Art, Entertainment or Business?

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"The trouble with movies as a business is that it's an art; and the trouble with movies as an art is that it's business."

- Garson Kanin

"And everyone of us that makes films struggles with that, every damn day you do it."

- Charlton Heston

There is often debate about art, business and entertainment. In the way that Andy Warhol's work challenges our understanding of corporate logos, modern pop music and big-tent films challenge the lines between art and entertainment. There will always be conflict between considerations of artistic integrity, financial prudence and the desires of the personalities involved in any creative work. I don't believe the considerations of entertainment, art and business have to be mutually exclusive. Rather, for each creative endeavor the professional must consider the art, entertainment and business value in order to make intelligent, informed decisions throughout their work.

In this guide I refer to all films, songs, albums, web sites, and every other piece of media as "products". Whether sold commercially, given away publicly or distributed amongst friends and family these are products of your creative efforts. As such, they deserve the formality, recognition and professionalism that a term like "product" implies.

I don't mean to distance anyone from any of the products. This isn't intended to encourage a mass-produced sentimentality or to detract from the deep, artistic nature of the creative process, but it's easy to lose sight of physical, economic and cultural realities at play. I don't even mean to say that all products must be profitable in their own right, but their profitability and marketability should always be considered. The artistic value, entertainment value and business value are inextricably linked. And I, for one wouldn't have it any other way.