Medusa on a festival

Oh yes, this is a purely bragging post - we were on a festival, and it was great!

One of our smaller projects, "Supper bailiff" was selected by the MicroFAF official jury and we had a projection in the beautiful cinema called "Jugoslovenska Kinoteka".

The movie itself criticizes insistutions in our country and points that they are untouchable, like some superhero. One women, who had an accidental couch on her arm is saved by the Super Bailiff, but that comes at a greater cost. In return, he takes all of her furniture out while the woman is thankful as she thinks he is doing something good. It was a funny, one-day-shooting project which had it's time on the big screen.

Also, we had a time to speak in front of the audience about the importance of comedic approach to criticism in movie media. The discussion was focused on comparing marvel heroes to some government officials and how the film can portray them as a antagonists.

And that's it, we hope we will watch more of our little babies on the big screens and theaters soon. And we encourage you to send your works wherever you can, you don't know who will like it.

If you start it, the chances are you will finish it

I just finished watching Serbian movie named "Toma", which is, BTW, very good. In one scene, Andrija Kuzmanović says "Being in show business is like building a boat while you are in the water, it's leaking from everywhere but you must build it". And it struck me. Being in culture department (of all kinds) is just like that.

Many of us had projects that failed. And that is good because we learnt from those mistakes, became better artists, managers, became better people if you will. But the ones that hurt us most are the ones that we haven't even started.

Now, the same old story of "just go for your dreams" isn't that easy and we all agree that there are no money growing on trees just waiting for us. Also, art projects are usually pretty expensive. But is that an excuse?

Nope.

Actually, to start the project there are not a lot of financial requirements. You usually need a pen and a paper, and friends/colleagues which are willing to be involved. And it's all free. It brings out one crucial benefit: when you start it you will have bigger motivation to actually finish it.

What are the steps to start the project and boost your motivation?

  1. Write a plan on what you want to do. For example, you want to create a theatre play. Where? What will be the play? Who will be involved? What do you need?
  2. Start with the research and talk to people involved in the project. Find out if there are some better options. Listen to people's ideas. Correct the plan.
  3. Take real action towards your goal. Don't worry if you don't have the recources or you lack of participants. Go and speak with the theatre directors. Print a play and invite potential actors to your home for the casting. Have reading rehearsals. See if someone has that piece of costume you have in mind to borrow it. That will keep you motivated and project will already be in motion.

You see, our brains are wired in a way to be inert, so if you start doing something and create a habit of thinking that the project you're part of is your reality, your mind will naturally want to resolve it and finish it. We don't like to leave things hanging, at least things that are important to us. And I believe this trick is one of the crucial ones to actually increase chances of finishing something.

Do you have your trick for completing projects?

Where do ideas come from?

We believe that every human experienced that "A-HA!" moment at least once in their life. The magnificent idea emerged and we were ready to give up everything at that moment and to invest 100% in it. And the feeling was good, in the split of a second we thought we figured out the meaning of life. And then we just continued with our lives in most of cases, as if nothing happened.

But where dide that thought come from? What happened?

Some would call that faith, some would call it the message from the god(s), but the truth is actually pretty borring. Our mind combined all of the previous experiences in our life and came out with the solution to some problem in it's own, unique way. You see, as we all have fingerprints that are one of a kind, in the same way we all have unique experience palette. Even if two people with the exact same background and skills, experience one thing in two different ways.

We cannot reinvent hot water, and to come up with something new is pretty hard these days. But, we can combine the things we already know and put together some cool combination out of it, which will be unique. Even if we come up to a thing that already exists in many forms, it will have our own "stamp", something that is purely ours. That is what makes it unique.

As previously said, people minds are calibrated to think in problems. We are always searching for solution to something. From colonizing Mars to faster rice-cooking, we need that one thing that will bring us sense of achivement and satisfaction. So, should we run away from problems?

No!

We should not just face our problems, but we should expose ourselves to more experiences every day. That way, our mind will have larger ammount of data to combine and create it's unique set of solutions. Who knows, maybe some day one of those ideas will change the world.

Is creativity a priviledge of the few?

I think that all would agree - the most creative period of our life was our childhood. Playing in the sand with our buddies or spending an hour or two on that new video-game was not wasting time. It was crucial for forming our brains and developing the right-side brain structure. So, if most of us did it then, does it mean that we are all creative? Well, yes… and no.

The important question is to ask ourselves: when did we grow into adults? And what does that mean anyway?

Various things have an impact on developing our creative brains. Social status, the way we were raised, cultural differences, and many more. But when we take all of that, we played in any way we could. Some kids had the most expensive toys in the world, some were playing in the dirt. Charlie Chaplin was so poor as a kid that he made a cake out of mud and pretended to eat it. And he became THE Charlie Chaplin after that.

That leads us to one conclusion: wealth is not connected to development of a child's creative brain in any way. Than what is it?

It's growing up.

To be precise, it's abandoning the creative mind and focusing on the logical, survival-base strategies which are forced upon us as adults, taking more and more responsibilities and tasks throughout the day. Life moves on with or without us and very often we are forced to leave the creative, playful mind behind and focus on the bills. Some of us snaps under that adulthood pressure and BAM! You're 30 and turned into (or not) a boring, tedious person and you don't know why. What's the cure?

Play.

JJust play, have a hobby, do those little things that you've always wanted to do. Take that old guitar and play some tunes. Write a short story. Paint a picture on a kitchen wall. Find a way to take a photo of the moon with your smartphone and binoculars. Spend some time with your inner child. If you don't do it, no one else will, and why the hell not? It can be a lots of fun!

Creativity is priviledge, but not for the rich - for the free.

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