Creativity Theories

"A process needed for problem solving...not a special gift enjoyed by a few but a common ability possessed by most people" (Jones 1993)

Agree. I think this is definitely true. Everyone possess the ability to be creative, just some creativity is used in different ways and some is not necessarily as obvious. Some people probably possess more creativity than others but when required everyone has the ability to achieve this. People often are more creative when they do not acknowledge the fact that they are being so. 

"The making of the new and the re arranging of the old" (Bentley 1997)

Agree. I think this depicts creativity well, they describe the majority of the creative process; almost everything is inspired by something else, but is rearranged to apply to the new idea being created.

 "Creativity results from the interaction of a system composed of three elements: a culture that contains symbolic rules, a person who brings novelty into the symbolic domain, and a field of experts who recognise and validate the innovation." (Csikszentmihalyi 1996)

Agree. I think this explains the idea of us finding something creative and appreciating it because it relates to something we find relevant or interesting. If it held no meaning in our culture then we would be unable to appreciate what it is. The person who creates it needs to understand the relevance it holds and people need to be competent in the knowledge of the culture to appreciate it. I think this is how it works. So much creativity is appreciated because of the understanding of the references or inspiration of it.

"There is no absolute judgement [on creativity] All judgements are comparisons of one thing with another." (Donald Larning)

Agree. I can definitely relate to this. I rarely never relate work to another piece or something I can identify with. I have things I like and dislike and often this affects my judgement on pieces. Sometimes I like things because they are different in comparison to something and sometimes because they fall exactly into what I like. 

“Technology has taken all the creativity out of media production”

Disagree. If anything I would say it has expanded it. It has allowed for a wider exposure of creativity to inspire and innovate new ideas .  It makes previously difficult processes easier and quicker allowing more time for the creativity. I can see the view point in which the quote was made. Technology comes with certain limits and so to an extent everything can only be creative to a limit. However I don't feel like this is extensive enough to make such a statement or that it considers the input of manual work that goes with technology in order to be creative. 

I think the first two quotes apply to my coursework. Creativity is possessed by everyone, I just think when people enjoy a task or understand an idea better their creativity is more prominent. For example, I enjoy the idea of creating work on Photoshop more than I do on Premiere Elements, so I felt I could be more creative using Photoshop because I have a better understanding of how that works. 

The second applies to all the work I have done. Everything I have created has either been something old re arranged or something new I have come up with all mixed in together.  

Creativity

Originality -
For  my preliminary task at AS, I would not say I was particularly original simply because the course had only just started and the main focus of the task was to understand conventions of magazines rather than make something creative and original.
The original ideas I came up with during the AS coursework are most likely from the artist I created; Izzy Viney. Although I took both facts from her real life and used ideas inspired from other similar artists, I used original elements in order to create the right persona for her; in the hope this would be the most realistic and appealing.
Again in A2 preliminary, the aim was to copy a music video so no originality was required.
In A2 it was much harder to be original, both because of the difficulty involved and because we felt that this wouldn't be the best way to make a video. Elements that could be considered original would be things such as the bands name; but of course this is intended to be.


Imagination -
I think the most imaginative element of my AS coursework would be the contents page purely because of all the different descriptions I produced for the pages. Although  I wasn't using original elements I was imagining scenarios that were likely. Creating the layout required a certain amount of imagination. The guidelines laid out for us, such as it being a music magazine, helped our imagination I would say as it gave us an instant idea in our head how we wanted certain aspects to look.
Imagination was used in our A2 preliminary when coming up with how to recreate the video. Choosing possible settings and deciding on props and costumes involved a certain imagination.
In the A2 coursework our imagination was mainly used to create the storyboard and working it out to make sense and to be effective.


Inspiration -
In AS preliminary my inspiration came solely from the idea of having a school magazine. School is seen as something 'geeks' enjoy so the magazine title worked from there and further inspiration just came from stereotypical ideas that surround the ideas of geekiness or school.
In the coursework at AS I would say my inspiration was taken from a lot of different places. Initially the ideas developed from my personal taste and what I liked in a magazine and also looking at successful magazines I liked and using conventions they have used. Style and my choice of model was inspired by other artists that matched mine, as did the choice of content.
Our A2 preliminary was purely inspired from the busted video we were recreating.
The A2 coursework inspiration was taken soley from other bands in our genre. The editing, style, lighting, setting and choice of band members was all based around bands or artists we already felt worked in our genre and with the video we were applying it to.


Ingenuity -
Ingenuity wasn't used as much during preliminary tasks as problems were usually best resolved in the real coursework and was something to note down and work on later.
In the AS task my ingenuity was used when laying out pages in a way which worked both practically and aesthetically. It was also used when designing the colour scheme so the page looked most appealing and also realistic to a target audience.
Again the preliminary for A2 was designed to learn rather than to use ingenuity. For the A2 coursework we used a lot of ingenuity. Firstly we had to produce ideas and make them practical and easy enough to achieve with no budget and limited equipment. We had to be creative with simple ideas in order to make them work. We then also had to develop these ideas and change them when certain things didn't work.


Inventiveness -
I would say inventiveness would be one of the stronger elements I used. Creating an idea and adjusting it to work was essentially what we did throughout the entire process. For the AS preliminary we were starting more or less from scratch with ideas simply because we had done very little research and planning. Although we were sticking to guidelines we had been provided with the idea was entirely our own and we had to invent a persona and style for the magazine.
During the coursework at AS this was pretty much the same. We were possibly less inventive with new ideas, but tying all the elements we wanted together required us to be very inventive as to how things worked.
During the A2 preliminary, inventiveness was limited simply because it wasn't required as much. We were simply learning skills.
These skills were useful during the A2 coursework as they allowed us to be more inventive as we had more skills in which to extend our ideas with.


Resourcefulness -


For the preliminary I wouldn't say I was particularly resourceful simply because the idea I came up with didn't really require me to be. The task was simple and the resourcefulness was probably more intended to come late on.
The AS coursework involved some resourcefulness. For example I went and found a location for the photos on within my magazine; something that proved to be key when editing the magazine, I also used my own camera as I knew it was marginally better than that which the school provided. I was resourceful in making sure I had editing software on my home computer, maximising the amount of time I could spend editing.
At A2 I was resourceful simply because of the lack of equipment the school were able to provide. We had to be creative with simple ideas and when thinking what to do had to consider how practical it would be to make it work. For example, we had to plan out times for when we would be able to use the equipment, how we would get to locations and which locations would be available for us all at the same time.


Creativeness-
I was creative throughout, simply by taking inspiration and turning into something I had created myself. For example I took the idea of 'geek' and made it apply to school related things as well as typical stuff from magazines. For example I included the 'prize' of meeting N.E.R.D in relation to both a magazine and the 'geek' them. For AS coursework I had to apply creativity in most aspects. Taking conventions from similar magazines I was then creative in adjusting it to work for the magazine I wanted to create. For example, the persona of the artist had to be created as did all the magazine features.
At A2 we were creative by producing a storyboard of all the inspiration we had taken from all our research.  The ancillary texts were also creative because we took a range of ideas and developed them into a final idea of our own.


Vision -
For my AS coursework I used vision when creating mock ups. I had an idea in my head of how I might want the magazine to look and so I created these to see if they worked in reality. Some ideas and some didn't.
for our A2 this was pretty much the same, we had an idea of what we wanted to achieve and so we created it in the best way we could.


Innovation - My product as a whole could be considered innovative as I have produced something new and creative. I didn't necessarily introduce any new conventions to work but this was because I felt it wasn't really necessary. A2 needed innovation to create a realistic artist with credible and matching ancillary texts. They needed to work together and bring about a credible persona.