The New Old

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When was the last time you saw a truly original production?
Something that was utterly different from anything else you've experienced wither it was really nice or damn awful?
Originality seems at the front of requests and demands of any company to do with selling a product: a game, music, a book, a movie, a comic... hell even a pair of shoes. WHY then is it that the things that do well are not original? Those things that we have seen again and again do well again and again.Why? Why will (as an example) yet another Tv series about vampires do very well even though we have vampires coming out of our ears and have been these last few decades (or 100)?

I suppose what one considers 'Original" differs from person to company to society etc but why insist that you must be original to work/talk/sing to talk/work/join me/us/the company only to do what your fans/audience/client wants? Which, interestingly enough, is not " something Ive never seen" its more this or more that.More vampire,more sex more bullet time etc

What this seems to suggest is that people (the audience) are not looking for originality, they are looking for similarity, they don't want "Something New" they want something relate able, something they can think with, something understandable even if it is from a new angle. This is not a bad thing its the exact opposite, even a great movie like Avatar was not particularly  original but done with care, thought, and exceptional professionalism it was an awesome movie and is going down in history as one of best movies ever made. Why? not because it was original but because it was not,because just about every part of it was understandable or relate-able (at least to the majority of the movie going populace) in some way or another, it made sense. there was no "new reality" to figure out, you got what was happening from the get go so you could simply enjoy it. An audience won't like it if they don't get it and they wont get it if they don't have the reality to go with it already. So, is this a workable truth? It seems to be. Is it possible to be original AND entertaining for your audience? When dealing with an audience, apparently not but then again your reality and your audience's reality may not be the same and its up to you to find out what that reality really is, and that's part of the fun of being the artist isn't it?
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ShamiesArt's avatar
Yep ... If I had an extra R10 to my name every time I get the words; original, unique, different, fresh, or new came up in my work briefs Id be a rich man ... HAHAHA! But as soon as the clients cant reference it to something they know then I get the follow up letter starting with something like; "We were thinking ... " or " I dont know if you have seen ..." or "When I was younger there was this ..." ... hehehe
Thats why even DA is littered with the same kind of pics. No matter what the skill level or brilliance of a truly unique idea is ... if it doesn't resemble something else, then people just run away screaming.