Well, here’s my opinion:

No. That piece of “Fine Art” you’re looking at is not worth the sticker price…

…but supporting the Fine Art world is worth every penny.

What isn’t clear to many people is that the art world functions under a completely different set of rules than the rest of society. There are many of us who consider ourselves artists. We make our living doing graphic design, concept art, game development, or whatever else. The art that we make is commercial – i.e. it is meant to be sold; ideally at a high price and many times. Nearly every decision we make in its creation is governed by money. From the very moment we come up with an idea, we ask ourselves, “Can I sell this?” That doesn’t mean that the art we make is of any less value or that we invest ourselves into it any less – all it means is that what we finally make at the end of the day is influenced primarily by what other people want. That’s why it’s called popular art.

It’s a pragmatic issue. It makes no sense to us to devote years of our lives slaving over a piece of art, however lovely and meaningful, that will not support us financially at the end of the day. We see the tradeoff as worthwhile – we may work under constraints mandated by those who fund us or those who consume our art, but we make very good money and, at the end of the day, we get to be creative instead of bagging groceries.

Being a fine artist is very, very different.

In my career, like most other AAA game developers, I count my successes in the millions of sales. My most crushing, abject failure sold 130,000 copies. These sorts of numbers stand in stark contrast to those of fine artists.

Many fine artists sell very few pieces over the course of a year. They may sell only one piece a month, often fewer. But that doesn’t mean that they only MAKE one piece per month. No, they may make dozens of pieces. They can burn through supplies and media, generating hundreds of pieces that go unsold. Van Gogh was regularly borrowing money from his brother for paint.

Now, the conventional wisdom among those of us who work in the commercial world (read: the real world) is that these artists are stupid for making stuff that people won’t buy. They should be doing their market research and determining how they can leverage their talent and resources to create something marketable.

This is not the point of the fine art world.

When I was young, my mother gave me a book called Frederick. It was a gorgeously illustrated paperback about a field-mouse who appears to be doing nothing while all the other mice are busily preparing for winter.

When winter comes, they all huddle down in their burrow, pressed together for warmth. As the winter wears on, and the food supplies run low, they become despondent. When they are at their lowest, able to think of nothing but cold and dark and hunger, Frederick speaks up. He tells them to close their eyes as he describes, in vivid detail, the warmth, beauty, and color of a summer afternoon. He regales them with stories of the summer to come and the passing of winter. He recites poetry that he has been composing all summer long. He occupies their minds and fills their souls, while their bodies suffer.

The point of being a fine artist is to be completely unfettered by the constraints and expectations of society; to be free to make what you want, to explore the boundaries of artistic expression, unworried about what others might think. The point of fine art is to show people things that they never would have thought of on their own — things that they don’t have the time or energy or perspective to consider because they are so focused on their daily struggle for survival. Fine art pulls us out of our mental loops. It holds up a mirror to society and shows what it looks like from the outside. By its very nature, fine art must exist outside our expectations. It has to come from what is, essentially, a parallel universe where marketability, profit, and demographics don’t exist. Pop art or, as some call it, kitsch, is about working within constraints; fine art is about having none.

If Frederick had been focused on survival — forced to spend time gathering food all summer like the other mice, he would not have had the time or the will to observe the world around them. We need artists to remind us why life is worth living.

Now, there’s a lot of bad fine art out there which gives the institution a bad name. There are a lot of untalented, egotistical, decadent auteurs. Deliberately separating yourself from society at large and working on your own, singular vision inherently contains a danger of extreme narcissism. Those egotistical divas who crank out worthless drivel are what I would consider “acceptable losses.” There will always be noise in the system – people taking advantage of a loophole that allows them to feel superior and important without proving themselves in any meaningful way. These people are often the most visible, unfortunately, but they are not the point of the fine art world.

The point of the fine art world is to foster an environment where, once in a blue moon, a supremely talented artist can rise to the top and create a great piece of sublime art which, upon contemplation, alters our notions about the human condition.

Hundreds, thousands, TENS of thousands of artists and art pieces must be created in order to generate those precious few that advance humanity as a whole. It’s a massive, distributed system. By buying art at high prices, you’re essentially funding this microcosm — this alternate reality that has no real right to exist in a money-driven society. You’re allowing this great, swirling mass of unconstrained creativity to churn away until an epiphany is reached. You’re subsidizing all of those pieces that don’t sell and allowing fine artists to continue to live that unique way of life. It’s not that the individual piece of art itself is worth that much, it’s that you believe that it’s worth it to humanity for there to be some people out there who are free to spend their life devoted to creating — free of society’s constraints.

Some contemporaries of Van Gogh’s felt that he was wasteful and decadent for using so much paint — sometimes squeezing it directly onto the canvas from the tube.

Have you seen how much oil paints cost? A single tube of a single color costs between $3 and $20. When you realize how thick the paint is on a Van Gogh, the mind reels at the raw cost of the materials. Van Gogh started painting late in life. His first painting was made in 1881, at the age of 28. He subsequently made 864 paintings in the 9 years before he killed himself. His earlier works use paint conservatively; later ones use enormous volumes of paint but few total numbers of pigments. I’m fudging the numbers pretty hard here, but let’s assume a career average of 5 unique tubes of paint per completed painting, fully consumed. At a median price of $9 per tube in today’s dollars, that comes to nearly $40,000 in paint alone over his strikingly short career. That’s almost $4,500 per year, not including brushes, canvas, stretcher bars, easels, palettes, turpentine, pencils or charcoal, sketchbooks, jaunty berets, etc. Even if you take issue with my math, you get the point — these supplies cost a lot. The most well-off among us would balk at that sort of annual expenditure, and Van Gogh could hardly be called that.

He only sold one, single painting before he died.

He was told by some that he should manage his supplies better and develop an art style that was more budget-conscious. Of course, that would have completely destroyed the texture of his art. Instead, he literally starved himself and spent every cent he had on art supplies. One need only look at his later self-portraits to see how emaciated he was; how much he suffered for his art. It is only because his brother subsidized him that Van Gogh was able to break free of the artistic norms at the time and develop a completely new, beautifully energetic method of painting.

When I buy art, I do it as a statement — I want people who do this sort of thing to exist, so I consider it a charitable contribution to an imagined foundation that supports the existence of art and the artist lifestyle. What a horrifying world it would be if everyone was like me and let their artistic expression be dictated by the desires of the masses and our corporate overlords.

So the next time you see a painting selling for $5,000 –- remember that it may be the only painting the artist successfully sells at that show. An artist can sell a piece at that price and still live in poverty. If you like it and you buy it, remember that you’re paying for all those pieces that never got a gallery showing; or that showed but never sold. You’re paying for all those other artists who shared a run-down loft with this artist on skid-row; who may never become successful but who contributed to the existence of a world that the artist whose work you enjoy could inhabit. You’re paying not for the art itself but to support the artist continuing to live that bohemian life. If they sell several pieces at high prices, then good for them! If, by some miracle, the art world decides within their lifetime that they produce desirable art, even better; that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow will encourage more people to take a chance on a challenging and unconventional lifestyle.

A single painting may not really be worth five grand, but that’s not what you’re buying. You’re buying the very existence of a support system for genuinely free expression.

In my opinion, that’s a bargain.

Essentially, she had been screwed over in typical Hollywood fashion. She had submitted a spec script and series pitch to an agent and producer who intimated that they would get it produced. She worked for free on fleshing out the concept and then they told her that it wasn’t usable. Months later, she sees her concept on HBO. Bear in mind that this is her own, personal IP that she copyrighted, trademarked, and registered years before. Now it’s being produced by the guy she pitched it to and she doesn’t have a credit on the project — not even a special thanks.

This happens much more frequently in entertainment than one would like to think. When you go to the powers that be and pitch your project, you have to give them tons of detail about it. They need to know the USPs (Unique Selling Points) that make it worth producing and funding your project. Basically, you have to reveal all your secrets to them. You have no choice. No one is going to give you a dime if you stand there and say, “I have a great idea, but I can’t tell you what it is unless you pay me.”

In game development, it’s a bit safer than TV and film. Making games is so mind-meltingly difficult that people generally don’t steal raw IP. You can read the pitch for a game and be no closer to knowing if it’s going to be fun. You have to play it to know. It’s pretty safe to tell people your idea and be reasonably sure that they won’t steal the concept to make it with their own team, simply because games are so complex and multi-faceted. They’re really about the execution as opposed to the concept. Sure, people will steal things they’ve seen executed well, but few gameplay concepts are worth stealing on their own.

Once you’ve released the game, don’t be surprised…

On the other hand, when you read a script for a movie, you can be reasonably sure whether the characters and plot work well — whether this concept has the potential of being enjoyable to watch. A game is story + gameplay. A script is story alone.

So, alright — you pitched your concept and it got stolen. What do you do?

Well, you certainly don’t go to court. Defending your IP in court is incredibly time-consuming and expensive. Copyright laws have weird clauses about things like the percentage of a work that has been stolen. If it’s below a certain amount, it’s not considered plagiarism. That sort of thing is incredibly ambiguous — how will you ever prove that they stole, say, 26% of your concept instead of 8%? They have more time, money, and lawyers than you. Don’t even bother.

Instead, you should look at this as an opportunity — somebody saw your work and liked it enough to steal it. Awesome! You have talent. This is validation! Well done.

Now you need to capitalize on that. The writer I spoke to had cut off communication with the agent. She had written the whole thing off and was starting over again. Mistake. The first thing you should do when something like this happens is to call up the person who stole from you and congratulate them.

“Hey buddy! I saw that Insert-Stolen-Project-Name-Here got picked up by HBO! That’s awesome, dude! Congrats! I really enjoyed working on it with you guys during the concept phase. How’s it going? Everything cool? Nice, nice! Well that’s dope, dude. I’m really glad it panned out for you. You deserve the success. Me? Oh, I’m doin’ good — y’know still writing, crankin’ out new concepts. But actually, since you ask, I was wondering if you could do me a solid. You know I’m still pretty junior and I’m trying to build up my cred. It would be freakin’ incredible if you could try to get me some sort of writing credit on Insert-Stolen-Project-Name-Here. I mean, you know me — I work hard and make it happen, but I really need credits to help get more people looking at my work. If you could help me out on this one, I’d owe you big time. Cool man. Thanks. I appreciate it. We should definitely meet up for lunch sometime. I can show you some of my new stuff. Peace!”

Lesson 1 in the entertainment biz: Everything is your fault.

You gotta ask yourself, what do you want out of this exchange? You KNOW the guy screwed you over. HE knows it too. Do you REALLY need him to admit it? What’s that gonna get you? It won’t get you a credit. It won’t put bread on the table. It won’t advance your career. All it will do is close a door in your face. In the first place, he’ll never admit it — but if you confront him, that industry contact is gone for good. That helps no-one. In fact, he might even badmouth you to future employers. This industry is tiny. Never burn bridges if you can help it.

What you really want is to work your way up in the industry. The way you do that is by letting him be the big man. Stroke his ego. Tell him that he did everything right. You have no accusations against him. Why would you? Tell him that he’s awesome and perfect and you know it. Then, after pumping his ego up and letting him know (indirectly) that you won’t be making any trouble, you give him the terms of your silence. Just a credit. A tiny little piece of recognition. Maybe it’s only a special-thanks because there would be legal or union ramifications if it was any more than that. That’s fine. Take anything you can get. The best part of this exchange is that he will know that you’re not only letting him save face, but also telling him that he’s welcome to screw you over again if he wants to — in fact, you’d love to give him the opportunity.

In the end, it’s about getting your foot in the door. The other people you work with will know that it was really you getting the work done. They’ll know that you got screwed, and they’ll appreciate your grace under fire. Eventually, one of them will get a better gig with a more upstanding boss or they’ll start their own project. When it comes time to recommend good people to work with, they’ll think of you. In the meantime, you can continue to shop your stuff around or even work with the vicious shark who ate you for lunch — those guys love to find someone who they can reliably abuse. Steady work is steady work.

It probably goes against every ingrained sense of righteousness, morality, and justice in every fiber of your being — but this is how it’s done. It’s the very essence of “Life’s not Fair.” The people with power will prey on you and you have to accept that. Just make sure that you get something out of them each time. For each and every time the vampires feed on you, make sure that you steal a little bit of their power in return. I feel very strongly that much of my success comes from knowing exactly when to let myself be taken advantage of and how to push back when necessary.

Of course, now, I’m the one with the power. Nobody’s perfect, but I do my best to wield it justly.

In fact, although I’m now the one calling the shots, I continue to take the blame just as long as it achieves my end goals.

When I was young, my mother always said, “Let me be the bad one.” If I needed to bow out of some sort of activity or if I had a problem with my teachers, she would tell me to lay the blame on her. I think that the best bosses always do the same sort of thing. We take the blame on ourselves instead of laying it on anyone we manage. As often as possible I try to frame the issues I’m responsible for resolving as my fault when communicating with the people who will ultimately do the work.

Let’s say, for instance, that I have ask for a change to some game element, as often as possible, the approach is, “Dude, I’m really, really sorry to have to ask you for this. I should have figured out that we needed to make this change earlier, but could you please see if you can find some time in your schedule to do it? Thanks dude. I really appreciate it. I’m so sorry I didn’t catch this before.”

In moments of frustration, I might think to myself, “It was impossible to find the issue earlier! We only just started playtesting the level! They should expect to have to do iterative work late in development.” Well, why didn’t I schedule the playtest earlier, when the artist or programmer had more time? At the end, of the day, I am the lead — so it really is my failure at the macro level even if I think that an individual on the team is performing less than optimally. “The buck stops here” is just another way of saying, “Everything is your fault.”

That’s how it goes. No matter if you’re frustrated with powerful people taking advantage of you or people over whom you have responsibility not performing up to your expectations, it’s always best to think of these failures as your own fault. If you want to succeed, you can certainly try to be a shark and attack everyone in your path; but most of us don’t have that predatory instinct, nor the energy to keep up the assault. For most of us, instead, it’s about knowing how to swim with the sharks and get what we want out of them anyway.

Like a very polite remora.

Yeah.

We showed a rad, new trailer.

Part of my Cruise Ship level was featured at the Sony press conference.

I did not dishonor myself or my studio during interviews.

Kotaku

Carry on.

As I sit here, working on Uncharted 3 until the wee hours of the morning, episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic playing in the background, I think about how this holiday season I’m going to celebrate the release of U3, play me some Skyrim, and (if the rumors pan out) watch the heck out of some new ponies. It’s energizing to imagine that some fans are looking forward to U3 just as much as I’m looking forward to season 2 (moar Luna plz).

My favorite stories are the simple ones — the ones that people take for granted. Overwrought, convoluted critical darlings can be thought-provoking and satisfying, but they frequently get a pass on acting, pacing, and other basics just because of the singularity of their vision. But what about the schlock? What about the workaday stories that fill the marquees and timeslots day-in, day-out? Such stories get greenlit because they target a specific, reliable demographic and feed it the tropes that market research says it will pay for. The execs responsible for these films and shows generally have little interest in innovation. All they want is the same schlock cranked out a thousand times, generating reliable revenue. If you want to work in showbiz, these are the people you need to please.

Sullivan’s Travels – “With a little sex in it.”

The creators of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic know all about this reality. In one episode, a main character, frustrated by her clients’ demands, sings a redux of Barbara Streisand’s Stephen Sondheim’s [EDIT: Apologies for the mis-attribution.] Putting it Together, a deeply bitter song about being forced to compromise your art in order to make it a business.

All they ever want is repetition
All they really like is what they know

Sondheim

Pony

But, frankly, I find “blue sky” concept development boring and a little decadent. To be presented with constraints, to innovate within the bounds of what is considered “commercial,” to color within the lines, to sneak something unique and wondrously crafted through this machine – now THAT is what excites me. (This coming from a designer of AAA 3rd-person shooters. Go figure.) When you succeed, it’s awesome. It’s as if your audience has been eating boiled, mushy green beans their whole life and you suddenly sneak some crisp, blanched haricots verts onto their plate. “Wow!” they say, “I never knew this could be so good! It’s the same thing I’ve always been eating, but this time it’s made well.”

Action flicks, romantic comedies, children’s movies – those are the difficult stories to tell. Easy to get greenlit, hard to execute well. Robocop, Die Hard, Groundhog Day, Toy Story — these are all films that had no business being good. Literally. They didn’t need to be. People would have gone to see them regardless because of the cast, or the splosions, or the toys in the Happy Meal their kid got. These movies would have made their margins, put the studio in the black, and then quietly slid into obscurity, making room for the next year’s “good enough” fare. The bean counters would have been happy — they want “safe,” not “good” — and the directors, writers, and crew would have gotten more work. That’s how the entertainment business functions.

Instead, those who made them decided to try harder. They didn’t see the constraints of popcorn cinema as a limitation. They saw it as a challenge! All these films live on as icons of cinema today because their creators pitched a simple, digestible concept that they knew could get funding, and then they excelled.

As much as I love cerebral films like Memento or Primer, I’m far more impressed by genre entertainment done well. When you don’t have lofty concepts to lean on, when your audience wants to be entertained, not challenged, the difference between a sublime popcorn experience and a waste of $10 lies completely in the mastery of the basic craft of storytelling. Like Sullivan’s Travels argued, the best stories aren’t the ones that speak to the nature of the human condition – they’re the ones that wash over you easily, grip you in their cathartic embrace, and let you forget about your troubles for a while.

Sullivan’s Travels – “There’s something to be said for making people laugh. For some, it’s all they have…”

MLP: FiM is a superbly executed testament to the power that skillful execution has to elevate any subject matter. All it had to do was be pink and sell toys. Instead, it dares to not talk down to its audience. It presents complex personalities and issues in simple ways. It lavishes traditional squash and stretch and secondary motion all over its potentially simplistic, flash-like character animation. It transcends its demographic target and appeals to anyone who appreciates humor, sincerity, and a solid dose of cute.

Are there better stories out there? Yeah, sure. But there’s nothing that had less business being good.

Thanks to the team behind MLP: FiM for reminding me why we do what we do.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-04-26-naughty-dog-uncharted-2-was-a-one-off?comment_start=50

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/03/08/uncharted-3-lights-up-gdc-with-3d-villainess-katherine-marlowe/