Feedback is such an elemental ingredient of nearly any human activity — consider the importance of coaching and teaching in particular, but also think about the creative arts — and yet there is huge variance on how much feedback a given person may get, or choose to accept.
The web is probably the grandest (or at least the noisiest) feedback loop ever created.
In an interesting essay in The Washington Post, Hank Stuever wonders about the impact of fan feedback — specifically, “quibbling” — on the movie versions of beloved books, comic books, TV shows, etc. The latest instance, of course, is Star Trek:
Has our quibbling worked? Yes, if you believe in the collective force of fans and the “wiki” social ideal — that group input only improves the result, guiding by peer pressure if nothing else. No, if you think filmmakers are too beholden to fans. Quibbling does not produce a Heath Ledger-style Joker; that is the result of an actor and a writer and a director coming unhinged from the original material. Quibbling produces a Watchmen movie, which tenderly reproduced the 1988 graphic novel panel-for-panel and still failed — pleasing fans, perhaps, but excluding newcomers.
It’s an interesting and timeless point that Stuever raises. Creators who wish to honor the fans’ concerns may wring out the originality that can make art compelling; and creators who ignore the fans’ concerns risk alienating them.
I just read an early copy of Hell Is Other Parents, by Deb Kogan, whose 13-year-old son Jacob plays young Spock in the new Star Trek film. In one essay, she describes the extreme secrecy measures that director J.J. Abrams took to ensure that no outsiders could read even a line of the script or catch even a glimpse of the filming. It seems that Abrams wanted a tight and closed feedback loop — and it seems to have worked.
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This principle applies to almost any art form I can think of. All great art – be it music, film, paint, sculpture, whatever – comes from a focused vision. Sure, the vision may be informed and influenced by what has worked in the past (few great artists totally abandons what they do well), but if the artist feels no creative passion or sense of ownership, it reveals itself in the work.
I think you missed that there is a life-cycle to most such endeavors, and feedback is very useful at specific times, and disruptive (in a bad way) at others.
So, the problem with “fan feedback” non-stop is that they tend to fall into a mob mentality, off being “trolls” about any innovation. But, that said, remember that early forms of the Batman movie with the Heath L Joker was shown to fans (at a Comic Con) to get feedback on the style and whether too over the top. The feedback was used to find the balance and deal with the nature of the ending. Fans were given leaks and teasers (semi-trailers) along the way as well, but the mob rule was not allowed not hound the people making it.
That said, what makes a movie work or not is very different from what made its source material work. The reason the Spiderman movies worked for a large audience who knew nothing about the comics had a lot to do with the simpler nature of the comics. Batman has always been more complex in the psychology of its heroes and villains, as much by what does not happen as what does. Watchman is trickier given its narrative model and how much it connected with its time (Cold War, etc).
Mr. Dubner,
We as people are never truly satisfied, we all know this. Everyone is a critic, but that critic is not portraying his insight on a worldly view. He is merely herding his followers into his opinionated concept, or what he took away from the movie. Don’t we all see the trailers, every movie starts with the same baseline verbiage coaxing us to pay our $9.00 dollars to see their movie. How can every movie be the block buster event of the year? Yet, each critic, critiques it differently. People, can be mindless and easily guided with just a small pipe from the PIED PIPER! There will always be a fan base lost, no matter how well a director and cast uses their artistic ability to create a movie. There will always be that one person that has to be different or that mob of under ground cyber kids that follow their bloggers; instead of using their own judgment. So, I guess in the end the direct must use his creative means to satisfy the BULK of viewers.
Maybe hard core fans of all these comics, old TV shows, video games, and books should see movies marketed to a broader public as a way to introduce the broader public to the franchise. Maybe then some will be drawn into becoming hard core fans. The more true fans the more profits to the producers/writers which means the franchise can stay around longer and gain depth and perhaps expand into new media (i.e. comics and books becoming video games, and vice versa). So they should see movies as their chance to market their favorite franchises.
Several posters wanted to see the vision of an Artiste! Hah.
When you move to LA, the first thing you get suckered into is the Preview Theatre. There you see movies in final editing for free. Frequently, several endings are shown and the captive audience gets to vote on them (often these alternate endings later gets stuck onto a DVD). This is very disappointing for anyone who thinks there is such a thing as a “True” artist in charge. Later I learned that there IS NO REAL ENDING, since the fantasy is all there is, and transitioning from the creative fantasy to reality is clumsy at best. You might as well be making chotchkies.
You might think that showing several endings is just to keep things secret, but nothing could be further from the truth. Changes are made to increase ticket sales. Movies (and radio plays) are frequently recut and reissued–and edited for changing tastes. The plays of the Greeks and Romans were “cleaned up” by the Victorians, who removed all the juicy parts.
True Artists?…dream on bubela.
May I suggest opening a Broadway play out of town?
I am reminded of Peter Drucker’s statement that, “The purpose of a business is to create customers” as opposed to serving existing customers. By focusing on serving existing customers (“Watchmen” book fans), the non pre-existing fans are not reached.
Of course, to be fair, we should list the number of times Hollywood has ignored the existing fans, “unhinged themselves” from the original material … and laid even stinkier eggs. Robert Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers” anyone?
saw “every little step” this weekend…
it’s a documentary on auditions for
the 2006 revival of “a chorus line”,
and relates how — a few nights into
the show’s first run, when it got less
than stellar response — the ending of
the musical was changed, after which
the show consistently received big
and enthusiastic standing ovations…
one essence of being a performer is
knowing when you need to give the
audience precisely what they want,
versus when they need to be led to
the special viewpoint you offer them.
it’s not an easy balance to attain, but
you know when you walk the tightrope.
-bowerbird