Creativity is "a process needed for problem solving... not a special gift enjoyed by a few but a common ability possessed by most people". - James 1993

Creativity is "a process needed for problem solving... not a special gift enjoyed by a few but a common ability possessed by most people". - James 1993

In terms of this quote I believe it is true, as anyone can learn to be creative by hard work and practice. A way in which this was true for me was when I was designing my school magazine (prelim) and my final AS magazine for my foundation portfolio. Adobe Photoshop was a new software for me and I struggled to get to know it quickly when doing my prelim task. This explains the quality of it, as I was not experienced at working with layers or editing images. Whereas in my final magazine I had practiced a lot with the program at home and in media classes, so this allowed me to really show my creativity as I could us Photoshop to edit the contrast and brightness of my images to make them stand out. A big difference that really shows my skill development is the cutting out of my main image compared to the simple use of boxes in my prelim. I also developed my skills in font type and size, as I used many individual fonts on my final magazine that were specific to my genre and bands, this made my front cover more convincing and interesting.

Another was this quote was illustrated was through my advanced portfolio music video, as I had never used iMovie before, let alone using a Mac before. However after using the software for my prelim music video (The kills – No Wow) I had reasonable knowledge on the program, although I found it time consuming and quite dull.  When the time came to edit my final music video I was able to quickly set about cutting up shots and using different methods to make the video specific to my rock genre. This included black and white effect and using very fast cuts to make the video energetic, which was one of the main focus’ of my group. A way in which I learnt how to use iMovie was through the use of the internet, as I was able to use social media sites such as YouTube to find tutorials on how to edit and use the software. Also I needed this help to actually get the files from the camera onto the computer… and then again when uploading the finished product back into YouTube ready to be embedded onto my blog.

I had to use the brief I was set to decide on how I would carry out both of my final products, this involves deadlines and conventions I needed to look at before producing the products. I think that all media producers have to start from the conventions of the type of product they are creating as this gives a good basis for creation, then, once the conventions are met they can use their creativity to make the product specific to them and unique. This can be demonstrated by both my foundation and my advanced portfolios. As, with the music magazine I looked at many real products from the market, this included NME, KERRANG! Rock Sound and Q Magazine. These allowed me to see the conventions of magazines, this included the use of mastheads and centre/main images, although KERRANG! Magazine showed me that these boundaries could be broken as they sometimes use more unusual strategies for their designs, including having a large amount of people on the front cover. I also learnt about colour schemes, and that the combination of Red, White and Black was the most common and the most successful colour palette in the magazine industry, this is why I opted for it. But actually I did add creativity as I chose a deeper and darker red than what is normally used.

This same method of research was used in my advanced portfolio music video, as I spent time watching real music videos using YouTube, I picked out videos that were specific to my genre like ‘Zzzonked’ by Enter Shikari and ‘Think or Swim’ by The James Cleaver Quintet. These were both performance videos and really laid the path for my group to actually choose to do a performance video ourselves.  

In terms of the quote, I think that he is correct in what he is saying but I then also think that there a people with special natural gifts that allow them to be very creative in what they do, but creativity itself can be acquired by most people by practice and hard work.