next group brainstorm? Who will you invite? Who will facilitate? When? For me my next group brainstorm topic will be, what should our movie be about? This will be during the 48 hour-shoot.  This is an event talking place from Feb 4-6 where a team is given a genre, a prop and line of dialogue. We get everything at 5:30 friday and we have to have a dvd of our film turned in by 5:30 pm on sunday. Basically we have to write a script shoot our 5 minute movie and edit all within the weekend. The people at this brainstorm will consit of our production crew and some of our actors, so 9 or 10 people. We are thinking that the location of this brainstorm will be in one of the group rooms in Alden Library and then somewhere else after midnight. I will most likely not get any sleep at all during this shoot. None of our main crew will get a lot if any sleep. I think it will be a really good experience though and I will learn a lot about it. I am the Director on the shoot.