When we were children, we never hesitated to ask questions, even if they were unreasonable. But, as we matured, we were bound by strict rules and became conscious of criticism. Hence, we began to think logically. Break out of this Nutshell into the wonderful World of Creativity.
To become creative, we must start observing and analyzing the world around us. We have 5 senses to see & observe, hear & listen, taste & relish, touch & feel, breathe & live and a 6th sense to think and analyze. By combining these senses the way we want, we can attain creativity and gain the confidence we need to express ourselves in different ways.
Meditation serves as the foundation to build the castle of intuition by breaking the walls of ego & pessimism and opening the door towards creativity and opportunity, through which the winds of knowledge & concentration flow, making the mind a cool place where we can think with clarity and take right decisions. We recharge our brain cells by trying to think differently.
Know the rules well before breaking them. While cooking, we know what odour or taste the ingredients give. Have you ever tried breaking the rules given in your recipe book?
We can let our mind revolve around the six questions of Who, What, When, Where, Why and How (5Ws &1H technique used by all creators), for a solution to evolve and the problem to resolve.
We can make our writing impressive with figurative language and powerful words. Using figurative language, we can make complicated issues easy to understand and remember, by relating them to simple matters. Today’s word processors are also capable of suggesting alternative words using a feature called Thesaurus.
Creativity and presence of mind have the power to turn even a casual statement into a quote or a joke.
“When Bill Clinton went to meet Bill Gates, Clinton passed the Bill before Gates opened to speak out.”
- Shriram
Some words like in the above statement have different meanings. By using them in impractical situations you come up with a joke.
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for aesthetics. It can be written independently or may occur in conjunction with other arts like poetic drama, hymns or lyrics. Whether you wish to write a 2-line couplet, a 4-5-line limerick containing humour or a story with a moral in the form of poetry called a ballad, feel free to use your own style.
There are softwares and websites that suggest rhyming words. If you are hunting for words, reverse dictionaries are available online, where you can type a phrase and get the word. Online dictionaries also help us save time by just typing the word we want to find the meaning of.
Most novels are based on the lives of real people and most films are based on novels by adding little imagination. Joe Klein’s Primary Colors is a novel based on Clinton’s administration and Slumdog Millionaire directed by Danny Boyle, written by Simon Beaufoy is an adaption of the novel Q&A by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup.
In the language that film speaks, every single image conveys a word; a series of images convey a sentence; a scene of action conveys a passage and the movie as a whole conveys a story.
Knowing our own body language helps understand that of others. It reveals the attitude of a person. Facial expressions also help us understand the mood of the person. They also help us become good dancers or actors.
We can also cover-up mistakes creatively. With a little presence of mind, we can turn a disproportionate portrait into a cartoon or a bad painting into a modern art. Animation is nothing more than a series of hand-drawn images, with minute differences flipped one after another creating an illusion of motion. Using vector-based softwares, we can design anything by creating 2D shapes and customizing them without the need to draw.
Using Image Editing softwares, we can layer different images one above the other and merge them so naturally that they seem like a single image.
Sometime there is a need to edit written content to fit a column, a design to fit a screen or an advertisement to fit a given duration of time. It only requires a little presence of mind to do these tasks.
We can create realistic effects like the sun’s light entering a room, casting shadows on the wall or animate raindrops falling from the roof of a house. We can also create the reflection of a boat moving in water or people sitting around a campfire. With cost-effective visual effects softwares available in the market today, you can create anything you can think of.
Music composing softwares contain a variety of built-in instrument sounds called loops. We can drag any number of these into tracks, where they can be arranged and mixed for composing music and generating sound effects.
Creating Websites and Softwares has also become easy with user-friendly applications available in the market today. You can design your layout by just clicking and dragging components that you need like text areas, text boxes, radio buttons, check boxes or list boxes onto the page or screen and customizing their appearance.
Even scripting a website or programming a software has become easy using IntelliSense, an auto completion feature, which helps us to script or program without having to remember lines of code.
In addition to the above features available in these Integrated Development Kits, some Game Development softwares contain built-in characters, weapons and scene templates, which you can use in your games if you lack the time and patience to create them.
Any creative endeavour can be accomplished with proper planning. Whether it is an animation we wish to create or a video we want to shoot, writing a script helps us describe our concept and drawing a storyboard helps us visualize it.
The brain thinks and the body does, only what our heart feels. When you read a book, think of writing one; when you watch a film think of making one; when you hear a song, think of composing one and when you use a software or play a game, think of creating one.
With a creative mind we can find new ways to convince customers in our business and expand the market for our products and services. We can use most of the above ideas while marketing.
Creativity requires passion, patience and determination. Any creative task looks daunting for a fresher but becomes interesting over the time. Many artists, who have no hands to hold a brush, use their feet and mouth to paint.
Irrespective of the creative field we wish to work in, all we need to do is understand the basic concepts and stay updated with the latest tools and techniques. Do not be intimidated by technical terms.
The Internet is a huge network of information available for help anytime. Advancements in technology have made it possible for people across the world to connect, share information and also work in teams from wherever they are. There are also many books available in these subjects and many experienced people around the world whom we can ask. Such brainstorming can help us generate more ideas to solve problems. Self-confidence, hard work and openness to learning are the key skills to one’s success.
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