Creativity and Genre

 

Creativity has not been something I have struggled with too often. I grew up in a family of musicians and have been surrounded by performers and composers my entire life. The people around me had always encouraged me to be creative with everything I do. When reading “An Interview with Ron Beghetto: Subtle Nuances of Creativity” it talked about creative self-efficiency. I feel that thanks to being surrounded by creativity my whole life, while also encouraged to be creative it has helped me become creatively self-efficient.

 When embarking on a field with what seems like endless choices, one would think there is no limit to creativity. However, being creative takes some practice for most people. In the Ted Talk we watched in class; it says that it is virtually impossible for us to be creative in a work environment because often times we are stuck in our “River of thought”. I had experienced this first hand when I was trying to come up with sentences and comparisons for the “New Introductions” activity we did in class. I chose Movie genres and TV shows to compare to my everyday life. It was more challenging than expected. While I was in class, I felt like I couldn’t think of anything good to compare, that all my sentences were mediocre. However as soon as I was at lunch, I started to make much stronger and creative comparisons, whilst my brain wasn’t in work mode.  

I am extremely excited to have chosen to do a documentary. Personally, it is one of my favorite genres to watch. One of the main worries that has been posed about my project is that because it is a documentary, the beginning may be to slow and unimpactful. One of the best things that I have watched from documentaries such as “Touch the wall” and “So much More to Life” is that they can make the training aspect, and everyday drama that goes on within the professional athlete’s life just as big, and exciting as the race we watch itself. If anything, showing the audience the amount of work and determination that goes in to those few minutes of glory can make the excitement and satisfaction of watching the actual races so much more intense and gratifying. One of the big tropes that us found in these sports documentaries are is the idea of an underdog. With my project that is going to be a huge aspect I try and incoorperate seeing as its based around a high school age athlete who is trying to make her way into the world of professional athletics. Also the underdog trope is extremely useful when trying to create a feel good film. 

My idea for this project is that I will be basing this documentary off of my club swimming team “The Sarasota Sharks”. We are one of the most well known and highly regarded clubs in the nation when it comes to youth swimming. As of right now we have half a dozen swimmers who are training to get ready for Olympic Trials, myself included. What I want to showcase is not only how much discipline and strength our team has, but pull the viewer in, with these first few minutes and leave them in awe of what it really takes to be the best at what we do.