Influences on My Creativity

I am a person who uses my creativity to express myself and not to impress other people.  I really like to show emotion in what I do and usually get inspired from everyday life.   I really like to be visually entertained and to be emotionally entertained, but usually go through my better creative periods when I am depressed or angry.  I would say my two biggest creative influences are Stanley Kubrick and David Fincher.

Stanley Kubrick influences me with his ability to use themes that are mostly active and allows everyone who sees his work to make up their own mind about what they were supposed to learn or gather from his movies.  A great example of this is the ending to 2001: A Space Odyssey that either makes the film (as it did for greats such a Stephen Spielberg) or ruins it. This  scene allows everyone to put the movie into their own perspective: was the movie all a great story of evolution, or was the monolith just an alien species interfering with humans?  It is all up to the viewer.  I love this aspect of Kubrick films, as it gives the movies an ability to relate to everyone.  I like to do this with anything I create, and it is not an easy ability to have.  I also like the overall dark feeling of Kubrick’s films, and that is a huge inspiration whenever I am writing or doing editing.  The dark tones and different approaches are key in his genius.  For example, in 2001: A Space Odyssey, he lets the feel of the movie and the lack of the dialogue to control it. His ability to stir up emotions by using tension and release is great, especially in the horror movie The Shining.  By giving everyone an uneasy feeling he grabs their attention and this has taught me to follow this technique when creating something of my own.  

Another huge influence in on my creativity is David Fincher, the director of Fight Club and Se7en.  I really love his use of text and subtext, and a great example of his use of subtext is that in Fight Club.  He uses the approach of the unreliable narrator,  leading us to believe that Tyler Durden is real, until of course the very end, where we find out that the narrator is in fact crazy and Tyler is part of the narrator.  I enjoy his use of the twist ending in movies like Fight Club and The Game, and also his ability to switch between different genres of movies.  I have tried to be able to use twist endings and have tried writing many different genres since I have begun writing simply because I see great directors and writers like Fincher able to take on these different aspects of human emotion.  For example, his movie The Social Network is not even close to his work in Se7en, as one is a dialogue based drama and the other is an action based thriller.  Again, I appreciate the overall dark scheme of Fincher’s movies.  The feeling I have after watching one is indescribable.  Someday I hope to be able to leave my audience with the same feeling, like they are somehow emotionally attached to the movie but have no idea why.  Fincher has been doing this for years and that is why his fan base is so large.