EVOLVE

Entertainment is commerce, so every possible effort must be made so every element in place guarantees the investment put in to said project makes a profit. Thus, it is most prudent to secure elements with a proven track record of success... actors, directors, producers, writers, who have knocked something fiscally out of the park. Another big hedge is tried and true story concepts, things people have seen, enjoyed, and bought lots of tickets for in the past. The understandable mantra of the big boys, the system. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, as long as formulas work, they will go on and on and on. 

We also got the indie ‘studio’ world, where more ‘chances’ are taken, but all that bankableness is still there, gaining cred rather than getting that fat paycheck. The formulas are still there too, just done in a more thought provoking artsy kinda of way. Good stuff, sometimes. 

Last and for sure least, is those flicks where hopeful ammeters fly by the seat of their pants to make something, anything. Most of what this particular group makes pretty much sucks. Even if it’s kinda pretty good, there’s still none of those hedge betting wonders to make it worth marketing. That’s why professionals make movies.

So, we as the public movie watching audience can always be guaranteed of fairly consistent choices of entertainment. But then again, novels had a their consistent ‘things’ through out time too, as had plays, painting, and music. 

Yet every once in a while Picasso has to brush some cubes, four lads from Liverpool make a ‘concept’ album, James Joyce writes Ulysses. Something unbelievable, un-understandable. And those formentioned artists were already proven commodities. 

You still need the math, mastery of technique, and structure. But art can not evolve unless that math, technique, and structure is every once in a while presented in an original way. ‘Original’ that doesn’t initially ‘seem’ marketable, at least to the hedge betters in charge. What’s this all mean? I don’t know, that artistic evolution only comes from ‘established’ artists every once and a while being ‘allowed’ to think out of the box.

But wait, there’s more. The fluke, something coming out of nowhere that shouldn’t, a force of unique creativity so strong, it takes hold of people’s imagination, defying the logic of the powers that be, undeniably making it’s way into mass conscious, thus becoming the next ‘big thing’ those ‘powers that be’ begin chasing. 

Like everything, movies as an art form have to evolve, they must. The rougher road much less taken.