THE MYTH OF THE "STARVING ARTIST"
The term "starving artist" is so ingrained in our society that we automatically believe it to be so. I am left to wonder, however, how much of that belief is self perpetuating. If we tell ourselves that the life of an artist is a hard life, full of poverty and defeat, something many who would choose art are probably told quite often by friends and family, then we come to expect that to be our reality. Expectation is like faith. If we expect that to be our life then we are programming such a thing into our subconcious minds from where it will seek validation. The result is that we may miss incredible opportunities all around us because we become only able to see that which we expect.
What do I mean by "see"? I'll give you an example. When I used to walk to work everyday, my main focus was not getting hit by a car more than getting a car. There are, afterall, plenty of bad drivers to be found in L.A.. Still, when I finally decided to get a car, and more specifically to get a Ford Mustang, I suddenly started to see Mustangs everywhere. Everytime I turned around there was another Mustang. Now the reality is that those Mustangs were always there. I simply didn't see them because that was not my focus.
To this very day, even though I now drive the Mustang I wanted, I still see them everywhere. The subconcious mind is at the back of everything we do and if we allow wrong thoughts to exist there it will affect how we carry ourselves. It will affect every email we write, every conversation we have and even how we see opportunity. Right thoughts on the other hand can change everything. They can be that "something" that an important person sees in your eye that makes them want to suport you or work with you. The tone of your email, without your concious effort, can affect someone such that they recommend you to be interviewed for a major magazine. One line spoken in a conversation my so stick with someone that down the road, when they spot an opportunity, they remember you and pass it on. Like those Mustangs I see, opportunities are all around us. We just have to be in the mindset to see them.
We need only do a bit of searching to find real information that shatters the myth of the starving artist. Artists like Rafaello or Peter Paul Rubens did what they loved and were highly successful in their time. Perhaps closer to our interests, artists like Luis Royo, whose art is depicted at the top of this article, Boris Vallejo and Simon Beasley made big money painting covers for comics, magazines and all manner of science fiction and fantasy novels. Frank Frazetta would get as much as $30,000 for a single Conan cover. Now a kneejerk reaction would be to say, "Oh well these are special cases!' and to a degree they are, but many artists make plenty of money in what is known as "art licensing".
At major trade shows like Surtex, artists are brought together with manufacturers and marketers to license their art for use in a variety of products and advertising. According to ChangingCourse.com, in their writing about artists Bonnie Druschel and Michael Woodward, they say, "Product sales from Bonnie’s first licensing agreement were $800,000 of which Bonnie earned 10% or $80,000. Over the past 30 years, artist, licensing guru, and course developer Michael Woodward has licensed over $600 million in retail goods." If his royalty is around 10% you get the idea.
Woodward describes art licensing as “the business of leasing a copyrighted or trademarked art work by means of contractual agreement (a license), for a specified product, promotion, or service for a specific time period, in an agreed upon territory, for an agreed upon fee or royalty.” You need only visit a Target or Sears and notice the plethora images on various products. Every product featuring a design on it was created by an artist – many of whom are independent and have licensed their art to the manufacturer. A tradeshow like Surtex is the equivalent of what a show like MIPCOM would be to us as animators. Every year there are small studios making cool cartoons that we'll probably never see, who take them to MIPCOM and sell or license them for millions of dollars accumulatively in as many as 60 territories, none of which happen to be in the U.S.. I work in an industry full of artists, many of which make healthy six figure salaries working on their favorite movies and video games, and many are doing exactly what they want to do. There's plenty of money to be made in art and plenty of opportunity everywhere.
Hard times and difficulty can come on anyone in any profession. It has nothing to do with art. There's nothing hard about what I do. When you do what you love it is effortless. Have you ever been in the zone? When you're in the zone, time seems to stop, everything flows with ease and before you know it, it's 3:00 AM and you've missed a meal or two, but at the same time, you have results on screen that truly encompass your pure joy. You can look at images which you have created and easily visualize the future of a completed project. Of course, after missing a couple of meals, you just might feel like you're starving! ;)
What do I mean by "see"? I'll give you an example. When I used to walk to work everyday, my main focus was not getting hit by a car more than getting a car. There are, afterall, plenty of bad drivers to be found in L.A.. Still, when I finally decided to get a car, and more specifically to get a Ford Mustang, I suddenly started to see Mustangs everywhere. Everytime I turned around there was another Mustang. Now the reality is that those Mustangs were always there. I simply didn't see them because that was not my focus.
To this very day, even though I now drive the Mustang I wanted, I still see them everywhere. The subconcious mind is at the back of everything we do and if we allow wrong thoughts to exist there it will affect how we carry ourselves. It will affect every email we write, every conversation we have and even how we see opportunity. Right thoughts on the other hand can change everything. They can be that "something" that an important person sees in your eye that makes them want to suport you or work with you. The tone of your email, without your concious effort, can affect someone such that they recommend you to be interviewed for a major magazine. One line spoken in a conversation my so stick with someone that down the road, when they spot an opportunity, they remember you and pass it on. Like those Mustangs I see, opportunities are all around us. We just have to be in the mindset to see them.
We need only do a bit of searching to find real information that shatters the myth of the starving artist. Artists like Rafaello or Peter Paul Rubens did what they loved and were highly successful in their time. Perhaps closer to our interests, artists like Luis Royo, whose art is depicted at the top of this article, Boris Vallejo and Simon Beasley made big money painting covers for comics, magazines and all manner of science fiction and fantasy novels. Frank Frazetta would get as much as $30,000 for a single Conan cover. Now a kneejerk reaction would be to say, "Oh well these are special cases!' and to a degree they are, but many artists make plenty of money in what is known as "art licensing".
At major trade shows like Surtex, artists are brought together with manufacturers and marketers to license their art for use in a variety of products and advertising. According to ChangingCourse.com, in their writing about artists Bonnie Druschel and Michael Woodward, they say, "Product sales from Bonnie’s first licensing agreement were $800,000 of which Bonnie earned 10% or $80,000. Over the past 30 years, artist, licensing guru, and course developer Michael Woodward has licensed over $600 million in retail goods." If his royalty is around 10% you get the idea.
Woodward describes art licensing as “the business of leasing a copyrighted or trademarked art work by means of contractual agreement (a license), for a specified product, promotion, or service for a specific time period, in an agreed upon territory, for an agreed upon fee or royalty.” You need only visit a Target or Sears and notice the plethora images on various products. Every product featuring a design on it was created by an artist – many of whom are independent and have licensed their art to the manufacturer. A tradeshow like Surtex is the equivalent of what a show like MIPCOM would be to us as animators. Every year there are small studios making cool cartoons that we'll probably never see, who take them to MIPCOM and sell or license them for millions of dollars accumulatively in as many as 60 territories, none of which happen to be in the U.S.. I work in an industry full of artists, many of which make healthy six figure salaries working on their favorite movies and video games, and many are doing exactly what they want to do. There's plenty of money to be made in art and plenty of opportunity everywhere.
Hard times and difficulty can come on anyone in any profession. It has nothing to do with art. There's nothing hard about what I do. When you do what you love it is effortless. Have you ever been in the zone? When you're in the zone, time seems to stop, everything flows with ease and before you know it, it's 3:00 AM and you've missed a meal or two, but at the same time, you have results on screen that truly encompass your pure joy. You can look at images which you have created and easily visualize the future of a completed project. Of course, after missing a couple of meals, you just might feel like you're starving! ;)
18 Comments:
Great Post!
I'm going to check out those organizations. I never heard of Surtex and MIPCOM, so I will check out their convention at the Jacob Javitz center.
THANKS A LOT!!
ahhh...awesome post man!! I see my destiny,but yet so far away:(
Omnimegnalon~
I was thinking about "Voices of a Distant Star," and how the director sold that 30 minute short for $50 each, in Japan. Why do they pay that much? Ok, so why couldn't an American crack that market? They love American made things, and American pop culture.
Cultures borrow inspiration from each other all the time. Why is there this stigma with American animation for adults? Somebody has to crack the barrier, because I don't think the populace is the problem.
For myself, the story I' m thinking of would be somewhere in between a children's story, and and adult anime - the main character would be about 13, and it would be intelligent enough for the adults to like it too. It's an apocalyptic sci-fi comedy. yeah. Maybe I should worry about categorizing it too much.
dude for real Americans arent like that, they want evething to be big big. i mean they even lie about how much they spend on a film as to get more ppl to come see what money will buy them. Now im not say there are few out there ( like me and all of you here) I have fiends that clam there inde supporters then i brimg them here or even over at D7 and even Kaze ghost warrior and evertime never fails they find the flaws in it and hate it. its like they want to find it yet ill find the same flaws in the big boy items and there like naw its ok i still like it. its insane. i been trying to get ppl offf the old tv thing by sending them to twit.tv revsion3 even dl.tv and now podshow.com to show them that the inde is doing better stuff. yet when come down to it if the mainstream doesnt cover it, thats it no good to them. the money thing i got that from Doc simens film course . he says thats 500,000-300,000 film is called a million dollar film. think about they have braces for film cost, i never thought about it, they always say that on new movies how much did it cost and its always $$$$-$$$ amount got to go talk later sorry about my runons and stuff. i was in a hurry
I wonder how well you'd have to know Japanese to be able to get distribution in Japan? I guess getting foreign distribution is a lot harder. I have a book on the subject, but it's not much.
I wonder if this would be helpful:
http://www.globalproducer.com/
I'd rather not have to go learn Japanese again.
I do know some Japanese, but I don't think its as hard as it may seem. I got distribution in Japan just by being there. When I did my demo as part of the Newtek Asia Tour there was a guy there who wanted to distribute Chaos on DVD. It was quick and simple.
At UFO, everything we do goes to Japan for broadcast. I think it's more a matter of just knowing who to get it in front of.
That is heartening news, thank you Terrence
tyler: With regards to why "Voices" sold for $50, chalk it up to the differences between Japanese and US currency; it's not an uncommon thing in Japan to see CDs selling for $30-40 or DVDs for $50-70. However, since Shinkai worked with Comix Wave to distribute the DVD, I highly doubt that he got 100% of the earnings that "Voices" DVD made.
It should be noted, however, that he got a far better royalty that I get here in the states. I've heard rumors of as much as 30%-40% royalty. Since he sold over 10,000 when I was there, and I later heard 50,000 by the end of 2002, I'd say he's still doing great! ;)
30-40%? Yeah, that's definately a lot higher than what most creators would get here. Of course, now that he's mentioned as being in the same league as Hayao Miyazaki and Satoshi Kon, he's probably getting even higher. :D
Wow, that's great! So one could do something 30 minutes long, get distribution, and get money to make something longer. So there *is* a market for short anime. Cool. I'd better start learning about the Japanese anime industry.
I know they do spend more in Japan for just about everything, even in the remote countryside where I lived. But maybe it's also because they are just used to spending more for content, whereas Americans are used to getting it free, often.
Oh....well I wonder why Makoto Shinkai got more? I hope the percentage was still enough to be worth it.
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
You make some very good points. My goal in this article was to, in fact, not make a distinction between those who may do fine art in a studio or cover illustrations or low poly game characters, based solely on the point that I mentioned that they were "doing exactly what they wanted to do."
As far as a job and art, I am not qualified to speak on what is and isn't art or measure anyone's success therein. I can only speak of my own job. My job is not art. It is technical. My job is about survival and not about success. If an artist, however, learns their skill with every intention to go into THQ and do game characters, and there they find fulfillment and a great salary, I would be hard pressed not to call them a success in their art. The key here is "doing exactly what they wanted to do."
Your story of your great uncle is the perfect illustration of this. His meeting of this commercially oriented artist shows that the issue of poverty had nothing to do with his art, but with his level of awareness. (This is similar to awareness as it applies to my Mustang story) Whatever he was able to learn or became able to see as a result of contact with this other artist changed his awareness and even though he was in his seventies he shattered "the myth". Why? Because all the things which led to this change had already existed.
None of us is capable of looking for something we have no conception of. It's really about doing what we really want to do. As you mention about someone's job in animation where they are not known, I truly believe most people in animation desire to immediately or eventually make their own animation and not be a cog in a great machine. No matter how much money they made, they would not be fulfilled and you are right it should not be compared with the arts mentioned previously. I think, unfortunately, that many are inclined to accept part of the dream and thus they become your "'starving artists' with a strong sense of their own direction muddled up with a job as if they were one and the same". If the job becomes anyting more than a means to support getting all of the dream then I fear the direction has been lost.
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
Wow, I stumbled onto this blog while googling some companies that may be looking to license with anime artists like myself. And you are totally right about the starving artist being a myth. THere are a TON of opportunities out there, but they are sort of hard to find. I am currently licensing with 3 companies and I'm definitely not rich and can't live off of it YET, but you better believe I am always looking for that next opportunity. :) The Surtex info was great! But I have a question for you Terrance, I hope you don't mind, I was wanting to know for people who do not have the money to travel to these big conventions are there any particular reputable sites that you know of that you could point us in the right direction? Like I said I'm always digging around for the next opportunity, it never falls into your lap you have to go for it! :D I am also snooping around the Surtex site looking at these companies to see how I can contact them. LOL! I am so bad!! XD
-Chrissy
www.chrissyclark.com
I wish I had that kind of info on hand, but I mostly stick to film and animation related material.
Wow I never consider Surtex till I read this. This opens up a whole new world for me thankyou
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home