Staying Relevant AKA “Ubiquitous”
All technology will become outmoded at some point. When The Matrix came out at the turn of the century it was the height of digital rendering. The Bullet Time effect was ubiquitous and John Gaeta and his team were the darlings of the industry and tech media. However, he was hard pressed to repeat his earlier success in the sequels to The Matrix for a variety of reasons.
Chief among these was the very real possibility that the original concept for that movie was juxed (jacked) wholesale from Sophia Stewart, whose lawsuit against the Wachowski Bros was either stuck in litigation limbo, settled out of court on the DL, or simply dismissed outright last time I checked. Regardless what you believe, It’s hard to repeat creative success when the original idea is yours, but when you swagger jack someone else, the odds of replicating that spark decrease exponentially with each subsequent viewing of your work as the fans forget about you, and move on to the next ‘expeditiously’ as Joe Clark might say.
The following most obvious case for dwindling interest in a given property or product is overexposure. The movie Blade Runner gives a great example. When Rutger Hauer’s demented Roy Batty character demanded more “life” from Tyrell he was ethered with the simple yet poignant response that The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long.
Who can forget the stranglehold that Master P and No Limit records had on the rap game in the late 90′s? Tupac had just died and Percy Miller and his brothers provided the requisite thuggin for the starving masses to the tune of platinum record sales. Nevertheless they were quickly upstaged by Cash Money records and Lil Weezy, who took their formula and essentially dumbed it down (That is-if you can fathom the intellectual distance between grunting UUUNGH and made up words like WOBBITY WOBBITY WOBBY) for a new audience. The point is that artists like DMX who used to put out two or three commercial albums a year and flooded the short run/ straight to video blockbuster category had a relatively short shelf life compared to “artists” like Diddy who seem to show up every three to four years with something new, and manage to stay ubiquitous by diversifying and never getting stuck on one specific style or promotion for any length of time. The need for this re-invention is only magnified in the social media age where sharing everything is the norm, and online inactivity is equated with death.
What have we learned so far? Number one, we need to stay abreast of the latest trends in technology and possibly innovate when faced with the opportunity. Two, we need to be original, but when ‘borrowing’ or ‘biting’ someone else we should try to improve on their blueprint by providing a fresh angle via the current zeitgeist or public sentiment in order to stay relevant in a rapidly changing digital marketplace. Finally, we need to understand that as technology improves, the masses get dumber. This is a natural outgrowth of the information age. Ergo- most overworked and underpaid consumers; when faced with a choice between just add water entertainment and something more substantive will more often than not choose the former. That is-unless the so called ‘deeper’ content is fleshed out thoroughly, fully realized, and vetted for cliches (ugh).
The latest Chris Nolan film Inception seems to reflect this idea perfectly as it is creator owned content possibly cribbed from other sources that successfully presents a fairly common subject matter like dream imagery (remember The Matrix?) in a visually compelling format utilizing the latest digital bells and whistles to maximum effect. Not quite re-inventing the wheel but possibly ‘throwin some D’s on that bitch’. Nolan himself is an interesting case as his two earlier films Batman Begins and The Dark Knight are based on a wholly ubiquitous property that has been done a million times over by an equal number of creators. What makes Batman so untouchable but the Matrix sequels so disposable? Why should audiences care what happens to an ageless (possibly immortal) character like Bruce Wayne over six decades but give Neo the gasface after only two?
The answer to that would probably fill up a War and Peace sized novel, but the basic rule holds true; work from a simple blue print (crime and punishment, sadomasochism, vengeance) and frame it in whatever contemporary jive the public is fixated on and BAMN, instant hit. This is why Hollywood is so obsessed with remakes and why every so called new artist is basically a rehash of a more talented older one.
The science behind it may not be exact, but it amounts to touching a nerve with a potential viewer on a visceral level while delivering the raw functionality and technological marvel that jaded consumers demand. Nolan understands this- which is why his version of Batman worked over Joel Schumacher’s if only for the fact that contemporary audiences value grit over glamor- psychological menace over campiness, and slicker- authentic looking technology over the clumsier, more stylized versions favored by earlier creators. In other words, improving on a previous meme and wrapping it in a different color iPhone case. The resulting product is still little more than a glorified PDA but your customer base will devour it because it feels new.
Staying relevant then becomes less about creating new concepts and more about executing proven ones in a fresher, more emotionally satisfying context. The idea being there’s nothing new under the sun, but if you light it from a different angle the audience will come. As usual, all comments and feedback are welcome, and be sure to stay posted for the web-comic series How To Make Loot. ONE HUNNIT.
In: Articles, Four Basic Ideals, Industry Theory · Tagged with: Bieber, Freemasons, Illuminati, Inception, Matrix, Sad Keanu, Ubiquitous
on December 9, 2010 at 11:04 pm
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Good gradually.