Here is a link to David Rendall's "Freak Factor." Please read this over before continuing with this week's blog.
Click here
In David Rendall's interesting article, he goes over nine ways of discovering and dealing with your weaknesses to show your uniqueness. Finding your weakness, acknowledging your weakness, realizing your weakness makes you unique and flawless, not trying to fix it, building on your strengths, realizing you can't do both, finding the right fit, the power of being unique, and putting your quirks to work are all parts of david's interesting outlook. for each of these nine suggestions, I have come to find that agree with them all. I think, for the most part, all of them are valid. I may disagree with just a touch of each, but overall I do agree.
The three suggestions I plan to respond to are What's My ProbleM?, Forget It: Don't Try To Fix Your Weaknesses, and Fit: Find the Right Spot.
What's My Problem? deals with taking all the weaknesses you have accumulated over the years and realizing that those weaknesses can actually help you. They can do this by being the clues to your strengths. For example, he used the facts that he was hyperactive and not able to sit still as a way to get him to stand up and talk as a professor, speaker, consultant. I think this is an extremely valid suggestion. I think I can very well use this into my own creative life. This is just one example. I am no longer a media major, but a computer science major. I don't like working with others and I spend too much time on my computer. This is perfect for the long hours I have to spend in the computer lab working on a program such as checkers or something similar. Our programs aren't in groups, and I am able to sit on the computer. I'm not sure how much this will change getting into my career, but I still believe that I will be able to use them to my advantage. If I were to have stayed with video production, I think that this suggestion would have helped me there as well too. Many Media majors tend to be rebellious. Many media majors tend to be seen as different, whether it is with the clothes they wear, the hairstyle they have, or the way they talk. The thing about that is though, it makes them creative and unique. That in turn, will make for a more unique and creative outlook on their media projects. That is exactly what is needed when getting your degree in media. You aren't going to get far without new ideas.
Forget It: Don't Try and Fix Your Weaknesses deals with the fact that there is no point in trying to fix your weaknesses. I really liked the quote that was put at the top, said by Dr. Phil McGraw. "You can't put feathers on a dog and call it a chicken." He goes through and says that you shouldn't try and fix your weaknesses for reasons such as it is slow to do, it is painful to do, it distracts us from activities where we could make significant progress, and it doesn't actually work. Even if we were to fix a weakness, it still doesn't become a strength. I think this is extremely valid. I especially am fond of the fourth reason stating that it doesn't actually work. I have never really thought about the fact of even if you fix a weakness, it doesn't become a strength. Therefore, it didn't actually do anything. It's such a simple idea, but it blows my mind kind of. I think fixing your weaknesses is not what you should spend your life doing, but rather use them as an advantage to get farther in your career. A video production major can use their unique flaws to bring something new to the table. A fresh and creative outlook is needed to go far, especially in that business, so why would you try and change what can help you achieve that? It just seems silly to me.
Fit: Find the Right Spot brings forth the example of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. He talked about how Rudolph was a freak. I mean, let's face it, his nose glowed. His nose was a very obvious and huge flaw. He became unpopular because of it. He tried to fix his flaw, and his parents helped by trying to put black rubber on top of his nose. Clearly, trying to fix this flaw didn't work. However, soon he came to find that he would be destined to be such a huge helper, and even become famous. His situation changed. His legacy became a perfect fit between his unique qualities and the situation. Rendall goes on to say that you don't need to wait to find that perfect fit, but rather seek it out. In college especially, with the media major, you are encouraged to try new things. Go behind the camera, direct, work editing, and more. This enables you to find that perfect fit. This enables you to find what works for you, as well as what you love to you. You may be flawed with some areas, but those flaws may get you farther in other areas. It is all about experimentation. As for going farther into your career, you can experiment with different genres, or different types of movies. You may have more of a creative mind with one over the other. You just need to use your unique thoughts to your advantage, and that will help you to find your perfect fit.
As for my strengths and weaknesses, I really dont' think that I have come to find them to be as strong as they are discussed in this article. I really think that dealing with those types of things really come into effect when you get out of college and start your career. For example, my sister just recently got her first nursing job in a hospital. She had told me that she learned more being at that hospital for five minutes than in her entire college career. I think that once you actually get into a real career, your strengths and weaknesses will really be a huge part. IN college, we are still experimenting with what we want to do. The most our weaknesses will cause is a failed test. My strengths now are my writing skills and my ability to communicate with people well. My weaknesses now involve procrastination and my love for junk food. However, those weaknesses are not going to make or break me right now, and I am still strong enough to control those weaknesses. Once I get into the real world, I will really allow my strengths and weaknesses to come into play, and I will really see where they take me.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Brainwashed
Here is a link to Seth Godin's "Brainwashed." Please read this over before continuing on with this week's blog.
Click here
When reading over this article, I notice that he talks about seven layers of reinventing yourself. Three that came across me as the most inspirational and interesting are Acknowledging the Lizard, Make Art, and Fail.
Acknowledging the Lizard is where he explains our resistance to creation. The lizard is the part in our brain that spits out anger every time there is a chance of danger. It cares about safety. The point of this section is to bring up the lizard and acknowledge it, so you can in turn ignore it. We need to produce that original work that can be crippled by this resistance.
Make Art deals with creating new art. And when he says "art," he doesn't mean a poem or painting exactly. By "art," he means creating the uncreated. Art deals with connecting with someone at a human level, taking risks, and being able to laugh at mistakes. Make something that changes everything, and you have created art.
Fail is a section that I appreciate him adding, because there is a huge chance you won't make it through life without being unsuccessful at one point. He mentions how some places actually require that you fail. The only way for places to grow is to do risky things, create something new, make art, and change people. That opens up so much room for failure.
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When relating these three layers summarized to each of the blogs I have been doing over the past ten weeks, I have discovered some interesting comparisons. Seth Godin's layers are actually very much connected to these blogs. Each week we get assigned a new blog to think about/write about. First of all, I think it is kind of important to ignore our lizard when doing this. We are given tasks, and if we want our blog to stand out, and if we want our ideas to be heard, we have to be creative. We have to ignore those urgencies saying that we could get in trouble for writing something like this. I think that is a huge part of showing our passion for our major. To get a new idea up and running, we have to think of new incredible news. This may not have as huge of an impact on our blogs now, but later on in the future it will become a huge part of our career.
Making art is the process of creating our blog. Just like Seth Godin said, it is creating something new. That is what we are doing in these blogs. We are given a task, and by finishing these tasks in our own creative way, we are creating our. WE are putting a new spin and a new outlook on the way people think about this kind of stuff by giving our perspective on it. We are giving it a new "look," which is adding new art on the whole type of art in general. Hopefully that makes sense, because that is just how I think about it. Plus, on top of the writing, we are designing our blog. We make art by showing what we think is pretty. We make art by showing others what colors we think mix well, and we are mixing them. Normally, the choices we make for our backgrounds reflect the type of people we are. The background on my blog is orange and green swirls, showing that I have a fun and bright life. I like bright colors. I think previewing this stuff for the people reading is definitely creating something new, and changing the way people think about you. You are changing something, so you are creating art (according to Seth Godin.)
I think that failing isn't as huge of a layer for these blogs, but it is more of a huge layer in life and career. I mean, of course we are able to fail with these blogs, by not doing them. Or we can even fail ourselves with these blogs, by not being able to put forth the point you wanted in the beginning. However, I think it is a little more difficult to fail with these blogs rather than succeed. In life, however, it is a gigantic part, especially in the career we are choosing. Being a video production major, audio major, or anything along those lines, requires so much creativity and patience. There is a good chance we will get so excited about a new television show idea that will in turn get shot down within the first second of explaining it. You can't expect to succeed every time, because in this business the slots are very difficult to get into. YOu need to take risks and go out of your comfort zone, or even other people's comfort zones as well. You need to think of something new, and something unique. That also goes back up to the make art layer. To get where you want to go you have to be able to take some risks, and you have to be able to move on when some of those risks cause you to fail.
These blogs help us as students because they allow our minds to think a little more on the creative side, without adding too much stress onto our already hective, studious lives. However, as artists, I don't think they are that much of a stepping stone. We are given a task, but these tasks really don't allow for too much of a "creative outlook." yes, they allow for some, but not much.
Click here
When reading over this article, I notice that he talks about seven layers of reinventing yourself. Three that came across me as the most inspirational and interesting are Acknowledging the Lizard, Make Art, and Fail.
Acknowledging the Lizard is where he explains our resistance to creation. The lizard is the part in our brain that spits out anger every time there is a chance of danger. It cares about safety. The point of this section is to bring up the lizard and acknowledge it, so you can in turn ignore it. We need to produce that original work that can be crippled by this resistance.
Make Art deals with creating new art. And when he says "art," he doesn't mean a poem or painting exactly. By "art," he means creating the uncreated. Art deals with connecting with someone at a human level, taking risks, and being able to laugh at mistakes. Make something that changes everything, and you have created art.
Fail is a section that I appreciate him adding, because there is a huge chance you won't make it through life without being unsuccessful at one point. He mentions how some places actually require that you fail. The only way for places to grow is to do risky things, create something new, make art, and change people. That opens up so much room for failure.
-------------------------------------------------
When relating these three layers summarized to each of the blogs I have been doing over the past ten weeks, I have discovered some interesting comparisons. Seth Godin's layers are actually very much connected to these blogs. Each week we get assigned a new blog to think about/write about. First of all, I think it is kind of important to ignore our lizard when doing this. We are given tasks, and if we want our blog to stand out, and if we want our ideas to be heard, we have to be creative. We have to ignore those urgencies saying that we could get in trouble for writing something like this. I think that is a huge part of showing our passion for our major. To get a new idea up and running, we have to think of new incredible news. This may not have as huge of an impact on our blogs now, but later on in the future it will become a huge part of our career.
Making art is the process of creating our blog. Just like Seth Godin said, it is creating something new. That is what we are doing in these blogs. We are given a task, and by finishing these tasks in our own creative way, we are creating our. WE are putting a new spin and a new outlook on the way people think about this kind of stuff by giving our perspective on it. We are giving it a new "look," which is adding new art on the whole type of art in general. Hopefully that makes sense, because that is just how I think about it. Plus, on top of the writing, we are designing our blog. We make art by showing what we think is pretty. We make art by showing others what colors we think mix well, and we are mixing them. Normally, the choices we make for our backgrounds reflect the type of people we are. The background on my blog is orange and green swirls, showing that I have a fun and bright life. I like bright colors. I think previewing this stuff for the people reading is definitely creating something new, and changing the way people think about you. You are changing something, so you are creating art (according to Seth Godin.)
I think that failing isn't as huge of a layer for these blogs, but it is more of a huge layer in life and career. I mean, of course we are able to fail with these blogs, by not doing them. Or we can even fail ourselves with these blogs, by not being able to put forth the point you wanted in the beginning. However, I think it is a little more difficult to fail with these blogs rather than succeed. In life, however, it is a gigantic part, especially in the career we are choosing. Being a video production major, audio major, or anything along those lines, requires so much creativity and patience. There is a good chance we will get so excited about a new television show idea that will in turn get shot down within the first second of explaining it. You can't expect to succeed every time, because in this business the slots are very difficult to get into. YOu need to take risks and go out of your comfort zone, or even other people's comfort zones as well. You need to think of something new, and something unique. That also goes back up to the make art layer. To get where you want to go you have to be able to take some risks, and you have to be able to move on when some of those risks cause you to fail.
These blogs help us as students because they allow our minds to think a little more on the creative side, without adding too much stress onto our already hective, studious lives. However, as artists, I don't think they are that much of a stepping stone. We are given a task, but these tasks really don't allow for too much of a "creative outlook." yes, they allow for some, but not much.
Scene Deconstruction
This is the movie I chose for this week's blog is.. :
Click here to find out
The theme of Despicable Me, besides being an animation, is the outlook on parent/child relationships. This theme is exemplified in the scene given because it shows the annoyed father giving his newly adopted kids the rules of the house. They continue on by asking funny questions or doing funny things, annoying him even more. I would say that the theme is definitely active. Since it is a kids movie, there is no intention on continually teaching morality throughout the whole movie, even though there are hints of parenting that adults may catch onto during times in the movie.
The two topics that help reinforce the theme and scene that I recognized are space and movement. Space is used when comparing the amount of space each character's patience takes up. The evil doctor is having no tolerance and patience when dealing with the children's silliness. However, the children are all over place. They don't have a worry or a care in the world. Many times that is similar for every parent/child relationship. Also, space is used in the amount of space each character takes up. It is there to show who is the parent and who is the child. Obviously the parent is going to be much bigger than the child or children that he/she is taking care of, otherwise that would just be awkward. Movement in used in each of the character's to show how they are feeling. The evil father is showing direction with his hand gestures and anger with the expressions on his face. The children are showing happiness and fun with the way they play around with objects or make funny noises. I also really like the use of color with the way they make the children's outfits pink to represent that fun and joy, and they use black to represent the angriness of the evil father. This represents them as their character as well. Kids are happy, which means bright colors. The father is evil, which means dark colors. Light and color represent character very well.
Click here to find out
The theme of Despicable Me, besides being an animation, is the outlook on parent/child relationships. This theme is exemplified in the scene given because it shows the annoyed father giving his newly adopted kids the rules of the house. They continue on by asking funny questions or doing funny things, annoying him even more. I would say that the theme is definitely active. Since it is a kids movie, there is no intention on continually teaching morality throughout the whole movie, even though there are hints of parenting that adults may catch onto during times in the movie.
The two topics that help reinforce the theme and scene that I recognized are space and movement. Space is used when comparing the amount of space each character's patience takes up. The evil doctor is having no tolerance and patience when dealing with the children's silliness. However, the children are all over place. They don't have a worry or a care in the world. Many times that is similar for every parent/child relationship. Also, space is used in the amount of space each character takes up. It is there to show who is the parent and who is the child. Obviously the parent is going to be much bigger than the child or children that he/she is taking care of, otherwise that would just be awkward. Movement in used in each of the character's to show how they are feeling. The evil father is showing direction with his hand gestures and anger with the expressions on his face. The children are showing happiness and fun with the way they play around with objects or make funny noises. I also really like the use of color with the way they make the children's outfits pink to represent that fun and joy, and they use black to represent the angriness of the evil father. This represents them as their character as well. Kids are happy, which means bright colors. The father is evil, which means dark colors. Light and color represent character very well.
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