The Points of the Creative Artists’ Code: Eight - Your work is your responsibility

by NDK Creative Artist

In this article explaining the eighth point of the Code of a Creative Artist, NDK Creative Artist discusses the responsibility artists have to protect the integrity of their art. — Joel Falconer, Editor-in-Chief

Your work bears your name and is your responsibility, refuse to let others alter that work from your original good intention and take complete responsibility for the communication of the message in all phases of creation, production and delivery to your public.

Almost a decade ago (2001), while researching for the project that resulted in the development of this code, I read an excellent piece by a screenwriter called Max Adams, who wrote an article published in G21. This article examined scriptwriting success and brought to mind the old adage “too many cooks spoil the broth.”

Have you noticed how the old adages, the sayings of distilled wisdom are disappearing from the modern lingua franca?

Those little phrases are important ideas and we are losing them in a process of cultural erosion, and our descendants will rue and bemoan their loss if we do not take steps to preserve them (even if they do not know they are missing).

Anyway, Max’s article was about Hollywood Development Hell.

It’s a remarkable article that looks at a common denominator that determines which are the most successful Hollywood movie blockbusters. (While you’re at Max’s site, check out the movies her cow made, and if you want to know more about how Hollywood works, read her most insightful essays. I love the acerbic notes she brings to truth-telling).

As you’ll find out if you should read her material, trying to keep this point of the code in Hollywood is probably about as easy as amputating your own fingers just before you sit down to write. Disheartening? Yes, it is. But that’s exactly why a code like this is necessary.

Max’s article on Development Hell tells you exactly why one should not let others alter your work. There are, however, other reasons that have equal weight and in some cases more.

• People who give you ideas just to “hang you” later. If you accept an idea, and then utilize it in your own story, and that story becomes a commercial success, then there are people who will make a claim upon your earnings for using their idea.
• If you give an artist an idea, then truly give it. If the person is someone who values the idea, then they will value that idea and exchange with you fairly and honestly when their work is successful, or they are not a Creative Artist.
• If you’re not willing to give someone an idea, then negotiate a fair and equitable arrangement that does not leave them unable to move forward without you. i.e. don’t stop their career in its tracks.
• Creative collaborations get tricky when they are based on trust alone and not documented, recorded in writing, and set up to ensure that no matter what happens the work can survive.

Original good intention. One generates a good intention at the time one originates a work, and that intention drives the work forward, fueling it, taking it through the periods when one may despair of ever completing it. The times when life itself seems to conspire on every level to deter one from the original vision.

This original intention is the spark that ignites passion, the fuel that will take one from concept to delivery.

It is important to take notes about that moment of original vision to help you remember the time and location and circumstances under which it occurred so that you can refer to it later. This can be an aid to making a work happen and complete over the long years that it may take to finish.

That vision is what drives a work, but life–people, events, circumstances (including changing market conditions and world events) — can and will get in the road and then you’ll be glad you had those notes in place to remind you of what you remember to forget. Notes are insurance.

When I say “refuse to let others alter” it is not about altering the work that refusal is required. It is about altering the intent of the work, in other words altering the ability of the work to create, as a finished and completed work, the valuable final effect intended.

This is not a hard and fast rule. None of the points of the code are. This is not to say that you, as the individual who conceived the work cannot alter the intent, nor sharpen and refine nor expand the effect you intend to create with the work.

As one develops a work, one may discover things that do alter the work’s focus, without necessarily altering its intent. The important thing here is to have a good intention and not let that good intention be altered by others.

People like this…

It often amazes me how many people, once you tell them something about a story, or some creative work you’re doing, want to give you all their ideas about how to write that story. They have usually never engaged in or with the creative process, or they would not make the attempt to persuade one who is doing the work of creativity to take their ideas on board and incorporate them.

People like this should write their own books, stories, and poems, and/or paint their own paintings, photograph their own images. This point is about Creative Artist integrity.

Integrity for what?

Integrity for the work, integrity for one’s creative intentions, goals and purposes. It is insulting to a creative person to have someone else tell you how to write your own story. This is not the way to do things.

Rather help someone to more effectively realize what it is they want to express, but do not take over their ideas, unless they ask you to assist them and make you a co-creator. The entire game is then very different for now you are a creative collaborative team and the agreements you make must be strong enough to last the distance.

When trust is nurtured…

Involving new people in creativity is always a risk, but from the outset it is important that they grok that it is the person who had the original idea who is in charge, unless that person abandons the idea, in which case, re-negotiate.

Don’t work with people you don’t trust. It takes time to establish trust, trust is something you create, and trust is built by placing trust and seeing if it will be nurtured, or abused.

When trust is nurtured the impossible, improbable and unlikeliest of dreams become reality. When it is abused, carnage, wreckage, disappointment and destruction are the shadows and nightmares that take up residence in the reality of our (creative) lives. (Ref: Pain & Suffering). It becomes very hard to dream when that happens, and dreaming is our job.

Collaboration should never, ever be engaged upon with another creative individual unless you have solid agreements regarding the ownership of rights in the resultant work. In short, there is no substitute for knowing intellectual property law.

If you go into collaborative agreements without clear statements of what is to happen then you are making a huge mistake that may not bite you immediately, but will bite you later, when your collaborator dies and their spouse decides they want control and you can’t stand him or her. It happens, and when these sorts of things happen it creates problems that halt careers.

Agreements should always be

renegotiated when circumstances change.

Agreements can and always should be renegotiated or reaffirmed when circumstances change. Why? Because the project is still valuable, still good, and to leave it hanging out there with issues unresolved does a disservice to all involved.

Those issues must be resolved, or the agreements reaffirmed and this should be accomplished in a spirit of fair play, and professional commitment to the delivery of good work to the public as intended. Not to do this is to shatter the dreams, hopes and goals of another’s or others’ lives.

One does not have to give up all rights to remuneration, but one should give up the right to control when one is no longer willing to actively participate in the delivery of a work to the public. That’s only fair, right and sensible.

Sensible provisions in agreements can be made for such things, and if not made, then bring in a third party to renegotiate a fair and equitable solution that does not hinder the creative aspirations and career goals of another Creative Artist.

The work is always more important than the individuals involved–that’s professionalism. Anything else is spiteful. And once you’ve concluded that agreement, keep your word.

It can be incredibly disheartening to lose a partner in creativity, just as it is devastating to lose a valuable friendship and precious lover, who has been a big part of your life, dreams, aspirations and plans. The two circumstances are not dissimilar, and should you be unfortunate enough to have both things occur at the same time, well, that’s even more of a blow to life and the creative spirit.

So be smart, set up your agreements, even with your most trusted friends, partners, wives, husbands, aliens and small creatures who inhabit the shadows under your desk, or live in the cracks at the corner of your life. Life changes, things happen that are unexpected, so plan for them by considering the circumstances that are unpleasant to consider and plan for them in case they do happen. One of my favorite anonymous quotes is:

“Intelligence resolves problems. Genius prevents them in the first place.”

There is one last point I would like to make before we leave this point of the code. When you value your work and take action to show that you do value that work, you are already enhancing the degree of respect and value others will place upon it.

People know when things have had care applied to them. They can see it in the details, and the good people, and most of them are good, will pay attention and do what they can to effectively help you. However, it is the few who ruin it for the many, so be prepared for disappointment, but also for the many triumphs following such an exciting career path that working in the field of dreams to reality entails.

Perception of value is everything, and you, as a skilled communicator, are in control of that with respect of your work. Exciting times ahead!

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If you'd rather we did all the hard work, you're in luck. Here's a list of articles that are related to this one:

• The Points of the Creative Artists’ Code: Eleven - The business of art & entertainment is your business
• The Points of the Creative Artists’ Code: Twenty-one - Never throw your work away
• The Declaration and the Traditional Industry - How Creative Artists want to do business
• The Points of the Creative Artists’ Code: Twenty-four - You are not the viewpoint
• The Points of the Creative Artists’ Code: Seven - Never invalidate another artist’s constructive work…