Doing It for the Art: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

When dealing with media, sometimes it is difficult to overcome the feeling that, however much you may love a TV show, the only reason it exists is to make money. Sure, it might have great writing, acting, animation, but when it comes right down to it, it got produced because [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|someone wearing a fancy suit]] thought a bunch of [[Executive Meddling|other guys wearing fancy suits could make money off of it]]. This feeling is even more overbearing when you consider all the TV shows you ''don't'' like - and likewise can only come up with the profit margin being the reason why anyone produced those horrible things.

This [[Trope]] often applies to niche media, since oftentimes with more popular works the creators must work with the general expectation that they need to create something better than sliced bread. Yet it also crops up more obviously in media where we generally have a set of diminished expectations - want to know why the Western Animation section is so huge? Because the [[Animation Age Ghetto]] makes the really good ones stand out more.

 

 

In [[Film]] analysis, someone who does a lot of this is called an ''auteur'', as opposed to the ''metteur en scene'', who is the journeyman director who makes someone else's movie. Within the artists' circle, this practice is called "Art for art's sake". Of course if it does actually make money, well that's just a perk.

* The half-hour [[Film]] ''[[Voices of a Distant Star]]'' was created almost entirely by [[Makoto Shinkai]]. The only thing he didn't do by himself was the voice acting on the commercial release.

* ''[[Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind]]'' - When [[Hayao Miyazaki]] originally pitched the idea, producers refused to risk money making a [[Film]] not adapted from a current hit, so Miyazaki turned it into a manga instead. After the [[Film|film's]] success he was given free rein on his creative ideas.

* ''[[Vinland Saga]]''. Not only did the author make it because it was always his dream to create a kick ass Shonen series, he also had a deep fascination with the Vikings and wanted to make something that portrayed them as they were, more than just [[Exclusively Evil|killers and thugs]]. He even went on a trip to Iceland to research Viking Culture in greater detail, to give his artwork that authentic tinge, and it shows.

* ''[[Aria]]''. The detail that goes into the buildings, geography and events is truly staggering. Also, the [[Anime]] production team traveled to Venice every time they started a new season—even for the ''one episode [[OVA]]!'' And if that weren't enough, there's also large amount of high quality music by names like Eri Kawai, Senoo and [[Choro Club]].

* ''[[So Ra No Wo To]]'' takes place in the fictional town of Seize, who is shot by shot the real Spanish town of Cuenca. Also, when it comes the time to have a German speaking character in the show, they used a voice actress who was raised in Austria and spoke fluent German.

* The love and effort Eichiro Oda pours into each ''[[One Piece]]'' chapter is astounding,.

* [[Masashi Kishimoto]], creator of ''[[Naruto]]''. No, really. Reading the personal history segments he puts into the volumes reveals just how much he loves being a mangaka, and how much effort he put into getting to that point. And the biggest reason he came this far is For the Art, his love of drawing is what convinced him to be a mangaka in the first place.

* [[Toonami]] got revived with a zilch budget, which meant they couldn't get Sally Timms as SARA or [[Peter Cullen]] doing the promos. So why is Steve Blum back as TOM? Because he ''really'', '''''really''''' wanted to be. In fact, led the charge for it's return when the April Fools' broadcast revitalized the fanbase. Working for slave wages is not an issue for him.

 

 

* Along with the praise and encouragement they'll hopefully get from readers, this is a prime motivation of many [[Fanfic]] writers, as they're unlikely to get any financial rewards for their efforts.

** Actually, the only ''reason'' fanfic is allowed to exist by the copyright holders in the first place is that there is no money being made by the fan artists. The instant a ''dollar'' gets exchanged, it could land you in court. Even doing this for free might land you in a lawsuit.

 

 

* ''[[Pan's Labyrinth]]'' used extensive puppetry for its special effects as opposed to the CG animation which is far more the norm in modern circumstances. Suffice to say, puppets are a lot harder to do than CG.

** Used to a lesser but still greater than normal degree for the ''[[Hellboy (film)|Hellboy]]'' films, which made extensive use of puppetry, optical illusions (Krauss' head) and contortionist/actor Doug Jones (Abe, Angel of Death, Chancellor...etc.).

** The ''[[Silent Hill (film)|Silent Hill]]'' movie only used a few CG effects (been a while, but I remember the bugs and the fog). All the monsters were done with live actors, which arguably makes the effect that much creepier creepier.

* ''[[Star Wars]]'' episodes I and II. Love it or hate it, [[George Lucas]] was determined to make sure his vision was brought to life. He relented a little for episode III, and [[Executive Meddling|the old trilogy...]]

* [[Steven Spielberg]] asked not to be paid when he made Schindler's List, which he considered his most personal project.

** This is actually true for Spielberg (and Lucas on Indy) on most of his projects. He takes no director's fee, instead he gets an ample part of the gross. It was something he did once a movie went overbudget which worked in the end. Considering the money his films usually takes, lets just say that he doesn't have to worry too much.

* [[Boris Karloff]] essentially made the movie ''[[Targets]]'' for free, because he liked the script so much.

* Kevin Spacey wanted to keep his name off ''[[Se7en]]'' (at least until the end credits) for suspense purposes. In addition, Brad Pitt refused to promote the film unless the ending, as planned by director [[David Fincher]], ended up in the film. [[It Was His Sled|You know the one]]. In the end, it did.

=== Live Action TV ===

* Like the ''[[Transformers]]'' live-action film, a lot of the CGI in ''[[Firefly]]'' was done to fit in the shots instead of making the shots to fit the CGI.

** When they realized they were running out of music budget for the series finale, Ron Moore, the other producers and composer Bear McCreary himself pitched in to pay for the orchestra.

* ''[[Babylon 5]]'' (The [[J. Michael Straczynski|creator]] of the show also wrote 4/5ths of the 110 scripts, and took the job of executive producer just so he could get the creative control he wanted. There's also [http://jmsnews.com/ over 10,000 posted public comments] from the five year run of the show.)

* [[Chris Morris]] is known for the lengths he will go to to achieve his effects and his sheer guts and bravery (even memorably mocking drug dealers to their faces). His agent has commented that she doesn't tell Chris what his fee will be for any one programme...because he's likely to negotiate it away to pay for extra filming.

* ''Frank Herbert's Children of Dune'' has the song "Inama Nushif", which is sung entirely in the Fremen language.

 

=== Machinima ===

 

=== [[Tabletop Games]] ===

** One could argue that it's actually the people buying the kits who are in it for the art, and Forge World themselves are just exploiting a market that is willing to pay a lot of money for their models.

*** [[Running the Asylum|They are one and the same.]]

* ''[[Cave Story]]'' may not seem all that impressive to big brand name releases like ''[[Metroid]]'' and ''[[Castlevania]]'', but consider this - the entire game, and the "Studio Pixel" responsible for it, consists entirely of one person.

** Over the course of 5 years. During the time he graduated and started to work.

* ''[[Freedom Force]]''. Most people just see wacky technicolor superheroes doing wacky technicolor superhero things. Those geeky enough to know about [[The Golden Age of Comic Books]] and [[The Silver Age of Comic Books]] just feel an overwhelming sense of awe.

* ''[[Xenosaga]]'' required loads and loads of manpower in order to pull off the technical feats it could - especially when you consider that it was a first-generation [[PlayStation 2]] title. But man, did we really need that many cutscenes?

* The ''[[MOTHER]]'' series. There's a good reason why only three MOTHER games have ever been made, and why they have such a devoted fanbase. All [[Shigesato Itoi]] wanted from this was the chance to experiment with telling a good story in a new, different medium. All that's likely to bring him back to the series is feeling that he has a new story to tell for it. Actually, this extends to most things Itoi has ever done and the purpose of his current work, the Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shinbun.

** You want an example? In ''[[EarthBound]]'', [[Welcome to Corneria]] is completely averted. ''Completely''. ''Every single NPC in the game'' has at least one dialogue change, and often more. Never mind that most of these NPCs are in towns you'll never visit again once you're done with your business there. ''[[Mother 3]]'' does the same thing.

** The [[Fan Translation]] for ''[[Mother 3]]''. [http://mother3.fobby.net/or/ The translation team was very, VERY serious about their work]. There were many technical hurdles they felt they might never get around, [[Moment of Awesome|and they got around them anyway]]. And it paid off.

** ''[[Chrono Cross]]'', meanwhile, ventured in a completely different direction for the sole reason that its creators felt ''Chrono Trigger'' was so good that trying to replicate it would merely be redundant. Both written and directed by Masato Kato, the head writer for ''Trigger'', ''Cross'' features a more personal and ponderous narrative and explores the themes of its predecessor from very different perspectives; the game incorporates a number of incredibly ambitious ideas (such as an [[Loads and Loads of Characters|absolutely huge roster of playable characters]], complex and branching storylines, and high-minded philosophical themes) that few, if any games have attempted since. By far the most done-for-the-art aspect of the game, however, is the soundtrack: even though he had just quit [[Square Soft]], [[Yasunori Mitsuda]] was hired to score the game simply because Kato considered him an indispensible part of the ''Chrono'' formula. The decision to compose two different songs for each area - one for each dimension - was made at the last minutes, simply because Kato and Mitsuda thought it would be a good idea. The singer and lyricist for the ending theme, a relatively obscure artist by the name of Noriko Mitose, was chosen despite [[Square Soft]] PR's wishes for a more popular and marketable singer, simply because her style was deemed right for the game.

* In most video games, incidental NPCs - even [[Nominal Importance|named ones]] - generally have no voice acting, two-dimensional personalities, and don't ever get up to much of anything. Not so in ''[[Psychonauts]]''. Every single character in the game - and there's [[Loads and Loads of Characters|gobs of 'em]], around 30 or so - is fully voiced, with their own quirky personality, and their own mini-story they follow through the course of the game - such as the [[Love Triangle]] between [[Kidanova|Nils]], J.T., and Elka, Quentin and Phoebe's garage band, and Mikail's search for the camp's bear population, which somehow leads to him and Maloof becoming the camp's [[The Family for the Whole Family|local mobsters]]. It must be seen to be believed.

** This level of character detail is more or less a staple in Tim Schafer's games. In fact, rumor has it that he managed to flesh out each character in the game so well was by creating fake accounts for each character on a social networking site and playing out their lives through them.

** [[Beyond the Impossible|And the game is free, people]].

* Victor Ireland of [[Working Designs]] was clearly Doing It for the Art. Not everyone liked all of their [[Gag Dub|art]], but they put a phenomenal amount of effort into localizing relatively obscure Japanese RPGs, even in the days before ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'' brought RPGs into the United States mainstream.

** The Xbox360 version of ''[[Don Pachi|DoDonPachi: DaiOuJou BLACK Label]]'' ended up being a [[Porting Disaster]]. Why? After an investigation at Arika at [[CAVE]]'s request, the source code was being held by a management company and 5pb., the company in charge of the 360 port, stole the source code from the PS2 version. Normally, a company would sue 5pb. into next week. What did Arika do instead? After an apology from 5pb.'s CEO, Arika's CEO, Ryo Mizutani, forgave them and Arika Vice President Ichiro Mihara is now ''helping 5pb. make a better port of <nowiki>DDP: DOJ</nowiki>.''

* ''[[Thunder Force]] VI'' utilizes two different languages for in-universe text and speech, neither of which are Japanese or English. One of these languages is [[wikipedia:Tangut language|Tangut]], an ancient language somewhat related to Chinese, and the other is Mongolian, an uncommon language to employ as a [[Gratuitous Foreign Language]]. And the even better part? The [[Omake]] material has translations into Japanese and transliterations into katakana and roman characters for the in-game speech.

* ''[[Gran Turismo]] 5'' appears to be invoking this trope. It has been in development since some time in 2005, and has apparently had ''every'' developer in the employ of Polyphony Digital working on it at the same time, during some of the development cycle anyway. The reason for that? It has ''one thousand individual cars''. Extreme attention to detail is apparently the prime directive of Polyphony.

* Part ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]'' series. While most of the developers is doing for the money, the enormous and detailed world and back story shows that at least someone put a lot more effort in to the games than they had to.

* ''[[Final Fantasy I]]''. After several mediocre at best attempts to make profitable video games and losing money on all of them, the designers at Square decided they only had one more chance to make a game before being bankrupt, and instead of using the last chance to try and come up with something guaranteed to make money, they instead decided make a game they would want to play, leading to the most ironic title in video game history.

* ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'', especially in ''Z'', where the artists gave the older shows some truly awesome [[Retraux]] effects simply to show that, yes, they still love the oldies ''that'' much.

* ''[[Alan Wake]]'' deserves it's place here. Remedy, the developers, went out halfway across the world to sit down and take thousands of pictures of a small pacific town surrounded by forests and mountains just so they could capture the appropriate feel of it. As a result, they created one of the most atmospheric games out there.

* ''Metal Black'' was a Shoot Em Up by Taito. Hiroyuki Maruyama, the president of G.rev, started the company and did subcontracting work for [[Treasure]] and Taito to generate revenue just to make a [[Spiritual Successor]] called [[Border Down]]. Why? He just really liked ''Metal Black.''

* Spiderweb Software seems to be aiming for this, but getting tripped up by its perpetual financial difficulties. ''[[Geneforge]]'' is a very unusual series best described as a westernized ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]'', and it's never really sold all that well, but the people who like it like it a lot. ''[[Avernum]]'' . . . well, it's a popular series, but apart from its setting [[Beneath the Earth]] it's [[Follow the Leader|pretty obviously]] an ''[[Ultima]]'' clone minus the moral philosophy that made ''Ultima'' so different from other [[Role-Playing Game]]s. Even the chief developer seems to have qualms about having made a series where, in his words, you "look around for people who look different from you, break into their homes, kill them, take their stuff, sell it, and use the money to buy better weapons to kill a higher class of people who look different from you." Between 2005 and 2009 it alternated between releasing ''[[Avernum]]'' and ''[[Geneforge]]'' sequels, the latter of which became increasingly dark and, to a certain extent, artistic, and the former of which [[Sequelitis|soured on the fans a bit]], but still sold far better than ''Geneforge''. (As of this writing, both series have been discontinued in favor of a new IP, ''[[Avadon]]'', so it'll be interesting to see whether Spiderweb has finally managed to strike a balance between what the creators want to make and what the masses want to purchase.)

* The background lore of ''[[Sword of the Stars]]'' is rich enough to put [[Role-Playing Game]]s to shame. Just check out [http://www.kerberos-productions.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=9 the official forums], where writer Arinn "Erinys" Dembo addresses lots and lots of fan queries. Most developers would be content with short backstories, never mind actually building on the existing lore in response to fans.

* Localization example: in 2010, [[XSEED Games]] formed a partnership with [[Nihon Falcom]] to localize some of the latter's games on the [[PlayStation Portable]]. Three of them are from ''[[Legend of Heroes VI|The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky]]'' trilogy, which is known for having thousands of lines of text...''per game''. (Although no specific publishers were confirmed, that alone was apparently enough to have other publishers refuse to translate it.) Although the trilogy is popular in Japan, XSEED has to deal with a market in which gamers are either aren't familiar with the series or associate ''The Legend of Heroes'' name with Bandai's (later [[Namco Bandai]]) [[Blind Idiot Translation]]s of the previous three installments. Needless to say, it takes balls for a game localizer, and a fairly new one at that, to localize that many games under such circumstances.

* In 1997, Looking Glass Studios began work on ''[[System Shock]] 2'', the sequel to the 1994 game (which sold decently, but wasn't much of a moneymaker). The team hired for the project only had a year to complete their project, working with an unfinished graphics engine (the Dark Engine, which would be used in the ''Thief'' series of games). They had to endure staff walkouts, which arguably made the remaining team members become closer as a result. The game also codified many elements of the action genre in one game - branching character paths, an open-ended gameplay experience, a constantly-changing environment, RPG elements and a extreme infusion of horror - something unheard of at the time. The game ended up being regarded as one of the scariest video games ever made, resulted in critical accolades and awards that continue to this day, received a [[Spiritual Successor]] in the form of ''[[BioShock (series)]]'' and ''[[Dead Space (series)|Dead Space]]'', and the creators still release materials related to the game (Ken Levine released design sketches and concept art, while composer Eric Brosius released the entire soundtrack to a fansite) more than a decade later.

* For ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'', the creators flew all over the world to find inspiration and art references for architecture and landscaping, studied martial arts in order to create realistic combat sequences, and hired someone with a PhD so that all the Classical Chinese ideographs seen in the series would be accurate. They also hired consultants for these things.

** The background posters that Sokka walked past one episode were seen for less than ten seconds, yet they still included a realistic poster for a theatre company (foreshadowing for another episode), and a poster for an town meeting about air quality (referencing the industrialized Fire Nation) and all the gambling being done on the streets. All in archaic Chinese.

* ''The [[Mighty Orbots]]''' artists, produced in the 1980s, actually studied from classical and Japanese animation in order to be the best they could be. Notable mainly because of the [[Animation Age Ghetto]]. When you could get away with stuff like ''[[Pac-Man]]'', ''Gobots'', or ''[[The Care Bears]]'', studying classic film for inspiration is, well, a little ''weird''.

* As seen by the page quote, the animators at the "Termite Terrace" studio producing the ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' shorts for [[Warner Bros]]. between the mid-1930s and 1946. Helping the anarchistic spirit along were a succession of humorless bosses that more or less invited open rebellion. Founder Schlessinger won unwitting immortality as the inspiration for Daffy Duck's trademark lisp ("You're dethpicable!"). The Warner Bros. themselves really didn't know or care what was going on in their animation unit, leaving hands-on oversight to bean counter Eddie Selzer. (Recounting the genesis of the classic "Bully For Bugs", Jones recalled the day Selzer showed up at his door as he and writer Mike Maltese were hashing out story ideas, and bellowed: "I don't want any pictures about bullfights! Bullfights aren't funny!" Then Selzer marched off, leaving his dumbfounded staff staring at each other. "Well," Maltese said, "Eddie's never been right yet...")

** Dan Povenmire is even perfectly happy with his work being uploaded for free on video sites. The episodes continue to be created in HD, despite them never being aired this way, and it really says a lot when he talks about how Disney doesn't market them as such because they think the kids don't care and the adults won't buy it.

*** Not only is Povenmire fine with having his work on [[YouTube]], but he actually reads the comments and responds to some of them.

{{quote|"The truth is, we make this cartoon for ourselves," said Marsh. "We don’t make it for children; we just don’t exclude them, which is something that John Lasseter once said. When you get to writing the jokes and finalizing the content, you just want to make sure you don’t do anything that’s going to make you cringe as a parent or that’s going to alienate the younger viewers."}}

** And, going further than the intricate net of [[Catch Phrase]]s, [[Continuity Nod]]s, [[Running Gag]]s and such, we get the music. I can't speak to the actual composition, but if you look at the lyrics you see a beautiful mesh of rhyme schemes, alliteration, internal rhymes, tasteful repetition, and probably half the list of literary devices your high-school English teacher taught you. There are artists/bands whose lyrics aren't this well thought out.

* Pro Wrestler Jim Fullington, better known as the Sandman. Has been independently wealthy for more than a decade, and still goes out most every night and gets the living hell knocked out of him due to love of the "sport," and his love for the fans.

* The designer interviews for the [[Transformers]] toylines are always fascinating, because everyone involved [[Running the Asylum|seems to love the source material and working on it]]. The engineers even love just coming up with designs, [[What Could Have Been|even ones that might never be seen]], such as a [[Transformers Generation 1|Soundwave whose minions leap out of his chest in sequence and transform in mid-air]] or [[Beast Wars|Rhinox]] as a [[Big-Budget Beef-Up|voyager, just because he could use the extra mass and design budget]], or a line of [[Shown Their Work|real life military vehicles at 1:24th scale]], which would result in toys the size of computer towers that would cost over 60 dollars a piece. And, in defiance of rising petroleum costs and geometrically increasing complexity, [[Inflation Negation|a Transformer purchased in 2011 costs about the same as it did in 1996.]]

** Just one example of how far Shout Factory is willing to go: for years, [[Mystery Science Theater 3000]] fans assumed the ''[[Gamera]]'' episodes would never be officially released. After all, one of the Rhino DVD sets had to be yanked and rereleased with a different episode due to copyright issues with a ''[[Godzilla]]'' film, and the owners of the ''Gamera'' rights were even less pleased with Best Brains. And then Shout put ''all the Gamera episodes out on one collection''.

* Charles Lauzirika is a sci-fi fanboy who was put in charge of 20th Century Fox's DVD production team, and has created some of the most well-known DVD sets and film documentaries of all time. Notably, during the production of the ''[[Alien]] Anthology'', he not only fought to get the uncut version of his ''Alien 3'' documentary "Wreckage And Rage" released (which required an epic amount of wrangling with FOX executives for close to a decade), but he also went back to the "workprint" edition of the film that was constructed for the ''Alien Quadrilogy'' release in 2003, assembled every member of the supporting cast whose voices couldn't be picked up on the temp track, and had them re-record all of their lines. He also served as the producer of ''[[Blade Runner]]: The Final Cut'', in which he brought Harrison Ford's son in to replicate his father's dialogue for voiceovers that were hard to hear, and had Joanna Cassidy reshoot her famous run through the glass windows so continuity errors from the original film could be corrected.

 

=== [[Real Life]] ===

* The people at Gucci liked [[John Wayne]]'s films so much, they gave him a Bowie knife. Yes, a Gucci-made Bowie knife. Wayne like it so much he kept it in his top desk drawer up to his death so he'd see it every time he'd sit down to write to fans.

* The critically acclaimed restaurant Schwa is easy to miss in Chicago. The restaurant is one of many 3-story buildings, no more than 20 feet wide, in an ordinary neighborhood, just opposite a tire shop with fake palm trees. Inside, there is only room for 30 people, and no more than two people can sit at a table. There are no waiters or staff, beyond the chefs themselves, who are dressed in casual clothes and talk casually to the customers. There are no decorations, there is no wine selection, and metal and hip-hop music plays in the background. Most days, the owner Michael Carlson barely breaks even. This is because ''every single cent the restaurant makes goes into making the most innovative and creative food anywhere in the entire US.'' No expansions, no remodeling, no fancy facades or gold-plated silverware. The man even served a party of 20 of the greatest chefs in the world ''on the house''. [[Creator Breakdown|His passion drove him to exhaustion and a premature exit]], but he reopened Schwa a year later, and kept on going. He is practically the face of Doing It For The Culinary Arts.

*** Is that whole bit a massive piece of [[Fridge Brilliance]]?

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Idealism Tropes]]

[[Category:Trivia Trope]]

[[Category:Creator Standpoint Index]]

[[Category:Toei Animation]]