PB4 Reflection 1 // Restraints
Over the past week, I have thought about Project 4 sparsely. I had a vague idea of what I wanted to focus on that I wrote in my reflection for the last project – though, I was unsure if this idea would translate as well I thought it would. After speaking with Dan in class today I feel much better about the direction I am headed in. I am choosing to be a little less creative with my project than my classmates and will be working on either an audio or video essay – I am leaning more toward audio as more of my skills lie there. The essay will focus on restraints and how the drive or hinder the creative process. This idea came to me while working on the previous assignment – as my interviewee’s craft was one that had to work with the restraints of the materials/fabrics used ( they were a hatmaker). This concept has passed through my mind a few times over the past year – often brought up in different books I’ve read about Late Night television e.g. The War For Late Night By Bill Carter which discusses the Conan /Leno Tonight show debacle as well as how Late Night television has changed over the years. I have also heard about restraints frequently when showrunners speak about the difference of writing shows (mainly comedy’s) for network television versus cable television or for streaming services (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon). For example, when writing for network television – one has to make write for commercial breaks and write within the guidelines set up by Standard’s and Practices.
In class, Dan brought up the idea of using restraints during the process of putting together my essay. I’m not exactly quite sure how I would be able to do this – or what restraints I would want to place on myself. My first order of business in this project is deciding what my argument is. Do the restraints of old or traditional media drive or suppress creativity? I believe my audio essay will be an attempt to answer this question – whether I have an answer or final opinion I’m not quite sure of yet. I know I want to focus on television as I believe this medium has had the most massive change when it comes to this area and has many different examples that showcase different aspects and arguments to this question. The Mindy Project, for example, is a show that moved from network television to a streaming service – but made limited (though still a few changes to its format). Jon Oliver’s Last Week Tonight on HBO has created segments to fill in where a commercial break may have gone in his previous gig at The Daily Show. Saturday Night Live has toyed with formatting changes in order to keep up with a streaming-centric audience. Television is in another golden age and a lot of that content takes place on cable and streaming and not the traditional networks – I want to explore why this is and pro’s and con’s to the creative process for the writers.
