I have done this exercise* with lots of different types of artists and filmmakers, students and veterans alike, and it always seems to bear fruit. It is best done in a group, but you can do it alone, too.
IMAGINE A LIST OF VERBS. Each verb is a way that an artist, or a given work of art, might IMPACT an audience:
In a group setting, we would brainstorm these for a while and write them all down. You want to generate a really long list, which is not hard, because it’s kind of infinite and people always come up with new verbs. In and of itself, that’s an interesting part of this experience.
Then, each person privately circles the verbs they like — for some particular work of art they’re working on right now, or more dispositionally. Circle up to 10. You can even rank them.
One thing to note: nobody’s list much resembles anyone else’s. Beginning with that mission statement — with action words relating to the effect we are trying to create — gets us quickly to the heart of our intentions.
The next level to the exercise would be to IMAGINE A TRIANGLE. Now you have Artist/Artwork, Audience and Subject. What are the action verbs you would place between all three points? How do you define those relationships? The sooner you get these highly specific active words in your mind, the less you end up with generic, passive statements like the film is about X or my work deals with Y.
The further you go with this line of thinking, the more clear it becomes that every artist truly has their own unique mission statement or raison d’être. For myself, I realized there were some verbs I always gravitated toward (“delight” and “surprise” and “provoke” are some of those). I gravitated to these words so naturally, it felt as if anyone would have the same list. But that just isn’t true. This exercise started to help me see what it is about my work that would make someone say it is characteristically “Penny Lane.” A harder task than it may seem, to really see your own work.
*I know I adapted this exercise many years ago from a book, but I can’t remember which book. If you know, tell me and I’ll update this post!