Fascinating read from Harvard Business Review. While they speak more in terms of music, this has implications for TV and film as well.
What makes a hit?
- Thread starter Alex H.
- Start date
Great post. Thanks.
I agree with you, Drew. I think the article pertains more to commercial release, though, and not to independent production.
The big takeaway from this, for me, is summarized in one line in the article: "I can predict failure, but I can't predict success." So you can guarantee failure by making something bad (EDIT: save for anomalies such as "Birdemic"), but success is kind of a "luck of the draw" if the song/film/show is good to begin with.
Indies shouldn't worry as much about making hits, and should focus on telling good stories (whether driven by characters or by visuals). For those who work in commercial film and TV, though, this is great insight (not that commercial production shouldn't also focus on telling good stories, but I digress...)
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I think you can just as easily go the other way and ignore your audience so that no one can relate to your film. There's a fine line between concentrating on making "art" and not worrying to much about what the market might want, and narcissism where the film maker goes screw everyone, this is what I like and if no one else likes it that's fine. Well, a lot of times no one else likes it when you have that attitude.
Telling a good story is what is so hard about making a good film. Everyone wants to tell a good story. Most film makers are not trying to tell a bad story thinking that's what audiences really want to see. Most film makers know that "trying to make a hit" is the same thing as trying to tell a good story. It's just not an easy thing to do. Often times it's a lack of knowledge about basic story telling structure.
http://www.sfwa.org/members/bell/writingtips/summer11.html
