Kate Walsh: Self-Made
The other day, in the course of discussion of the Dick Dale interview, I made reference to an entity whose birth I believe we will see in the not too distant future: the fully independent (and profitable) animator, made possible by the internet era. What I failed to mention was the phenomena we can already observe along those same lines in the neighboring world of music.
The latest such success? Twenty-three year old guitarist Kate Walsh, who started at MySpace and now finds herself atop the iTunes download album chart… an album recorded in a friend’s home. See this article for her story.
Don’t get me wrong here; I’m no peddler of pipe dreams. I do not believe that success is something everyone is entitled to, nor something everyone is capable of. There’s an obscure mix of talent + hard work + luck required for that to happen in virtually any artistic field, for all but the ubervirtuoso. But it IS possible. And possible without the involvement of a big record company or movie studio or what have you.
Speaking of pipe dreams… THIS has to be one of the coolest things I have ever seen.
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I’m going to argue that it is far easier to be a garage band than a garage animator.
You only need a single instrument and your own voice. How many animators can do that and succeed? Average musical track is four minutes? Average album is under 60 minutes (guessing only, no data currently to back that up).
They are also fundamentally different in terms of performance. Animators don’t do live shows (at least not often). How much do bands make on their tours anyways?
Of course even if you’re good, you might not get noticed:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html
However, if the performance space is changing (myspace igniting musical careers, youtube launching filmmakers) maybe we will see the same amount of success for animators, filmmakers, machinimators, in the digital era?
Comment by bllius — April 10, 2007 @ 5:58 pm
Yeah, that’s the thing; 10 years ago, when some musicians were first trying to distribute / publicize themselves online, the generally accepted maxim was it was hopeless. Same goes for self-published authors 15-20 years ago.
I think it’s completely achievable in this new age. Lot of very hard work and time, but all the tools are there. RT is proof of concept. Quality product can sell if you find your customers.
Garage bands don’t make much touring, except insofar as the tour hopefully boosts record sales. For many pro bands, a tour is lucky to break even, unless it’s a really upper tier artist.
Comment by overman — April 10, 2007 @ 6:35 pm
That Washington Post article is *really* interesting for independent artists.
I’m sitting down and seriously rethinking some aspects of our promotion strategies (which I must talk to you about anyway) as a result of it.
Comment by Hugh "Nomad" Hancock — April 11, 2007 @ 6:15 am
Pipe Dreams - It was also a real-time tech demo for ATI Graphic cards about 3-5 years ago. It was very cool sight to see for the first time on a ATI Rig.
http://ati.amd.com/products/workstation/demos.html for the .Exe download for the real deal (ATI Card required)
Comment by Ben — April 11, 2007 @ 9:49 pm