Props master, Eric Hart, speaks intelligently about sharing knowledge.
We do not invent things whole cloth out of the depths of our brains. Every idea we have is formed by making connections with all the experiences we have absorbed. Every book we read, play we watch, conversation we have, event we witness, song we hear – all of this fills our head and swirls around, sometimes for years, before getting regurgitated as a new flash of inspiration. We are seldom cognizant of how this works. The bizarre surreality of our dreams are a testament to that. But even dreams are simply what we already know, broken into tiny pieces and stitched back together in the most arbitrary fashion.
Until the early part of the 1900s, puppeteers jealously guarded the secrets of their craft, passing it down within families. Puppetry didn’t change much. Then a group of puppeteers decided to stop reinventing things and started sharing knowledge. They started looking at the puppetry of other countries and traditions and the twentieth century saw an enormous growth in creativity and style.
Read what Eric has to say on sharing and secret knowledge.
Coolness. As a teacher, I’ve often said that all my best ideas are stolen. As a writer, I find the blogs of many successful writers to be an invaluable education. 🙂
I’m writng a yoga in space story. Where’s your puppetry in space story? 🙂