SCABs

Bondage – By @DrewDavies94

Drew Davies

By Drew Davies

 

Bondage

 

Some people hate it, some people love it and some rest somewhere are in the middle.

 

As humans we like freedom. We see it as one of our rights. David Droga says success is all about having options – which is pretty much freedom. And he is obviously right.

 

Why is it then that when we have this taken away from us sex suddenly becomes more exciting?

 

I’m not going to answer that question, instead I’m going to make a tenuous link between restriction in bondage and restriction in creativity.

 

To the naked eye restrictions are a bad thing. Who wants to be told what they can’t do? What’s not possible. The mediums on which they have to work in.

 

But I’m starting to believe limitations are actually pretty helpful, and can allow for more creative solutions.

 

I went to see the mime artist Trygve Wakenshaw (lucky I still have the ticket) in SOHO theatre. I’ve never seen a mime artist before and expected a man in a white mask to come on, pretend to be in a glass box, do a robot dance and walk off.

 

Luckily I was wrong and instead was treated to one of the funniest performances I’ve ever seen.

 

Taking away speech, our most important asset, seemed like a major limitation but opened up a new range of creative possibilities.

 

When changing between each scene he would have different transactions with a spotlight, cowering from it, appearing on the wrong side of the stage and running away from it.

 

He would have to exaggerate body language to make the characters clear, from a cow whose nipples are molested for their milk to a slug sliding head first across the stage.

 

In one scene he played an air hostess forcing a smile and thanking each and every person out of the plane until one says “you’re so lucky you have the best job in the world.” (fine I lied, he did speak occasionally)

 

The final scene probably demonstrated it best when the fake can he’d been drinking from all night was replaced by a real can, completely baffling and terrifying the characters with its alien physics.

 

The barrier of language gave the mime artist new areas to play with and expectations to break – he did both relentlessly.

 

An open brief may seem wonderful at first – “we could do anything!”

 

But as you get cracking this normally changes to – “where the hell do we start?”

 

Many of the D&AD briefs are very open.

 

This itself creates pressure. If you can do anything you feel like you should do something massive, something that’s going to change the world.

 

I guess the trick is just to be curious.

 

Get the first ideas down no matter how shitty they may look.

 

Throw them away.

 

Play with them.

 

Push them.

 

And hopefully at the end you will come up with something decent.

Here’s to hoping, and bondage.

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