Demystify Twenty-First Century Creativity, Innovation and Education through Film Analysis

Abstract

Creativity and innovation are, respectively, divergent and convergent thinking involving critical, reflective and design thinking across-the-board in various fields and settings. Creativity and innovation are important skills in the twenty-first century networked and knowledge-based global economy. In the future of work, being creative and innovative is very important to stay competitive. With emerging technologies such as AI, Big Data, 5G and many smart technologies, new tools give rise to new ways of thinking, expressing and doing things. However, creativity is often an internal, hidden and personal thinking process. The essence of creativity and innovation are often abstract, intangible and sometimes full of mysteries and misconceptions. This study takes a content analysis approach to discuss creativity and innovation through biographical films about the most creative and innovative people of our time. Through content analysis (White and Marsh, Library Trends 55(1):22–45, 2006; Krippendorff, International encyclopedia of communication, vol. 1. Oxford University Press, New York, 2018), this study examines a selected group of biographical films inspired by or based on real-life characters in hopes of shedding new lights on how creative innovation works. Through analysing some of the thinking patterns of these great creative and innovative minds depicted in this film genre, the key focus of this study aims to discuss with new perspectives the topics of creativity and innovation, which is abstract and multi-factual in nature. After all, being creative and innovative is to examine issues from multiple perspectives. To demystify is to make this invisible and abstract process of creative innovation more visible for discussion.