Top West End musical voice coach Leotine Hass believes anyone can sing; the larynx, she explains, is just a muscle. And, just like muscles in the body, unless they’re used, they can just stop working.It’s the same with creativity. Being creative can be seen as such a ‘big’ word; it’s something people do when they’re ‘artistes’; or it needs a muse or the perfect environment. But all of us can be creative each day – we just have to flex our creative muscle with new insights and ways of thinking.
Creativity is defined sometimes as the act of turning new and sometimes imaginative ideas into reality. When you work in video, you are constantly thinking of new ways to tell a story; you’re inspired by the ability of a new piece of equipment to film something in a certain way or the way someone articulates their story may spark off a thought about how to represent it visually.
In the team that produces the video, all of us are creative in our own ways; our production manager has to think of a different location when the obvious one won’t work; our camera team have to look at the office space provided for the interview and think how to film it so it looks like three different places when there are three people to talk to. Our producer has to adapt the narrative to work with the visuals to tell the desired story and the editor has to take a shot that is less than ideal and create a finished product that delivers exactly what we promised.
Psychologist Rollo May in his book “The Courage to Create” writes: “Creativity requires passion and commitment. It brings to our awareness what was previously hidden and points to new life.”
Every part of the team is needed to produce a video; all of us have to have the commitment to contribute an idea and turn it into reality. We can be forced into looking at something in a different way because of logistics or time constraints, but when we do, that idea can come to life and become reality.
We can all be creative in everyday life. Taking a new route to the station on our morning commute is creative; who knows what we will see that will spark a chain of thoughts. The late, great fashion designer Alexander McQueen is revered as being ultra-creative – but his creativity came from taking inspiration from everywhere to everything; from Jack the Ripper to a scuba-diving holiday.
In the words of Dr Seuss: “Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try”.
