One of the problems I have with the word “Creativity” is that it is often used to mean boundless imagination. People think they don’t have it, or they think they need to be freed from bounds to achieve it. What it really is is making stuff. Creating. And if we’re waiting or shaming ourselves, we’re not making.
Creativity (Making) Happens when we’re solving problems
The problem is, sometimes there aren’t enough problems. If we are free to imagine a lot of stuff we can do, it’s paralysing. Our brain is looking for the problem to solve and there is not clear problem.
We need to make things concrete. Let’s say we have to write a book, but we don’t have a budget, a deadline, a topic, an audience, page count, or a genre. Most likely we’ll be glad to have the freedom, but will quickly feel put on the spot.
The easiest solution is to make limitations. When someone says they want to make a new stage act and they ask me how to start, I say “which show do you want your stage act to go in? ” If they want it to work in Scot Nery’s Boobietrap for example, they’ll immediately be dammed up. They’ll know…
- stage size
- ceiling height
- setup needs to be easy
- it has to have a certain aesthetic
- it probably won’t be expensive to perform
- it will not require lighting changes
- and a million more things
You might call these limitations or problems or puzzles. Whatever they are, if our projects are boundaryless, they’re not projects. They’re messes and it’s very hard to feel fulfilled in them.
Stefan Haves is a master of this
Creating clown bits is pretty limitless. Clowns are not restricted to even logic, so anything goes. Stefan is really good at just getting something going. He doesn’t care about making something good at the beginning. He knows he’ll make it good later. He just has to make SOMETHING to start. So, when he’s directing, he’ll just say “Walk over there, pick up that box. Cry into it. Then pull out a pickle, sit down and eat it.” Those actions don’t matter very much. They’ll probably change later, but it gets the clown working, making, and moving. Then, the clown has the challenge of “How can I make this little action of eating a pickle funny?”
The original pattern are just the lines on the sport field. Those lines are boring and bland, but that doesn’t make the game boring — theres still a lot that can happen in that game. At the same time, the game wouldn’t be fun without those lines.