Artwork from our Vista project.One of the problems that I have with people who want to produce their own properties is that they fall in love with every idea. I'm not saying that you shouldn't really like the ideas you come up with, but when you become so attached to your ideas you fail to grow as an artist. An example of this are people who sue major studios like Pixar and Blue Sky for stealing their ideas. I'm sure you've seen these cases before. "I'm going to sue because I came up with a story about a clown fish and no one else could be as creative as me". Or "I invented a one eyed green monster, and there is no possible way that an entire studio full of creative artists doing a film about monsters, could come up with a similar idea". Or "If I mix two rodents (a squirrel and a rat) and call it a 'Scrat', I own that idea forever". This type of thinking says to me that you are not a creative person at all. You are just a person with a single good idea, and are so diluted by your perception of your own creativity, that you cannot believe that anyone in this world of six billion people could have an idea similar to your own.
I believe that if you steal an idea from me you could not possibly do as good of a job with it as I could. Furthermore, you know that place where that idea came from? Well, there are a thousand more where that one came from. So I will never cry over a lost idea. I my opinion, the more you are willing to throw away good ideas, the more you are exercising your ability to create new and better ones. With that said, if you do steal an idea from us, we will hunt you down!
5 comments:
Great post.
-Ryan
well...
i would invite you to move to Los Angeles and witness yourself the multitudes of disgusting opportunists who routinely prey upon more creative people for ideas they can steal.
if it happened to you once, you could shake it off, but the second time you'd set aside the one "thousand more ideas" credo. its easy to say we all have many ideas because we do, but when you spend your money, sweat, time, and blood devloping an idea, you'll undertsand the sting of having it appropriated to someone else's project.
well...DanO
I've spent many years in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, Ottawa and New York working at many of the feature and television studios that harbor the multitudes of disgusting opportunists. For my entire career I've freely let anyone listen to any concept I had. I have also spent innumerable hours and tens of thousands of dollars developing properties so I can confidently say that I practice what I preach.
Evidently you have had poor experiences when it comes to intelectual properties but I stay true to my creedo. No matter how many vultures there are out there it does not out weight the benefits of a disaplined development program and positive exposure.
there are vultures and opportunist out there but iit's really sad when you sue a studio because their main character's species is the same as the studio's.
I mean, I can understand if the story is EXACTLY the same but just one or two characters...? Puh-leeze. I don't think I'd be the last person on earth to make a story about say superheroes or fishes. Is DCgonna sue Marvel just because the character Black Cat has a skin-tight leather suit, much like Cat Woman does? Not likely.
How'd we get this sorts of people who are so close-minded that they think they're the only person on earth writing story about (insert anything here) is beyond me.
People make career's out of coopting the ideas of others. Just keep your mouth shut when it comes to ideas that you don't want shared. Everything to throw out into the air is fair game.
-j
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