An update

Sorry I've been so quiet on the personal blog front, guys.

On the plus side, I've been very busy over at my professional site. It is a little animation and art-centric, but you might find something there you like, no?

We had a creativity class yesterday, where we had to work in changing teams and 1) think of a story from scratch, 2) given a specific character, think of three different stories with that character in it and no one else, 3) given a set of random words, tell a story on the spot using those words, 4) make up a character (mine was a doggie) and a story using only a sock and a balloon, then 5) use that character to interact with other characters, and 6) given a specific product, think of a way to sell that product to a new market.

This was meant to show and teach us the following:

• We will frequently be asked to create things on the spot, and given no guidelines.
• We will often work within limited parameters, like client preferences and set budgets.
• New ways of thinking up ideas, using word association, or by mixing up different random elements and forcing ourselves to use these elements.
• How working in a group leads to creating ideas, characters, stories, that you would never have thought up by yourself.
• That anyone can think of next year's trend, simply by looking at this year's. To stay ahead of the crowd, you have to think about what's going to be needed/wanted in a future beyond that - five, or ten years from now.
  
• That you will often be required to think of a new way to sell something old/existing.
  

Some of my classmates found it difficult, but I loved it! My adrenalin was up and truly (warning! Warning! Overused cliché approaching!), I have never felt more alive. I was a junkie, high and hooked on creating new ideas, thinking on my feet, and bouncing these ideas around within a group. (I seem to do my best work under pressure.)

I never wanted it to end, and all the little stories we came up with held such a seed of promise that I wanted to make them all into short films! I will admit that I can be bossy, and I may have railroaded some of my teams into picking my idea. (Hmm, perhaps I should work on curbing that ...)

In a nutshell--I had a great day. This is the life for me!