Creativity + Robust business model = Success

In my last post I wrote that the combination of creativity and a robust business model equaled success in the film business. That statement is true for any artist.

Without the creative spark, the artist is just someone with artistic technique. On the other hand, without the right plan to get patronage, the artist will die an unknown.

I would like to explore a bit more about what it means to be a successful artist. The artist spark is up to you. However, I can supply you with a robust business plan that can lead to success.


What is art?
The theory of art that I prefer defines the artist that interprets, translates or makes real the inspiration from the source, which is also known as a variety of names: God, the muses, the Other, the Unknown, etc., into concrete form that other people can understand.

Consider the allegory the story around Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem Kubla Khan. Coleridge claimed that the poem was inspired by an opium-induced dream but that the composition was interrupted by a visitor. The entire story of the dream and the interruption is an allegory of the creative process. The artist delves into the unknown and to make real and concrete his vision from beyond.

In the poem, Coleridge writes:

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.

He then pines of the lost vision, in the same way that the visitor interrupted his vision:

Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song…

And he describes the the artist as:

And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

When distinguishing between art and artistic technique, I am also reminded of the movie Amadeus, the fictional account of Mozart and his rival Salieri. Mozart was the genius, while Salieri was the plodder, a musician who had the technique but didn’t have the vision or inspiration.


What makes a commercially successful artist?
A commercially successful artist has patrons who “get” his art. It doesn’t mean that you have to “sell out”. John Singer Sargent was arguably one of the best portraitists of his time and he was a wildly successful artist.



Moving to the contemporary era, the successful filmmaker needs to have the vision and the right business plan. I talked about the 5Ps, of which the most important are Philosophy (your niche), Process (how do you exploit that niche) and People (do you have the people to implement the process). Consider the case of Pixar Animation Studios. I would paraphrase their 3Ps as the following:

Philosophy: Make animated films with the human spirit inside
Process: Develop interesting and creative scripts and marry it with the technology of animation
People: The studio has to have creative script development (creativity) + Animation studio (technique)

When Pixar first started making animated films, their animation technology was a source of competitive advantage. Those kinds of technical competitive advantages are not long lasting. Today, animation technology is becoming much more commoditized but Pixar’s advantage of script development endures.