1. The Concept | Creative Process | 13.04.2017
The Concept
13.04.2017
Today I’d love to write about something really close to me. Creativity, and the process that comes with creation.
Creating is so personal. Such an open and brave thing to do when you think of it.
The creative process is a bit like cooking…or the creation of a human.
It’s not all butterflies and happiness. During the periods of time when I’m not fixated on a creative idea, or in the process of creating, I often romanticise creativity.
I romanticise the feeling of an idea, the process of developing sed idea. I imagine it as one of the most beautiful and peaceful and happy things one could do with their lives…
And then, without warning, a 3 AM phone call arrives from my brain. The cogs, which barely got enough rest from their last use, start turning again, the buttons in my brains get prepared to be pushed, and everything else falls away.
Sleep is no longer relevant; food is no longer relevant. Any possible conceived thought is pushed aside, and instead, a loop is put into place of one scenario, or a character, or that one specific shot.
It’s almost like torture, watching that one scene over and over and over. Every time you think you’ll see just a little more it goes back to where it started. It feels like you’re strapped to a chair forced to watch this, by yourself, and your shouting questions constantly, with no reply…
The idea is teasing you, showing a little flesh, enough to excite, but not enough to gratify.
This can go on for anywhere between half an hour to a few days, weeks or at it’s longest for me personally, a month.
Finally, the need to know more will become too overwhelming, the need to push past this ever looping shot.
The idea wins, I take the bate and hunker down. (Usually involving tea and a laptop, and no other human beings)
As ideas start to rapid fire, all competing to be the most important, the ecstasy, the passion starts to simmer, and the adrenaline slowly begins to bubble. The pressure builds, and eventually, the lid on your brain can’t take the strain anymore and the ‘outpour’ starts, I start writing…finally.
After the initial pouring out of the idea, climax if you will, that’s when the work starts.
You befriend your characters and get to know them. You familiarise yourself with your surroundings within the story, the world in which your concept has manifested itself.
You have to work hard to iron out plot, character, the lifeline of the idea so to say… All of this from that one initial seedling that kicked you into gear.
You have to find answers to questions, and you have to find questions to answers.
This can be hard, tiring, frustrating, heartbreaking, annoying. It can drive you crazy, and then at the same time make you feel so happy, so proud. You’re the mother of this one concept, you’re growing it, but ultimately, with the huge risk of sounding a bit silly, it is growing itself.
Once your concept baby has fully grown, finished and rounded off. Perfected to ultimate satisfaction. That’s when the scary part comes…the part that terrifies me, but is so necessary.
It’s downright scary.
The release of the concept…production.
More on that later…
