When you think of the Hollywood writers strike and Hollywood writing, you think of great screenplays or well-written series such as Breaking Bad.
What doesn't spring to mind are the hundreds of mindless shows that make up the bulk of Hollywood’s output.
Finally, this fatal flaw is coming into the open.
Of the 126 channels that are offered through the typical cable bundle only a few make money. The rest of the channels are subsidized by the few success stories.
Comedy.tv and the Black News Channel get a primetime audience of just 4,000 viewers a night. Even the Tennis Channel has only 49,000 nightly viewers, and the Outdoor channel dials in just 29,000 primetime mountain men.
We live in a country of 334 million.
As consumers increasingly cut the cord, cable channels will be forced to exist on their own merits. This is where things get ugly.
I have always heard that a primetime audience of 500,00 was enough to put a channel in the black. Using that number as a cutoff point means over 110 of the cable channels are losing money.
As studios and labor try to work things out, the people who commission this content have to be wondering “where is all of this going?”
Beside cable television, the streaming companies are also beginning to struggle. In the last quarter, Netflix shed 2 million subscribers.
It would seem people aren't watching as much.
But what is really behind the problem are creators like Mr. Beast or the Vlogbrothers, or the thousands of creators who make content for largely niche audiences.
This is where the eyeballs are.
It may not have the Hollywood polish, but people flock to YouTube and TikTok content because it speaks to them. It is real and relevant. And it is also free. That one.
There is no reason to believe this trend won’t continue. And with AI upping its game every day, the quality and quantity of on-line content will only increase.
Content creation is becoming increasing decentralized. Having an LA address and contacts in the film industry are no longer enough. You must have your own audience. And, yes, you can work from home.
Attention is all you need.
The creators on YouTube and TikTok have the audience’s attention because what they make is supremely relevant.
Burn Hollywood burn, I smell a riot Goin' on, first they're guilty, now they're gone Yeah, I'll check out a movie But it'll take a Black one to move me
– Public Enemy
The other day Sam Altman posted these words on X(formerly twitter):
“Everything 'creative' is a remix of things that happened in the past, plus epsilon and times the quality of the feedback loop and the number of iterations.”
Heady stuff. But, in simpler terms we should mine the old stuff, not care too much about originality, and just iterate like crazy.
In the world of art this is often called pastiche – creating an artistic work that imitates another work, artist or period.
It’s the bread and butter of many Hollywood directors:
"I steal from every single movie ever made." – Quentin Tarantino
And great artists:
“Good artists copy, great artists steal.” – Pablo Picasso
Today pastiche is on the rise. Just ask ChatGPT.
What many people don’t realize there are many names and forms of pastiche. Some seem more artistically defensible than others, and, in case your were wondering, many will hold up in a court of law.
Adaptation
The transfer of a work or story to a different form. In films the source is typically novels, but can be comic books, scriptures, plays, historical and autobiographical works.
One of the biggest adaptation series is the Marvel Universe. While starting with a specific source material, adaptations frequently interpolate scenes and invent characters.
Since details like music, set décor and costumes are usually not contained in the source text, creative interpretation provides room for artists to bring fresh perspetcives.
Appropriation
Not unlike pastiche, appropriation imitates or directly copies existing art. While it has a negative connotation, the term “Appropriation Art” was coined in the early 80s to classify work that captures the intentionally of the act of borrowing and the historical attitude of the borrower.
Mike Bildo's Not Warhol (Brillo Boxes,1964) celebrate appropriation head on. In fact, they are exact replicas of those made by Warhol. The artist says:
"I thought it would be interesting to appropriate a work by another appropriator, so in a way I just kept the proverbial snowball rolling."
It keeps rolling today.
Bricolage
This is very close to what Sam Altman has in mind.
The concept is attributed to Claude Levi-Strauss. It is borrowed from the French world “to tinker.” The definition of bricolage is usually “making something new out of something old.”
Robert Rauschenberg took the idea and ran with it (see above). Using “bricolage” in a generative-art prompt usually leads to a collage style of output, made of whatever visuals are specified.
Hip-hop sampling is a kind of bricolage. As is William S. Burrough’s “cut-up” technique for writing.
Capriccio
A mixing together of different forms and styles. In visual art or music, a capriccio typically manifests itself as a flight of fancy or a sudden whim.
You can hear an example of this in the Beatles “A Day in the Life” when McCartney’s upbeat section interrupts the more downbeat Lennon verses.
Cento
Way back in antiquity patchworks texts were made that borrowed from famous authors such as Homer and Virgil. They were intended as parodies.
This is the stock-and-trade of a Tarantino film. Tarantino frequently lifts or imitates the scenes and styles of other directors, but he serves them up as homage or even parody.
This has earned him the title “The Great Recycler”.
Collage
When people want to avoid the negative connotations associated with “pastiche” they will sometimes say “collage.”
Collage was developed by Braque and Picasso using newspaper cutouts and cigarette pack paper, then pasted into cubist compositions.
In collage, the identity of each individual piece is preserved bringing its own secondary meaning to the work.
A lot of documentarists use historical footage as a sort of visual collage to bring dimension to their films.
Fake
Starting in the 16th century, pasticcios of famous paintings were regularly produced for collectors.
These “fakes” weren’t really being made as forgeries, and mostly functioned the way prints do today.
None other than Michelangelo himself is said to have made a statue in the style of ancient Roman artworks. He then applied a patina and sold it to a cardinal. When it was later discovered it wasn't real it actually burnished his reputation.
Farrago
Used to describe a confused mixture or hodgepodge. Farrago leans more heavily as the “mental confusion” connotation of pastiche.
In a sentence: Rob’s Midjourney art is the farrago of a well-intentioned writer trying to make something that doesn't suck.
Faux
Dogs get it. They don't think they are getting a real bone. But when it says “Corinthian Leather” people demand to believe it's the real thing.
Faux is a high-brow way of saying something has an imitation quality. It's why realtor's invented the term “luxury vinyl.” The words “faux wood” just don't start a lot of bidding wars.
Imitation
Richard Prince's Marlboro Man
Within pastiche is a degree of imitation. How well this is done determines the artistic success of the project. Tarantino’s success is built on how well it imitates the original while maintaining the needs of his own story.
The artist Richard Prince became a success by photographing Marlboro ads, cutting off the logo, and framing them for gallery walls.
“The pictures I went after, ”stole," were too good to be true. The were about wishful thinking, public pictures that happen to appear in the advertising sections of mass-market magazines, pictures not associated with an author…Itw as their look I was interested in. I wanted to re-present the closest thing to the real thing."
In 2014, the artwork above sold for $3.7 million dollars at auction.
Montage
"I steal from every single movie ever made. If my work has anything, it's that I'm taking this from this and that from that and mixing them together." – Quentin Tarantino
Montage used to be more commonly used as a synonym for pastiche. Now montage is about how different images can be seamlessly brought together.
In advertising we see often historic montages to show us a brand has been around for a long time.
Tarantino uses montage sequences that evoke and pay homage to older styles and conventions. Good montage can be judged by how well it synthesizes existing images to create new meaning.
Simulacrum
The primary definition of simulacrum is “a representation of someone of something.” However, today, we mostly hear simulacrum used in its secondary meaning: an unsatisfactory imitation or substitute.
It's not about imitation or parody, but of substituting signs of the real for the real itself. Magritte’s “The Treachery of Images” plays with this notion challenging assumptions on the nature of reality.
Travesty
In theatrical parlance travesty means to dress or disguise. The wit of travesty is the difference between old content and the new, intentionally offhand presentation.
“The Last Supper” has become the ultimate travesty.
Not only has DaVinci born the indignity of having his famous work continually restored, but he can be blamed for opening the door to the apostles being caricatured as cats, canines, and surfer dudes.
Not all creatives are artists. But all artists are creative.
Artists cannot walk away from their creativity. It's there when they open their eyes in the morning. It's in their coffee. And there at night on the high white ceiling. Creativity isn't an episode for artists, it's the whole shooting match.
Rich Wakefield is an artist who started as an advertising creative. Working at some of America's foremost agencies, Rich has made award-winning campaigns for many of the world's biggest brands.
After 30-years in advertising, he has not lost one atom of enthusiasm for the business.
The key to Rich's creative mojo is what he calls “the attraction to distraction.”
It is an important heuristic that allows him to solve the biggest problem he is working on by diverting himself with a secondary project. It is not unlike how Einstein played his violin as a way of drawing out his subconscious.
Over time, Rich has developed a creative philosophy has emerged that we could all find useful. Learn. Dream. Do. I would add a fourth word, "repeat," but if you know Rich that one comes with the territory.
His most recent distraction, if you will, are his Bittybotz. Inspired by NFTs, the Bittybotz are an army of tiny robots each representing a human strength or virtue.
Inspired by his “Learn, Dream, Do” philosophy, the Bittybotz's spirtual leader, Yussilv, seconds this sentiment. One silkscreen spells this out in graphic lettering: Teach them to dream more, learn more & do more.
Rich crafted a unique alphabet for the Bittybotz inspired by Korean letter forms
Each character is not unlike a page from a personal encyclopedia of creative insight.
Each Bittybot has its own aphorism. Yoomkle declares: Fuel you life with passion & purpose and you will never run out of energy.
Ozzima Flames who Rich clearly identifies with says, “Your flame may flicker but it will never die.”
Off Zickima says with prescience: “Words have power, use them wisely.”
As much as we live in a world brimming with AI, there is still room for ink on paper. And people like Rich who are more than willing to share their craft and wisdom.
More of Rich's work and thinking can be found at thehappytriangle.com and richwakefield.com
And please schedule a trip to the Bittybotz universe at bittybotz.com where signed prints are available.
Being and AI booster can be a thankless task.
Today we live in a creatively bifurcated world. There are those have have jumped feet first into generative art, and there are those who see anything AI as an affront to creativity and its human hosts.
The second group believes using AI is somehow cheating.
Lost in these debates is the fact that AI is just a tool, another paintbrush given to the species who mastered fire.
Sharing AI-created wonders is a way of encouraging people to get on the bus. Yet, no matter how sweet that ride may be, many think we should still hoof it.
Today, the world is divided between AI Believers and AI Deniers. The video below was inspired by some of the most frequeuntly voiced criticisms from the Denier camp.
This piece was made using Midjourney, D-ID, Canva and a #2 pencil from DIXON.
It's those words again: paradigm shift. Yes, overused. But mostly unfairly or incorrectly used by those who have never read to book above.
The famous phrase has come and gone over the decades. Yet it is now maynbe more relevant that at any time since the book was published in 1963.
“The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” was a startling and controversial book. Its most novel idea was to view the history of science through the lens of sociology.
On close examination scientific advancement relies as much on the egos and biases of people and it does on the science itself.
The physicist Max Planck said, “Science advances one funeral at a time.” And this is probably true of AI.
In the end, how we adapt to AI will be a generational thing. Many older people see AI as a threat. Those who are growing up with it will wonder what the world was like without it. “Wait, you carried metal coins and paper money?”
The paradigm many are clinging to today that humanity cannot be outdone by machine intelligence. Computers cannot create.
And maybe they can't. But maybe neither can people. Maybe our real talent we is re-mixing and re-combining things like Sam Altman says above.
Yet everyday I see proof that AI can do miraculous things that create value and have novelty.
Who is to say machines aren't creative, or we ourselves aren't just logic machines built on binary systems.
Humans have been humbled before. And will happen again. Human exceptionalism is overrated.
Sponser
AI changes everything. Including storytelling. Nextness Volume 7 is brought to you by Storymachine. As a leader in the AI video space, Storymachine scripts, films and delivers everything from branded content and commercials to corporate masterclasses and training films. If you are looking to unleash a new kind of storytelling, Storymachine just might be your jam. storymachinefilms.com
