My Creative Manifesto

1. Don't Listen To Negativity

2. Understand When Someone is Genuinely Trying To Help

3. Don't Limit Yourself

4. Come Back to Unfinished Ideas, You Might Know How to Finish Now

5. There is Always Room for Improvement

6. Never Get Complacent

7. Don't Believe Your Own Hype

8. Consume As Much Media As Possible. It Expands Your Horizons

9. Find Creativity In Other Artists' Ideas, Just Don't Be Too Similar.

10. Be Yourself. Don't Try to Be Your Favorite Artist. Strive To Be Better Than Them

Thank you to anyone who read my blog this quarter. I know I missed a lot of assignments, but I've been going through a lot of shit stuff and I have few regrets on how it all turned out. Hopefully through all of this craziness I still did well enough to get better than a C in this class. If not, then I guess I'll see Eric again in the fall, as I'm sure spring quarter's already full. السلام عليكم.

Written response to Karim Rashid’s Creative Manifesto.

The aspect of Rashid's Manifesto that resonated with me most was the first one on the list: don't specialize. I've used this quote from Donald Glover before, but I think it fits well here also: "Who knows what they are all the time? I’m different stuff every second of every day. I don’t know why people confine themselves. I know it be easier if I just did funny stuff, or just music, or just writing, but I’m more than that. That’s not me. That’s not anyone. Everyone is everything, if they let themselves." I know that I would have a lot more pent up energy if I didn't express myself creatively through more than one medium. I write, I rap, I tell jokes. I can't just flip a switch and turn one of these off, even if I wanted to. Sometimes it's distracting when I'm writing stand-up and an idea for a short film pops in my head, but I know I would be worse off in the end if I didn't take a break to write it down and visualize it. That's not me.

Week 10 blog A

This blog is my critique of David Rendall’s “FREAK FACTOR: Discovering Uniqueness by Flaunting Weakness”.

#3. Flawless: There's Nothing Wrong With You

While I was initially turned off by the title, after reading the section I see that Rendall has a point. Perhaps the fact that I have a short attention span is really helpful for my creativity. I've been writing episodes for a possible TV show for about 5 months, and I have never finished an episode in just one sitting. Looking back, I realize this is a good thing, because I sometimes got great ideas for the ending of an episode from witnessing things in between writing sessions. I've had similar things happen with my stand-up, and now I think this may be the best way to write. I wouldn't suggest stopping if you're on a roll, but if you're stuck then come back to it later and you might bring some new inspiration with you.

#6. Focus: You Can't Do Both

This section spoke to me as a comedian. The section is about not being able to have things both ways and as a comedian I have found that I can't make people laugh and please everyone at the same time. Personally, I have chosen to develop a comedic persona that is somewhat offensive and narcissistic, of which I am neither. This began mostly by the fact that my greatest comedic influence was and is Daniel Tosh, but it also helps because I am telling jokes mainly to white college students and they aren't likely to get upset at any of my jokes. I've focused on my (I guess you'd call it a strength?) that I am also a white college student and I write jokes that I myself would laugh at.

#9. Freak Factory: Putting Your Quirks to Work

This one was a little bittersweet for me. He talks throughout the whole article about focusing on developing your strengths, but in this section he flat out says you should stop doing things that you're weak at. For me, this is schoolwork. I would say that my major weakness right now is that I have no motivation to do any schoolwork that I'm not interested in. Even now, in a media class that I thought would motivate me, I am painstakingly writing this. However, I know I can't drop out. My parents wouldn't support me if I did and I haven't made enough of a name for myself as a stand-up comedian to start going out on the road (also, my car can't go on highways). I like this section in theory, but pragmatically I am against it.

Week 8 blog

www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/178/superpowers

Here is my assignment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMCqaqMvyMc

Week 7 Blog

Our group for the joke video went in two very different directions. Obviously the affinity between the two videos comes mainly from the fact that both videos were created around the same joke. Also, the genres were the same, so the overall looks of the videos were similar. The directions we took the jokes in, however, were very different. The video that I wrote was the one that I also acted in. I wanted to create a lot more tension than the joke originally provided. Obviously, the more sexual version of the joke provided a higher tension. Visually, we tried to build tension through close ups and quick movement by me. We also used a lot of flat space to give the feel of how closed in and nervous my character was. I don't remember much about the video J.T. directed, as I was in class during some of the filming. However, I know that his was much more true to the original joke and used wider shots and deeper space, because his character didn't have reason to be as nervous as mine.

Ryan Priestle @ACUG 2/16/11

Soundscape

Here's the correct link:

Soundscape

This is mine and Jason's Soundscape. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3Nzna5cQe4

Assignment 2

This is my Assignment 2. It's not up right now, so I couldn't embed it, but here's the link and it should be ready by the time you grade it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S94z8EI_Ji4

Assignment 1B

Mitch Ditkoff's “14 Ways to get Breakthrough Ideas” on http://changethis.com/ is a pretty good article about innovation. Pretty good, meaning that I liked the article as a whole, but at the same time disagreed with some points and found others to be fairly obvious. This blog post will be devoted mainly to dissecting 3 of Mr. Ditkoff's "14 Ways to get Breakthrough Ideas", talking about either how much I agree and how I will implement the idea in my own life, or why I disagree with a certain idea. That being said...

A. "11. Brainstorm."- Brainstorming is something that I dreaded in high school (mostly because it was only used for boring English assignments), but have embraced while in college. I guess I still don't really brainstorm for assignments ever, but I still experience group think in my comedy club, Kamikaze Comedy. Brainstorming is extremely helpful for a comedian. Not only does it allow you to test material before you go on stage, but it ends up improving your material because most of the other people in the group have some idea about how to make your jokes better and they all want you to succeed. Without my group's brainstorming sessions, I probably wouldn't have done quite as well on stage a couple of nights. I mean, I still wouldn't have bombed because I'm freaking hilarious...but I would have been slightly less great.

B. "12. Look For Happy Accidents."- This is one of the "14 Ways" that I don't like. It gives good historical examples of great inventions being born from a mix of hard work and dumb luck, but I feel as if Ditkoff may be promoting a bad idea here. He acts as if these dumb-luck type accidents happen all of the time and that it is as important as the actual work put into the product. The wording he uses almost makes it seem as if he's saying that you shouldn't work as hard, but sit back and count on luck to complete your ideas instead. I think I can understand what he was meaning to say, but the wording makes this "Way" seem very irresponsible.

C. "10. Hang Out With A Diverse Group of People"- I agree wholeheartedly with the concept of diversifying the groups of people one interacts with. Most of us in college sit through classes with people enrolled in the same or a similar major, and then go back to our dorms where we have been placed with someone that the university felt has a lot in common with you. This is a natural creativity-stifling environment, especially bad for a student in a media-related program where originality is the key to success. I know personally that hanging out with a more diverse group of people will definitely help my comedy. In fact, it already has. Since I've been in college, I have written way more stand up sets and screenplays about much different topics than I would have written about in high school. However, there is still definitely room for me to spread my proverbial wings into even more diverse groups. That's why I chose this prompt as the one I acted on, and I made a list of people who I've met so far up here in Athens, but didn't hang out with because they didn't fit my normal friend archetype. I look forward to hanging out with them in the coming weeks.

Assignment 1A

Who Influences Me as A Creative Person

I believe that I am a creative person...but I don't want to pigeon hole myself into one type of creativity. You'll see why when you read my final influence, but I have two more before that one so... 

1. My biggest comedic influence would have to be Daniel Tosh. Before I first heard Tosh's first half-hour Comedy Central Presents TV special, I liked stand up comedy, but never considered doing it. After watching Tosh perform, I started writing down some of the jokes and funny situations that I had thought up/experienced. My style of stand up comedy is heavily influenced by him because of this. We both do a lot of what I like to call "stream of consciousness" jokes, by which I mean we both take one joke and then our minds take us to random places that are somewhat connected.

Of the terms we went over, I think Tension and Release fits the best with Tosh. He loves to start his jokes off with mass appeal (a relatable subject), and then take it to a place where nobody knows what he's talking about, and then take the audience back to a comfort zone for the next joke. Here's a few examples from his first hour-long special.

2. My second influence is Wasalu Muhammad Jaco, better known as the rapper Lupe Fiasco. In my opinion, Lupe is the best rapper of all time bar none. He is one of the most lyrical rappers in the game today and possesses  uncanny storytelling ability. Although my style is different, Lupe was the person who made me want to rap again. I started rapping for kids in 4th grade, but stopped when I got to high school because I was intimidated by my black friends to whom rap was a lifestyle and not just a genre of music. This lifestyle involves guns, money, and promiscuous women, but Lupe opened the door to other subjects (like skateboarding and robots). 

The term that fits with Lupe Fiasco is Text/Subtext. As I said, Lupe is a great storyteller and incredibly lyrical. This allows him to have some ridiculous subtext in his raps. The following song is a great example.

3. My number 1 biggest influence on my creativity, as well as on my personality, would have to be Donald Glover. Donald Glover (for those of you who aren't cool) is a stand up comedian, one of the stars of NBC's Community, one of the members of the sketch comedy group "DERRICK Comedy", which has made one of the funniest indie movies ever (Mystery Team), and the rapper Childish Gambino, who has released 2 mixtapes and 3 albums, with another on the way. Needless to say, he's a busy man. He's also one of the most creative people in all of entertainment. I go to his website, iamdonald.com a lot and I found this quote from him that I think sums up both of us. He says: "Who knows what they are all the time?  I’m different stuff every second of every day.  I don’t know why people confine themselves.  I know it be easier if I just did funny stuff, or just music, or just writing, but I’m more than that. That’s not me.  That’s not anyone.  Everyone is everything, if they let themselves." When I read this, it felt like reading my own thoughts, if my thoughts were really well written.

I think the binary terms that best fit with him are Contrast and Affinity. If you look closely at his career, you will see that he contrasts with the industry by having his hand in so many fields, but he shows affinity with each individual field by embracing it and fitting in there. Here's one of his songs where he has a great line about how people compare him to other rappers.

The lyrics I alluded to are:

"Here I go again talkin' money, women, and clothes, and cars, right?

You could switch all of my words out with Plies's, right?
People sayin' we're the same, please, come from under me
We are just some rappers, got no luxury of subtlety
No subtext when we're rappin', we say it like we hear it"

Monique Wingard