Yesterday I realized something more disturbing than the usual things I ordinarily realize, like the planet is about to spin off its axis and hurtle into outer space where we will either freeze to death, incinerate or be enslaved by beings of superior intelligence.
What I realized is that most of our industry, it seems on this cynical Thursday, are engaged in creating work that is a "temporary stop-gap."
"I know this isn't what we want to do, but we need to be in market so use out of focus film shot by a one-armed Peruvian director who is the cousin of a friend of the client's wife's tree surgeon."
Or
"We need to have a site up while we're getting our site ready."
Or
"We can't make any claims--they've just been negated by legal, but we're committed to the media and need to run the spots."
And so it goes.
And here's the rub.
We create a series of temporary stop-gaps.
And they last forever.
I laughed so hard I cried.
You are spot on, as always. Mediocrity rules. Our problem is that we know what “good” really is because at some point in our careers, we somehow managed to create that elusive gem of a site, or best spot ever. Now, after all these years, it seems even more tragic that 99% of everything we ever will do will end up being shit. But we are not alone. Whether you are a painter, writer, teacher, soldier or chef, to do something GREAT, you must be a pit bull that refuses to unclench its jaws until you’ve drained every drop of blood from the jugular of whoever is standing in the way of greatness. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.
ReplyDeletei would love to just once hear, "it will launch/go live/ship when it is ready."
ReplyDeletei swear no project gets greenlit unless it has an unreasonable schedule