Frozen, Blockbusters and Technical Excellence


I remember reading a review of the movie Frozen which said that it was pretty good, but quite generic and had dark animation. That is the last I thought of the movie until about a year later when I discovered it was the 5th highest grossing movie of all time. (Apparently, it also has a popular song.) It turns out that while the critic didn't like it, most other people did. Critical Acclaim and box office success are often portrayed as an either/or fallacy.

Technical Excellence and successful outcomes (winning), are also often portrayed as an either/or. That is, there are only two options: are you focussing on technique, or are you focussing 'winning'? Obviously this is ridiculous, and I really wish people would stop.

Technique is a means to an end. The outcome is the end, technical excellence can help this. It is not an either/or discussion as the two aspects are intrinsically linked. The differences start when digging down into exactly what that outcome is.

If the 'end', or 'outcome', is playing professional golf, then a certain level of technical excellence will help. But, with 28,000 members of the PGA (Professional Golf Association), being a professional golfer is relatively easy to do. If the outcome is to win the Olympic Gold Medal, where one person wins, once every four years, then a higher level of technical excellence will likely enhance the chances of this.

(Photo Credit)

PS - Someone 'succeeding' with 'poor technique' isn't proof that technique isn't important. It isn't. Stop. Please.

Comments

  1. Movies, like sport don't require technical excellence to be successful. However, like sport, people who make movies need technical excellence to have sustained success. DIsney in the 30s-50s, Warner Brothers in the 40s-50s, Ghibli in the 90s/00s and Pixar in the 90s/00s had sustained commercial and critical success due to excellence in fundamentals - writing, producing, directing, craftsmanship.

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