Reading referenced: Chapter 2. Rabiger, Michael. 2006, ‘You and the creative process’ in Developing story ideas, 2nd ed., Focal Press, Amsterdam, pp. 15-19

I’m going to be completely honest here. I get a lot of set reading from all my classes, and while some of it is helpful I often feel that most of it is unnecessary. Readings about the history of cinema? Helpful. Readings that include statistics, facts, advice and other relevant information? Helpful. A four chapter readings about one man’s quest to define the term “post modernism”; not so much. I know it sounds like I am just to lazy to look at the deeper meaning behind our prescribed texts, but this is not the case. I love reading, and learning too for that matter. My biggest gripe in life is that I will never be able to learn about everything, but I’ll be darned if I don’t try. Despite how useful I think a reading may be, I still read it and try to make something of it (even if it is dryer than the Sahara Desert).

The reason I am ranting on about all this is because this week I found a reading really helpful. The reading You and the Creative Process , was not just helpful in regards to material to apply to certain assessment tasks, but will be helpful for me in my life as a storyteller. Michael Rabiger tells of how he had a true “moment of vision” while having to describe his work for a degree program. This epiphany was Rabiger realising that all his films, however versatile, revolved around the same underlying themes. Throughout High School, I took several Art and Literature subjects. Each year we were given a folio to document the creative process of producing our final works, and mine seemed to follow the same pattern; choose a theme, get told that the theme is not original enough, persist with theme anyway, create, destroy, create, destroy, create, destroy, finally lose motivation and submit whatever is left. My paintings, drawings, sculptures, narratives, poetry, song lyrics, photographs- everything in one way or another related to the idea of “Escape”. I have always been someone who longs for adventure, for experience and breath-taking moments. Throughout my schooling life (High School in particular), I often felt like my creative or quirky side was being suppressed while I was forced to learn things I didn’t agree with, dress how I wouldn’t otherwise dress and taught to aspire to work so I can live and live so I can work. I was told by one of my art teachers that I needed to choose more diverse themes, however the idea of creating in the name of escapism captivated me the way nothing else could. I told my teacher that there were so many aspects of the theme that I could address, but she couldn’t see it, however I did not let her disapproval stop me. Flash forward eight months and it was time to showcase our final works for the Graduation Show, after which we would receive our results. My work began as a sculpture, but evolved into an ecosystem. I literally had an entire room just for my art work, with the walls, roof and floor all covered, two projectors on opposing walls screening seperate films and an interactive component at the entrance. Instead of “rejecting and improving” as Rabiger put it, I included all my rejected ideas, as it all helped to tie my ideas together. I cannot escape human error, I cannot escape things like oil paint smudging or polaroid photos fading from sunlight. Like a boat a child would build to sail away, my room was no perfect attempt to escape from anything. I was proud of my work, and it paid off in the long run to stick to the ideas that I’ve always worked from.

Whilst reading I found myself agreeing with Rabiger so often that I felt as if I’d just had a conversation with him and would give him a friendly handshake. If only I had of read this back when I was first criticised for my repetitive use of theme, I could’ve used this paragraph to perfectly summarise my thoughts on the matter;

“Artists with a body of successful and expressive work quite often have only one or two deeply felt themes in all their work. This doesn’t leave them limited, for a strong theme, like a powerful melody, liberates a writer to explore the universe of variations that arise from it”.

After viewing several early short films by now well known filmmakers, it is clear to see that even the successes of Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese and Wes Anderson have stayed true to the themes and techniques that originally inspired them.

In conclusion, this reading reassured me that following my gut was the right idea, and that using the same muse multiple times does not detract quality from the work.