Thursday, September 16, 2010

So How'd This Whole Thing Start, Anyway?

So, as I said in the previous post, all of this was started by George Romero's movie Dawn of the Dead, specifically this scene:



Now, obviously Romero is trying to make a statement about American culture and its obsession with violence or something something something, but clearly as 16 year olds all we took away from it was "man, it would be so cool to go around hunting the undead," because hey, we were 16 year old Americans obsessed with violence!

That being said, it was the inspiration of this movie and the fantastical, post-apocalyptic dreams of a group of teenagers that led me to sketch up a bunch of characters the next (or possibly even THAT) night, sparking a concept, and ruining the margins and rear sections of school notebooks for years to come.

Now, the topic of inspiration is a tricky one. Growing up in the age of Puff Daddy, Quentin Tarantino and the Simpsons, one can very easily be of the mindset that appropriating someone else's creative ideas is ok, as long as you cite your theft as an "homage," or "inspiration," or "influence." Many times in the history of Dead Meat I have made the comment "do you know where I got that from?" or something to that extent, and I think it's an approach to creativity that has become all too prevalent these days. In reality, for those of us who aren't Quentin Tarantino or The Simpsons ( I'm looking at you, Diddy), this approach is just a cover for bad writing, or bad art, and really shouldn't be encouraged.

However.

I believe there is a difference between straight up ripping something off, and using it as a jumping off point to create something new and original. Director Francis Ford Coppola says:

"A number of images put together a certain way become something quite above and beyond what any of them are individually."

This applies to the notion of inspiration and influence absolutely. Having influences and drawing from them, even on a very very literal scale, is how we, as artists, grow and progress. It's not a matter of what influences you draw from, it's HOW you draw from them and use them to find your own voice in what you do that is original.

Next time: more on the process of character creation and evolution

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