Art By Intention
I grew up watching movies. Movies made you laugh--*City Slickers*, *Click*, *Death Becomes Her*. Movies that inspired you to be good and honest, like *Superman*. Movies that dared you to be more than yourself, like *Braveheart* and *Dead Poet's Society*. And then there were the masterpeices--like *Shawshank Redemption*.
These are a few of my favorites. You might not agree with my list, or so you might have your own list. But your list and my list would have one thing in-common. Every show will be a movie crafted by people who poured their hearts out.
Why? Because you don't create Art by accident. Even Jackson Pollock, the guy you might think creates all his art by accident once said "Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is."
You pour your heart out. You die a little bit, and yet you also live a little bit. This is true in Life and this is true in Art. Art, if it truly matters, is supposed to be painful and hard. It's supposed to kill you softly, and yet at the same time breathe in new life.
People forget that.
***
It was with this very same love for stories that I found myself working at ILM--the visual effects studio that brought you the best visual effects spectacles of our time. I got to contribute to some of them: *Star Trek: Into Darkness*, *Avengers: Endgame*, *Ready Player One*, all as a software developer.
And let me tell you I poured my heart into every line of code I committed. I've whispered prayers equivalent to a few thousand goats sacrificed every time I release code into production. I've crossed my fingers so much, they might never lie straight again. My colleagues and teammates might think I was cool-hand-luke, but underneath there was a similar amount of dying and growing, dying and growing, again and again every time production would ask for a new feature or worse, when something broke. Every problem solved, every bug squashed, my heart would die and be born again like a phoenix. And I loved it!
> I went into the woods so I can live deliberately.. and suck out all the marrow of life ~ Thoreau (quoted from Dead Poet's Society)
***
But times are a' changin. Just a few years ago, software developers (or hipsters as they used to go by) would not even touch mass produced coffee or beer. They'd rather have their single origin coffee or their artisan beer. And yet the same group has no qualms with vibe coding. Bleh! I cannot think of anything more contradictory to artful software development. Nothing else sucks the life out of software engineering than v... bleh! Let's make writing software easy they say. Uh huh.
When you write something and it fails, it's painful to you. What happens when a fictitious pair programming partner screws up?
***
I don't think it'll affect all industries, but it's certainly a curse in visual effects. There are lessons written in history. We've seen it all, we all grew up watching movies that were awe inspiring. They broke blockbuster records. Studios fell in love with the money and they wanted to have more. They tried replicating the same formulas and templates. They hired artists. And when they didn't make the same amount they thought they should make, they blamed the artist. They've been cutting corners ever since. Every chance they get, they look for cheaper alternatives: cheaper labour, subsidized labour, and now they are saying the artist can start doing less or something else because this shiny new tool can help out a bit. Poor old Jack. He has been trying to understand all the demands and acquiescing to all requests the industry has placed on him. And yet, no one loves the industry more than he. He eats what meals his meager salary could give, he hardly sleeps and when he sleeps he dreams of Nuke node graphs or Maya script editors or Houdini Rops. He wants to make amends, he wants to make the industry happy again, all while knowing the industry is constantly trying to underbid and/or replace him.
What the industry doesn't know is that you don't create art by accident. They tried to remove the pain but it is supposed to be painful. It is supposed to be renewing. Now it's just numb.
These are a few of my favorites. You might not agree with my list, or so you might have your own list. But your list and my list would have one thing in-common. Every show will be a movie crafted by people who poured their hearts out.
Why? Because you don't create Art by accident. Even Jackson Pollock, the guy you might think creates all his art by accident once said "Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is."
You pour your heart out. You die a little bit, and yet you also live a little bit. This is true in Life and this is true in Art. Art, if it truly matters, is supposed to be painful and hard. It's supposed to kill you softly, and yet at the same time breathe in new life.
People forget that.
***
It was with this very same love for stories that I found myself working at ILM--the visual effects studio that brought you the best visual effects spectacles of our time. I got to contribute to some of them: *Star Trek: Into Darkness*, *Avengers: Endgame*, *Ready Player One*, all as a software developer.
And let me tell you I poured my heart into every line of code I committed. I've whispered prayers equivalent to a few thousand goats sacrificed every time I release code into production. I've crossed my fingers so much, they might never lie straight again. My colleagues and teammates might think I was cool-hand-luke, but underneath there was a similar amount of dying and growing, dying and growing, again and again every time production would ask for a new feature or worse, when something broke. Every problem solved, every bug squashed, my heart would die and be born again like a phoenix. And I loved it!
> I went into the woods so I can live deliberately.. and suck out all the marrow of life ~ Thoreau (quoted from Dead Poet's Society)
***
But times are a' changin. Just a few years ago, software developers (or hipsters as they used to go by) would not even touch mass produced coffee or beer. They'd rather have their single origin coffee or their artisan beer. And yet the same group has no qualms with vibe coding. Bleh! I cannot think of anything more contradictory to artful software development. Nothing else sucks the life out of software engineering than v... bleh! Let's make writing software easy they say. Uh huh.
When you write something and it fails, it's painful to you. What happens when a fictitious pair programming partner screws up?
***
I don't think it'll affect all industries, but it's certainly a curse in visual effects. There are lessons written in history. We've seen it all, we all grew up watching movies that were awe inspiring. They broke blockbuster records. Studios fell in love with the money and they wanted to have more. They tried replicating the same formulas and templates. They hired artists. And when they didn't make the same amount they thought they should make, they blamed the artist. They've been cutting corners ever since. Every chance they get, they look for cheaper alternatives: cheaper labour, subsidized labour, and now they are saying the artist can start doing less or something else because this shiny new tool can help out a bit. Poor old Jack. He has been trying to understand all the demands and acquiescing to all requests the industry has placed on him. And yet, no one loves the industry more than he. He eats what meals his meager salary could give, he hardly sleeps and when he sleeps he dreams of Nuke node graphs or Maya script editors or Houdini Rops. He wants to make amends, he wants to make the industry happy again, all while knowing the industry is constantly trying to underbid and/or replace him.
What the industry doesn't know is that you don't create art by accident. They tried to remove the pain but it is supposed to be painful. It is supposed to be renewing. Now it's just numb.
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