Creativity

What is creativity? Simply asking what a word is or what a word means can often lead us to form a full definition an an attempt to understand everything that occurs in the word. But if this is the case, that we can define and figure out everything, why is it some words cannot be fully described?

The formal definition of Creativity is this:
The use of the imagination or original ideas, esp. in the production of an artistic work. - Wikipedia

And yet, that doesn't entirely ring true to me and this was a similar feeling throughout our class. Creativity is one of the most important things in the creation of media products. It is something that allows our personality and flair to be seen in the things we create. A definition that rang true to me from an A Level Media magazine was this: "Creativity is a means of outputting and representing yourself, especially if you find it difficult to communicate who you really are." Put simply, this is why I am creative.

Is there a difference between being 'creative' and 'to create' then? Everyone can be creative in their own way - for example, just a simple though dreamed into existance in your mind can be considered as being creative, despite a physical representation of this thought never being realised. A person being 'creative' doesn't mean a person drawing or painting or anything similar. To me, it's freedom to imagine and begin something new.
 'To create' is something altogether different. With this idea, people will never be original because they will always develop a new idea based on something that may have previously existed, inspiration being an instigator of creating. It is a vicious cycle that many can't escape, always creating something 'original'. Some refer to it as post modernism.

In all honesty, this is no right or wrong answer to what creativity actually is. It's impossible to define because it means something different to every erson who see's or experiences it. A bunch of words can be used to describe it but no one will ever come up with the same combination, just like creativity it self.

Alexander Mackendrick, who directed many of the post-war Ealing comedies, said this on the mastering of creativity:

"Though it wil only be a couple of weeks before you are familiar with the basics of film-making, it will take a lifetime of hard work to master them."

This just goes to show that being creative does not mean you are good at an art. You have to put in the hard work in order to be able to make those imagined ideas a reality. It's not enough just knowing and understanding the theory, you have to be able to apply it to real life, and use the skills you've learnt. The fact that he says 'lifetime' could be suggesting that even if an individual has worked really hard in order to master the skills, they may never have completely 'mastered' them, because you can never be perfect at anything. People have different ways in which they use a technique, the methodology of a filming tecnique varies depending on the individual. And then once again, this is influenced by creativity.

So, as hard to define as it is, creativty as the root of all creation for many people. Without it, expression would be restricted to falling in line and following all rules.