The secret to success in the arts • Hacker News Board

Re: The secret to success in the arts

#11

Post by loso » Fri, Aug 17, 2012, 1:42 PM UTC

This article lack of detail derails the point that it is trying to make. Yes, there are millions of people who try to enter certain creative fields at any one time but a very small percentage truly have what it takes to enter the business. And when I say have what it takes, only a small percentage of that is talent. Talent is important but it is only the first step.

The lucky part is impressing the right person at the right time that you can become a star. After that you still need to be set up with the right team, proper motivation and yes some talent. But the most important part of that equation is the right team, especially the marketing team. If you look at the music business, they usually try to sell you a rags to riches tale when it comes to their artists. They want you to believe that the person was found on the street, signed to a record deal, and now millions of people love them. Very rarely is that true. The music business has a formula and they try their best to stick with it.

You can see that happening right now with an artist named Azealia Banks. I use her as an example because she is in the middle of that process now. Not mainstream yet but on the cusp of it. Her label(Interscope) is pushing her as an independent artist that just happens to be getting some attention. They want you to believe that luck and her talent is why she is getting any attention at all. The truth is her marketing team is doing a tremendous job at getting her name out there. No luck at all. A well planned cosign by Kanye West, the use of Twitter to get into well publicized problems (beef) with other artist ala the 50 Cent strategy, Several big name magazine covers or articles before anyone knows who she is, a "just so happens" controversial Dazed and Confused magazine cover that is getting a lot of attention now, another cosign by fashion designer Alexander Wang, and all of this before she has even put an official album out.

None of that is luck or because of talent. When a label thinks it has a hot property then they step up the marketing gas. Gone are the days of putting gigantic posters up & magazine ads and catering to radio stations. Now the job of marketing is to fool the customer into thinking the artist popularity is all organic. The web is used to break the star, traditional forms of media is used to mass market them. So to the outsider it seems lucky but it really isn't. It is really the music business equivalent of SEO.

Re: The secret to success in the arts

#12

Post by lazerwalker » Fri, Aug 17, 2012, 1:46 PM UTC

nateberkopec wrote: post #10

thenomad wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a professional film director. I also agree 100% with this statement. There is a huge variance in skill in all the creative professions. I've had the opportunity to work with some extremely well-known actors. Within five minutes of starting working with them, it was obvious why they were so well-known - their skill at the craft was, to a man/woman, extraordinary. That's something I've found to be the case in other…

Salmon's point isn't that there is no variance in creative skill, it's just that there isn't enough to matter in the scheme of being "the best in the world". There's not nearly enough variance to compensate for the luck required to be in the top 100 out of several million. What you're describing is a "3-sigma" difference, but to be an A-list Hollywood star you'd need to be in something like the 50th sigma. That just…

My problem with his article is that he seems to only define "success" and "recognition" in terms of being within that top 100.

There are a lot of startups that are profitable and have users loving their products that will never sell to Facebook for $1 billion. Using Salmon's argument, it takes pure luck to get to that Instagram-level of success. I buy that. I don't think it follows that all of those small profitable startups are therefore financial failures, which seems to be the conclusion he's drawn.

Re: The secret to success in the arts

#13

Post by thenomad » Fri, Aug 17, 2012, 1:48 PM UTC

nateberkopec wrote: post #10

thenomad wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a professional film director. I also agree 100% with this statement. There is a huge variance in skill in all the creative professions. I've had the opportunity to work with some extremely well-known actors. Within five minutes of starting working with them, it was obvious why they were so well-known - their skill at the craft was, to a man/woman, extraordinary. That's something I've found to be the case in other…

Salmon's point isn't that there is no variance in creative skill, it's just that there isn't enough to matter in the scheme of being "the best in the world". There's not nearly enough variance to compensate for the luck required to be in the top 100 out of several million. What you're describing is a "3-sigma" difference, but to be an A-list Hollywood star you'd need to be in something like the 50th sigma. That just…

I don't have enough data to prove or disprove this statement - although I do know a lot of working and non-working artists, and anecdotally skill seems to win out.

I'd agree, if you're intending to be an A-list star and won't settle for anything less, luck is going to have to play a pretty significant role. But there are a lot of jobs and opportunities for an actor, for example, outside the "best of the best" situation.

I was mostly replying in support of the comment above from randomdrake, however.

Re: The secret to success in the arts

#14

Post by yummyfajitas » Fri, Aug 17, 2012, 2:03 PM UTC

nateberkopec wrote: post #10

thenomad wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a professional film director. I also agree 100% with this statement. There is a huge variance in skill in all the creative professions. I've had the opportunity to work with some extremely well-known actors. Within five minutes of starting working with them, it was obvious why they were so well-known - their skill at the craft was, to a man/woman, extraordinary. That's something I've found to be the case in other…

Salmon's point isn't that there is no variance in creative skill, it's just that there isn't enough to matter in the scheme of being "the best in the world". There's not nearly enough variance to compensate for the luck required to be in the top 100 out of several million. What you're describing is a "3-sigma" difference, but to be an A-list Hollywood star you'd need to be in something like the 50th sigma. That just…

Um, the 50'th sigma is nonexistent on any physical scale. The 27'th sigma is 10^-317, and the 28'th sigma is too small to represent with doubles. For comparison, the number of atoms in the universe is about 10^80.

Hollywood actors are, at best, in the 3-4'th sigma.

Re: The secret to success in the arts

#15

Post by potatolicious » Fri, Aug 17, 2012, 2:06 PM UTC

Luck is certainly a big part of success - but IMO the author has misclassified a lot of skillful execution as luck, and that's a shame.

> "Carly Rae Jepsen has a catchy pop tune, but is only really successful because she happened to be in the right place at the right time."

No, publicity like this is practically never accidental. Every news article, blog post, radio station play, magazine mention, is highly deliberate and evidence of a good publicity and marketing crew at work.

Whenever the NYTimes writes about some new app, some new startup, or a new product, suffice it to say some marketing legwork has been done. This isn't to insinuate some kind of payola, but rather that "getting noticed" is 90% putting your product in front of important people - these leads are rarely ever organic.

To bring it back into our tech-world for a moment: do you really think that getting featured by Apple in an App Store "guide" is accidental? That it's strictly Apple deciding who makes the cut without external influence? Or is it a whole lot of interested parties pitching their product in the background?

So no, Carly Rae Jepsen wasn't "in the right place at the right time", she had a catchy pop tune, an incredibly well-executed music video with just enough shock/controversy to go viral, and incredible timing.

And luck. But let's not shovel everything under luck.

Re: The secret to success in the arts

#16

Post by ebiester » Fri, Aug 17, 2012, 2:23 PM UTC

randomdrake wrote: post #4

Before adopting programming as my job and passion, I was a professional actor and I plan on continuing to act professionally when I move back to to a place where it is more avaialble. Working professionally in many capacities for many years, I can tell you that luck certainly helps, for some people. This author completely discounts artists who trained, worked and pushed themselves for years and years to get where the…

What I will say, however, is that luck still has something to do with it. The top tiers of actors have the money to purchase additional coaching, can attend more auditions because they aren't holding down another job, and can generally devote more of their life to the craft.

Take two actors competing for the same part in an audition for an independent role. They are nearly equal down to a flip of a coin, but one just happens to catch the director's eye a hair more that day. That film ends up successful, and ends up catapulting them into the big leagues -- one, if skillful and motivated, can parlay that first success into the next because they were able to work with a great director, which increased their skill; and are able to acquire more time to dedicate to acting. Thus, for the next audition, the two people once distinguishable by a better performance on that particular day now have a skill gap as well.

That luck was involved does not mean that one doesn't need to have skill, or that one doesn't need to make the most of an opportunity; rather, luck means that a coin flip happened that allowed someone to make the most of that chance.

Re: The secret to success in the arts

#17

Post by ebiester » Fri, Aug 17, 2012, 2:34 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #15

Luck is certainly a big part of success - but IMO the author has misclassified a lot of skillful execution as luck, and that's a shame. > "Carly Rae Jepsen has a catchy pop tune, but is only really successful because she happened to be in the right place at the right time." No, publicity like this is practically never accidental. Every news article, blog post, radio station play, magazine mention, is highly deliberat…

She's actually an excellent example. She is a Canadian performer who placed third on a season of Canadian Idol, and it happened that Justin Bieber was listening to the radio, heard "Call Me Maybe," and tweeted about it. Perhaps the song would have spread later on its own, but Canadians can probably point to five or six other well-played pop songs that never really crossed the border.

Re: The secret to success in the arts

#18

Post by wallflower » Fri, Aug 17, 2012, 3:23 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #15

Luck is certainly a big part of success - but IMO the author has misclassified a lot of skillful execution as luck, and that's a shame. > "Carly Rae Jepsen has a catchy pop tune, but is only really successful because she happened to be in the right place at the right time." No, publicity like this is practically never accidental. Every news article, blog post, radio station play, magazine mention, is highly deliberat…

> do you really think that getting featured by Apple in an App Store "guide" is accidental? That it's strictly Apple deciding who makes the cut without external influence? Or is it a whole lot of interested parties pitching their product in the background?

It is luck. If you emphasize the preparation part (of 'where preparation meets opportunity' -Seneca).

Of the three developers I know who have been featured in the App Store (New & Noteworthy, not the main spotlight), Apple contacted them out of the blue. In one case, they asked one of them to change their App title so it was less spammy (it was). All of the apps were polished and worthy of the designation (and not games). We believe that App Store reviewers have a special queue to submit noteworthy apps that are then editorially reviewed. Really, as an upstream commenter noted about reviewing film festival submissions, there is a lot of mediocre apps - good ones stand out in the stream.

Re: The secret to success in the arts

#19

Post by K_REY_C » Fri, Aug 17, 2012, 3:27 PM UTC

Patton Oswalt’s recent comments concerning "luck" are worth adding to the discussion. Talent may be worth more now than ever before. We've heard this before, but it certainly seems to be true: "Our careers don’t hinge on somebody in a plush office deciding to aim a little luck in our direction. There are no gates. They’re gone." -- http://thecomicscomic.com/2012/07/27/patton-oswalts-letters-...

Re: The secret to success in the arts

#20

Post by potatolicious » Fri, Aug 17, 2012, 3:32 PM UTC

wallflower wrote: post #18

potatolicious wrote: post #15

Luck is certainly a big part of success - but IMO the author has misclassified a lot of skillful execution as luck, and that's a shame. > "Carly Rae Jepsen has a catchy pop tune, but is only really successful because she happened to be in the right place at the right time." No, publicity like this is practically never accidental. Every news article, blog post, radio station play, magazine mention, is highly deliberat…

> do you really think that getting featured by Apple in an App Store "guide" is accidental? That it's strictly Apple deciding who makes the cut without external influence? Or is it a whole lot of interested parties pitching their product in the background? It is luck. If you emphasize the preparation part (of 'where preparation meets opportunity' -Seneca). Of the three developers I know who have been featured in the…

I have an anecdote to counter your anecdote - I have worked with a company whose apps have been regularly featured in the App Store (and beyond) due to extensive legwork by our (extremely competent) marketing folk.

The fact that the apps were incredibly well-made didn't hurt.

And this underscores the whole point - success is a probability function, it is hardly ever guaranteed. The author seems to blow this out of proportion though, and suggests the common refrain that one should just give up/get out of the game. This ignores the innumerable things you can do to improve your own odds, that others aren't doing already.

A large part of that is to make sure that your product/skill is actually good. But that is incomplete.