VVC 2013: motivation panel
The panel description:There are lots of reasons not to make an idea into a vid. Probably more than there are to *make* it. And yet, we vid.
This panel will explore how motivation influences vids (whether or not they are finished, how a vidder feels about them after they are released, how much it will matter to the audience), and how the "shape" of a motive will influence a vidder's choices. We'll discuss how identifying and understanding our motives for making a vid makes us better vidders and helps us sift through ideas we won't finish.
I should start by saying that one of my favorite things about this panel was the data set that
joyo collected via a survey she posted before the con; I was really intrigued by the bits of the results that we got to see and would love to take a closer look and especially to read more of the text responses. Hi, I'm here's luck and I'm a data geek. *facepalm*
joyo started us off by talking about her own motivation for proposing the panel: she's never finished a vid for herself-only for deadlines or as gifts for others.
She referenced a John Cleese lecture on creativity that I haven't looked up yet; actually I think stoney321 linked to it a while back but I am too tired to go find the post right now. Joyo's summary: creativity is not talent, it’s not something you have or don’t; it’s a mode, or really two modes: open and closed. Open: seeing things you wouldn’t otherwise see; closed: getting shit done. (I pause here to note that an idea very much like this is central to some branches of writing theory: writing requires both a generative phase and an editing phase.)
So how to foster creativity? How to get things done?
Useful things to keep in mind:
1. All motivations are valid.
2. Knowing our motivations help us.
3. Vidding is simultaneously community-focused and utterly self absorbed.
4. …and that’s a good thing.
5. Self-knowledge is also good.
The reasons we start vids are not necessarily the reasons we finish. So... what helps us keep going and finish?
• Emotional connection or conviction
• Doing things for cons, clubs, friends
• Empathetic and encouraging feedback: “I feel less alone in my emotions about X”
How do we push past the “the only emotion I’ve created is distate” stage of the life cycle of vid and vidder? Attendees came up with a lot of suggestions:
• Rewatch the source
• Listen to the song without visuals
• Remember the first ideas that inspired the vid in the first place
• Play it in your head in the shower
• Recreate the initial conditions: work deadline, family crisis...
• Use the vid to procrastinate on something worse!
How have our motivations changed?
• Making things for friends has become a bigger motivation for some people, partly because of Festivids.
• For people who are busier than we used to be, it’s harder to get the energy and time to even start.
• "Vidding used to be a substitute for fic, but now I just enjoy the process."
• “I didn’t think this all the way through before I started. I’m not out of love, but I’m out of ideas.”
• It can be helpful to work on multiple vids at once. "When I stop vidding, it’s hard to start again-so when I’m stuck on one vid, I need to be working on something else."
• “A glass of wine can do wonders.” “Disengage the top part of your brain.” “Take yourself off high alert.”
• After years in school, working in constant triage mode to meet external deadlines, it can be hard to find self-motivation.
• "I realized a few years ago that all my vids were about isolation and disconnection, so I started vidding more things that bring me joy."
• For vidders who are externally motivated, one way to make external deadlines for oneself is to vid active canon: keep up or be Jossed!
• It can help to sit in a room with other people and vid.
• Emotional motivations can be a mixed bag. "If I’m vidding from joy and lose my joy in the vid, the initial joy is tarnished; that can’t happen when the motive is anger or other negative emotion." "I have to be really outraged to finish a vid based on anger, because eventually I get over it." "I can’t always sustain anger at the source, but I can sustain anger at fanon indefinitely." "The great thing about anger is that it gives you a thesis statement."
• "When I started vidding, I was an artistic/creative butterfly; I was pretty good at everything, but nothing stuck. When we invested in computer equipment, I had to swear I would finish the vid. So I did."
Why does it help to know our motivations?
• Speaking only for myself here: One of my major motivations for working on vids has always been learning something new; that’s the only way I finished Superstar, New Frontier, The Test, most of the other vids that nearly killed me with sheer irritation. Understanding that motivation means that I can motivate myself by setting myself a task related to learning something, not related to the source or my emotions. If a vid takes longer than a week to make, I'll fall in and out of love with the source half a dozen times or more, and my emotions are nothing if not variable, but leaving a problem unsolved will bug me so much that I will do it in self-defense.
In conclusion: "Just because you’re not motivated now doesn’t mean you’ll never be motivated again."
Originally posted at Dreamwidth || Read
comments on Dreamwidth
This panel will explore how motivation influences vids (whether or not they are finished, how a vidder feels about them after they are released, how much it will matter to the audience), and how the "shape" of a motive will influence a vidder's choices. We'll discuss how identifying and understanding our motives for making a vid makes us better vidders and helps us sift through ideas we won't finish.
I should start by saying that one of my favorite things about this panel was the data set that
joyo collected via a survey she posted before the con; I was really intrigued by the bits of the results that we got to see and would love to take a closer look and especially to read more of the text responses. Hi, I'm here's luck and I'm a data geek. *facepalm*
joyo started us off by talking about her own motivation for proposing the panel: she's never finished a vid for herself-only for deadlines or as gifts for others.
She referenced a John Cleese lecture on creativity that I haven't looked up yet; actually I think stoney321 linked to it a while back but I am too tired to go find the post right now. Joyo's summary: creativity is not talent, it’s not something you have or don’t; it’s a mode, or really two modes: open and closed. Open: seeing things you wouldn’t otherwise see; closed: getting shit done. (I pause here to note that an idea very much like this is central to some branches of writing theory: writing requires both a generative phase and an editing phase.)
So how to foster creativity? How to get things done?
Useful things to keep in mind:
1. All motivations are valid.
2. Knowing our motivations help us.
3. Vidding is simultaneously community-focused and utterly self absorbed.
4. …and that’s a good thing.
5. Self-knowledge is also good.
The reasons we start vids are not necessarily the reasons we finish. So... what helps us keep going and finish?
• Emotional connection or conviction
• Doing things for cons, clubs, friends
• Empathetic and encouraging feedback: “I feel less alone in my emotions about X”
How do we push past the “the only emotion I’ve created is distate” stage of the life cycle of vid and vidder? Attendees came up with a lot of suggestions:
• Rewatch the source
• Listen to the song without visuals
• Remember the first ideas that inspired the vid in the first place
• Play it in your head in the shower
• Recreate the initial conditions: work deadline, family crisis...
• Use the vid to procrastinate on something worse!
How have our motivations changed?
• Making things for friends has become a bigger motivation for some people, partly because of Festivids.
• For people who are busier than we used to be, it’s harder to get the energy and time to even start.
• "Vidding used to be a substitute for fic, but now I just enjoy the process."
• “I didn’t think this all the way through before I started. I’m not out of love, but I’m out of ideas.”
• It can be helpful to work on multiple vids at once. "When I stop vidding, it’s hard to start again-so when I’m stuck on one vid, I need to be working on something else."
• “A glass of wine can do wonders.” “Disengage the top part of your brain.” “Take yourself off high alert.”
• After years in school, working in constant triage mode to meet external deadlines, it can be hard to find self-motivation.
• "I realized a few years ago that all my vids were about isolation and disconnection, so I started vidding more things that bring me joy."
• For vidders who are externally motivated, one way to make external deadlines for oneself is to vid active canon: keep up or be Jossed!
• It can help to sit in a room with other people and vid.
• Emotional motivations can be a mixed bag. "If I’m vidding from joy and lose my joy in the vid, the initial joy is tarnished; that can’t happen when the motive is anger or other negative emotion." "I have to be really outraged to finish a vid based on anger, because eventually I get over it." "I can’t always sustain anger at the source, but I can sustain anger at fanon indefinitely." "The great thing about anger is that it gives you a thesis statement."
• "When I started vidding, I was an artistic/creative butterfly; I was pretty good at everything, but nothing stuck. When we invested in computer equipment, I had to swear I would finish the vid. So I did."
Why does it help to know our motivations?
• Speaking only for myself here: One of my major motivations for working on vids has always been learning something new; that’s the only way I finished Superstar, New Frontier, The Test, most of the other vids that nearly killed me with sheer irritation. Understanding that motivation means that I can motivate myself by setting myself a task related to learning something, not related to the source or my emotions. If a vid takes longer than a week to make, I'll fall in and out of love with the source half a dozen times or more, and my emotions are nothing if not variable, but leaving a problem unsolved will bug me so much that I will do it in self-defense.
In conclusion: "Just because you’re not motivated now doesn’t mean you’ll never be motivated again."
Originally posted at Dreamwidth || Read
comments on Dreamwidth