[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]
Film Courage: What happens when art becomes about making money?
John Vorhaus, Author/Artist/Screenwriter: When art becomes about making money, we assume that you have the opportunity to turn your creative intellectual property into paychecks.
You’re an artist who has achieved a certain amount of gallery presence or you’re a good enough artist that you can go down to the farmers market and set your stuff up and sell it or you’re a writer who can submit pitches and get opportunities to create shows or you’re good enough to be hired on a staff.
Then you need to serve the work in a slightly different way because you found your audience but you’ve also found your market.
When you’re just starting out, your market is yourself.
You don’t need to worry about what other people are going to do with what you’ve written.
But when you’ve reached the point where you can monetize your work, then you have to ask yourself What are my needs, but now also what are my audience’s needs?
Give you an example.
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I wrote a joke that was a Romeo and Juliet joke and I pitched it to the show I was working on and the guy said, “We can’t use that joke. Our audience doesn’t know who Romeo and Juliet are.”
And it kind of made me angry.
It’s like who doesn’t know who Romeo and Juliet are? .
But then I realized I’m not my audience.
I need to respect my audience and write a version of that joke that they can relate to.
It’s, you know, star crossed lovers.
I’m sure I can find something that speaks to them in their language.
A phrase I use a lot ‘Be humble in service of the work.’
If the work is me at my desk writing for myself, I just want to make it as good as I can.
So, I’m going to get out of the way of my own ego and try to be in…(Watch the video interview on YouTube here).
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BIO:
John Vorhaus is best known for his comedy-writing classic, The Comic Toolbox: How to be Funny Even if You’re Not. He has taught and trained writers in 37 countries on five continents at last count, and created TV shows of his own in Nicaragua, Romania and elsewhere. His writing credits include dozens of teleplays and screenplays, plus seven novels and some two dozen works of non-fiction. His latest book is the little book of STANDUP. Vorhaus is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and a member of the Writers Guild of America. He lives in Southern California and secretly controls the world from JohnVorhaus.com.
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