To-do list:
- Examples of Doing It for the Art must mention that creators openly stated that they prioritized art over profit. Do the following with the wicks (Sandbox.Wick Cleaning For The Art can be used to keep track of which namespaces have been cleaned):
- Leave examples that fit Doing It for the Art alone.
- Move examples that are gushing about production feats to SugarWiki.Development Heaven's on-page example section. Do not crosswick these examples.
- Remove any examples that do not fit either Doing It for the Art or Development Heaven.
Original post:
As clearly seen in the quote, image and the laconic description, Doing It for the Art is supposed to be about "Creators who create their work for its own sake, without regard to the profit motive." However, as this wick check shows, it is hardly used for this purpose. More often than not, it is used as an interchangeable version of Shown Their Work, except sometimes it applies to behind the scenes work as well as what happens in-story. In short, this is a gushing target, and the lack of examples that mention profit motive in any capacity means that I don't even know if a lot of people know the true definition of this one.Note: For the folders, the distinction between something being actually Shown Their Work and some other form of misuse is if the work mentions or incorporates a fact (i.e. not just something that is executed well) that is visible in the work itself without any behind-the-scenes context.
- Trivia.A Man For All Seasons: Vanessa Redgrave refused to be paid for her cameo role as Anne Boleyn.
- Trivia.A Scanner Darkly: Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder agreed to work for the Screen Actors Guild scale rate plus any back-end profits.
- Trivia.A Single Man: Tom Ford self-financed the film version, and even had to personally ask Colin Firth to accept the part.
- Trivia.Adoseofbuckley: Buckley has cited this as one reason why he doesn't like taking requests. Before launching his Patreon, he did videos in his spare time as a hobby, and that it really irked him when people "...tell [him] to how spend [his] free time".
- Trivia.Against Me: Discussed in some songs. Grace herself is an example, saying that if the band weren't successful, she'd just busk for change in order to keep playing music.
We want a band that plays loud and hard every night
That doesn't care how many people are counted at the door
That would travel one million miles and ask for nothing more than a plate of food and a place to rest- Laura had this mentality in the past before the band became big with the same DIY approach due to her punk rock upbringing. However following discrimination from the punk community due to the same mentality of "SELL OUT!", she abandoned this, but still maintains the same view of doing music for the art.
- Trivia.Aladdin: Robin Williams signed on to the film immediately because he loved cartoons and jumped at the chance to be part of an animated film from Disney, whom he called the “Rolls Royce of animation.” He even tried to enforce this by taking a much lower salary than he could have and requiring in his contract that Disney limit the use of his performance in the marketing and not use it at all in merchandise (a rare case where it stuck was the official artbook, which features no pictures of Williams and only refers to him as "the voice of the Genie" and such). Disney, of course, had other ideas, and skirted around or blatantly ignored these requests, angering Williams and causing a rift between him and Disney for a few years. However, you can't enforce trivia.
- Trivia.Albedo Erma Felna EDF: Even if Gallacci could had become rich and famous, especially during the booming years of the independent comic book world in the 80s thanks to the success of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Usagi Yojimbo and similar ones, he decided to stick on his guns and outright refusing any opportunity to exploit his property so he could still retain the creative control of it. This is one of the few cases when this trope ended up harming him at the end, a fact the author deeply regrets.
- Trivia.Ali: Will Smith and Michael Mann both offered to put up their salaries in case the film went over-budget.
- Trivia.Ambience A Fleet Symphony: As mentioned in the chapter 200 author's notes, the author is very much aware that there's many detractors, but he's doing this as a personal journey rather than for acclaim and adoration.
- Trivia.Animal Crackers 2017: Despite the corporate sounding premise, this film is actually a passion project for director/writer/producer Scott Christian Sava. He independently made the film after studios who optioned his works ended up not adapting them into film. Much of the film was directed from his basement and he even personally painted the film's poster himself. He's also very open on the film on social media, and has personally replied to nearly all of the trailer's YouTube comments, even the ones that are not hosted on his channel.
- Trivia.Animal House: The whole reason why the movie was made. According to National Lampoon publisher Matty Simmons, who eventually co-produced the film with Ivan Reitman, he had suggested making a movie as a means of placating co-writer Douglas Kenney, who was also working at the magazine as editor-in-chief. At the time, Kenney had told Simmons that he was suffering heavily from burnout and having a hard time meeting deadlines and had decided to quit as a result. Simmons, however, did not want Kenney to leave as he was one of the most important contributors to the magazine's humor, and in trying to convince him to stay, accidentally blurted out, "We're going to make a movie."
- Trivia.Animator Vs Animation: Thrice for Alan. He explains it here.
In the beginning, when his very first flash animation was the sweep of the web, he received an email offering him $75 if he gave the sender exclusive rights to his work. Even though he and his family were struggling at the time, he ultimately turned it down thanks to a guy named Steven L. The setup for the second instance was when a site named eBaumsworld (a site where they'd post images and videos without permission) offered Alan $250 to upload his video. Then they pressured him into giving a testimonial so they could claim innocence, and upon learning that Steven felt betrayed by Alan for giving into the pressurenote , Alan decided that enough was enough. The third instance was when eBaumsworld pressured him into entering a monthly contest for $1000 if he won; he wanted to keep his rights to the work, and if he wanted it removed, he wouldn't get the money. So, after talking to Steve, he gave the site the $250 back, demanding that the site remove his testimonial and his video.
- Trivia.Another Metroid 2 Remake: This thing spent TEN YEARS in development, and during this time developer Milton Guasti refused to accept donations to work on it.
- Trivia.Anyone Can Whistle: Even though the show had closed, Columbia Records president Goddard Lieberson went ahead with recording and releasing an original cast album because he believed Sondheim's score would be Vindicated by History.
- Trivia.Armin Van Buuren: As the page quote above demonstrates, he states that his passion for the craft is his number one driving force and he cares little for the parties, drugs or money that comes with his profession.
- Trivia.A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood: The crew went out of their way to make the filmed segments of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood as close to the original series as possible, from filming in the same sound-stages at WQED in Pittsburgh, right down to using the exact same camera brand, which was so scarce that they had to be flown in from England.
- Trivia.A Boy And His Blob: The graphics in the 2009 game. Every movement of the Boy, the Blob, and the enemies is lovingly hand-drawn. The backgrounds exquisitely painted. The developers said they wanted a deliberately nostalgic, warm feel, and knew only traditional animation would get them that. And it looks awesome.
- WayForward has had a history of this, with their previous game Shantae.
- Trivia.Ace Combat 3 Electrosphere: The levels where plane controls are changed. It could've been brushed aside with an explanation, but the devs made completely different flight mechanics for single levels.
- Trivia.Act Of Valor: The fire being put down by the SWCC boats? More often than not it's live ammo.
- That truck getting blown up by an RPG? No special effects whatsoever, that was a real truck getting hit with a real RPG.
- Trivia.Age Of Empires III:
- The 4599 separate voice-acted lines for just the skirmish AI (found in Age of Empires III/Sound/Chats directory).
- The sheer number of languages spoken by the units in the game. The major civilizations account for 14 different languages, the minor Native Americans account for another 16 languages and the mercenaries account for another handful, even though only one or two units will ever speak the languages. Some of these languages, e.g. Early Modern English (British); Japanese and Mandarin (Chinese), even have different regional pronunciations when used by different units.
- Trivia.Alice In Wonderland: For the scene in which Alice grows gigantic while inside the White Rabbit's house, animators built a prop house for Kathryn Beaumont to sit in - and they sketched it for reference. As they also needed to see how Alice moved while inside the house, they then rebuilt it with transparent walls.
- Trivia.All Quiet On The Western Front: Lewis Milestone was determined for the film to be as accurate as possible, casting numerous veterans of World War I to ensure it. What's more is that this film had a budget of over $1.25 million, and was put into production only months after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 - making this a massive gamble on the part of Universal.
- Trivia.Amelie: Before shooting each scene, each on-location set was cleared of all debris, rubbish and graffiti to help convey the fantastical nature of the story. Even the train station.
- Trivia.An American Werewolf In London:
- Griffin Dunne had to endure hours in the make-up chair, especially for the "phase two" stuff. The rotting teeth were especially difficult to say his lines with. He's described the make-up as "like being eaten by bugs".
- David Naughton as well was performing half the movie fully nude, including one lengthy sequence in a zoo that ran over schedule and had actual members of the public crowding around to watch. For the transformation scene, he had to spend the day in a hole under an elevated floor after five hours of make-up application.
"I was not one of those actors who said,' OK that's it, I'm done'. I was really a team player, which means I'd stay there and keep shooting until John was happy." - Trivia.Another Eden: Another Eden doesn't emphasize Revenue-Enhancing Devices and the lack of an energy/stamina system means that you can play this game at your own leisure. Instead, there's a greater focus on the story-writing, cutscenes and character interactions. Story events are also permanently accessible, including the Persona 5 crossover. The lack of a Temporary Online Content in such stories means that there's no fear of missing out. In contrast to most gachas in the genre, Another Eden plays like a handheld port of a JRPG console game.
- Trivia.Ant Man 1:
- For a lot of the scenes where Scott is shrunk down, the background plates are actually "macro sets" painstakingly constructed down to the last detail and shot with miniature 4K cameras with the only artificial element added in post being Scott himself.
- The tank bursting through PymTech's wall was achieved through CGI. But, to make sure they made it look right, the team built a full-sized mock-up and crashed it through a wall to get an accurate reference.
- Trivia.Apocalypto: Mel Gibson specifically wanted actual buildings constructed, as opposed to relying on CGI. Extensive historical research was done on the period, with any artistic license done for the sake of cinematic beauty. Additionally, a dialect coach was on set every day to help the actors.
- Trivia.Apollo 13: The research, period detail and accuracy were highly praised by the people who had been there.
- Many of the makers, including Ron Howard, mention that part of their motivation for being so accurate was the likelihood that by the time of the next trip to the moon, most people who experienced the Apollo Program first-hand will have passed on, meaning that Apollo 13 may be the closest thing to a moon landing several generations get to see. Proof of a motive, but doesn't show any perspective related to a financial lens.
- Trivia.Area 11:
- The reason that they added in Auto-Tune to "Heaven-Piercing Giga Drill" in its 2013 singles re-release; they wanted to emulate several Japanese rock artists.
- Sparkles* admitted that even though the music video for "Heaven-Piercing Giga Drill" probably cost them more than they made back, they wanted to really make an effort for it, hence the awesome visual effects. This more implies that they're glad they made it anyways despite them not making money. They still might have wanted to make a profit from it initially.
- Trivia.Assassins Creed 2016:
- The props department went through the trouble of creating working Hidden Blades that could extend and retract on camera because they felt that it was important to be as true to the mythos and setting as possible rather than simply relying on computer animation to get the desired effect.
- There's the fact that all the sequences set in Spain are spoken entirely in Spanish (albeit mostly modern Spanish, not the ancient variation spoken at the time).
- The Leap of Faith, rather than being done with CGI, was done for real by Michael Fassbender's stunt double Damien Walters, specifically to avoid Special Effect Failure. At 125 feet, it's one of the longest freefalls ever done by a stuntman.
- Trivia.A Brides Story: Aside from the Costume Porn, many things are also incredibly detailed. Chapter 2 is mostly devoted to showcasing Mori's painstakingly-drawn rendition of traditional carvings.
- Trivia.A Man Of Iron: For chapter 41 of A Crack of Thunder, Mr. Chaos went through the testimonials of real life rapists to get an understanding of how the rapists would act when they attempted to assault Jane. He states that it was very disturbing to read, and that Thor's brutal massacre of them was much needed catharsis for him.
- Trivia.A Countess From Hong Kong: Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren did it to work with Charlie Chaplin without seeing the script.
- Trivia.American Psycho: Everyone told Christian Bale not to do the film, saying that it would be career suicide. He actively campaigned for the role even after he had been passed over for Leonardo Dicaprio.
- Trivia.Anomalisa:
- Co-director Duke Johnson spent six months animating Michael and Lisa's sex scene to ensure that it would be as believable and non-comedic as possible. While not everyone was impressed, some critics went as far as to call it the most emotionally moving sex scene of any movie in 2015.
- A lot of the people who were working on the project did solely because they wanted to work with Charlie Kaufman, and lots of them even worked Overtime just to see the movie get made. Second bullet point is this, first has no proof of motive.
- Trivia.Across The Universe 2007: The homage to The Beatles was more important than the plot, hence a few songs and sequences that technically didn't advance the story at all.
- Trivia.Alice In Chains: As mentioned here. Weblinks Are Not Examples
- Trivia.Almas Way: Fred Rogers Productions had Pipeline Studios animators visit the Bronx to get a feel for the setting they would recreate in cartoon form.
- Trivia.American Beauty: Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening and Conrad L. Hall worked for significantly less than their usual rates. More context is needed to why they chose those rates, as it is not a voluntarily worded as some other examples are.
- Trivia.Amesoeurs: The band, especially Fursy were dedicated to making the debut album look like a masterpiece, and is actually the reason why the band got together despite Neige and Audrey's argument.
- Case and point, Fursy later on began to sell a poster version of the album cover, with his and Negie's signatures on it.
- Trivia.Amiga Power: Hidden ZCE
- Trivia.Amoridere: She writes and draws mostly for her own enjoyment.
- Trivia.Anomalies: The story pretty much exists solely for the purpose of showcasing the ridiculously thorough physics system behind the abilities of the characters.
- Trivia.AI Artificial Intelligence: Jude Law worked with a choreographer for months to nail down Gigolo Joe's dancing and general mannerisms. This part is misuse.
- Spielberg went through with Kubrick's idea for the ending knowing full well he would be Misblamed for it, since it was sappier than Kubrick's usual fare. All because Kubrick was his friend and Spielberg wanted to keep his vision alive. This part isn't.
- Trivia.Abduction: Taylor Lautner did all of his own stunts. He learned how to fight, ride motorcycles and everything. Double-listed with No Stunt Double, where it actually belongs.
- Trivia.Adam Warrock: Doing It for the Art/Money, Dear Boy - Essentially the conflict of The War For Infinity. Demonos represents the commercialized "money, cars, and bitches" side of rap, while Adam represents the more sincere "doing it for the love of music" side. Correct usage, but should be listed in the work page as an in-universe example.
- Trivia.Adventures From The Book Of Virtues: Despite having the series air on PBS prime time, series conceiver William Bennett had a strong hatred towards PBS because he felt the network raises money from the government. This is apparently the main reason why he decided the series won't be funded through federal money, but instead it will be funded through sales of an interactive CD-ROM series, home videos, and a series of books. This seems like some sort of conflict that I can't think of right now that is another trivia item.
- Trivia.Angels Egg: Oshii admits that because this film bombed at the box office, he couldn't get any animation work for the next four years until he revived his career with Patlabor. Double-listed with Creator Killer, where it actually belongs.
- Trivia.Aquamarine: Sara Paxton threw herself into preparation for the role, taking a month of intensive swimming lessons and living off sardines (feeling that as a mermaid, that would be what Aquamarine lives off). It would take four hours for hair and make-up to be done whenever she had to be in the tail, which weighed about 100 lbs, and she had to be carried in a stretcher while wearing it. Achieving that Godiva Hair effect was not easy either; many takes had to be redone with the hair glued in place. Actually Dyeing for Your Art.
- Trivia.Are You Afraid Of The Dark: "The Tale of the Pinball Wizard" was so hard to film, creator DJ McHale had to beg the crew to break union rules and work for an extra day to get it finished. More of the element of a Troubled Production
Edited by GastonRabbit on May 17th 2022 at 7:59:29 AM
Nintendo Fanatic Extraordinaire
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I agree. The new laconic fits the trope beautifully.
Local Egregious Plant
Development Heaven's counterpart Development Hell (which is in the Main namespace!) is in Trivia instead of YMMV. These tropes confuse me sometimes...
Troper Wall, sandbox, and I'm trying to kill typos.
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
They're not counterparts. Development Heaven's name is just a play on Development Hell's name. The former is about what happens with creators, and the latter is about what happens with works' creation.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Feb 11th 2022 at 11:46:31 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Discarded and Feeling Blue
So, uh, anyway, yeah, about the Sugar Wiki thing... It really can't be both Sugar Wiki and YMMV.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
Why not? The Moments pages (sans Nightmare Fuel, Tear Jerker, and the significantly more recent Shocking Moments) have been both Sugar Wiki and YMMV since before they had "Crowning" removed from their names.
Edit: Hm, could have sworn they displayed the YMMV banner, but I must have been thinking of Nightmare Fuel and Tear Jerker because the relatively recent Funny.Pokemon Legends Arceus doesn't have it. Retracted that part.
But based on the page's history, it looks like Fast Eddie himself put them on the YMMV index back when it was located at Main.YMMV instead of YMMV.Home Page.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Feb 11th 2022 at 3:21:45 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Discarded and Feeling Blue
Well, short version of it is that the Moments pages are weird and nobody actually knows what to do with them. The long version is this entire thread. But if the moments are anything, they're either misplaced and shouldn't be in Sugar Wiki at all, or are the exceptions that prove the rule, the rule in this case being "sugar wiki stays on sugar wiki". Which is, again, discussed more in depth over there. But it does lead to the conflict of Development Heaven being added to both sections despite the rules disallowing it.
Edited by WarJay77 on Feb 11th 2022 at 4:21:37 AM
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
I'll go through that Wiki Talk thread later. Maybe I could hook a crowner for whether to remove Development Heaven from YMMV after I've read it, since we do have Sugar Wiki pages like TV Tropes Enhanced My Life and W.A.F.F. that aren't YMMV.
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
the Retromancer
[e: if it's not for this thread I shouldn't say it]
Edited by Amonimus on Feb 11th 2022 at 12:52:50 PM
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
I copied the notice on And the Fandom Rejoiced's description regarding crosswicking to Development Heaven's description.
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
Does this have a sandbox for keeping track of cleanup, similarly to how the Actually Pretty Funny thread has Sandbox.Actually Pretty Clean?
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Even though Development Heaven warns, "Do not link to this on the wiki, please. Not even under the YMMV tab.," on the top of the page, it has 327 wicks, including 312 YMMV tabs.
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
I added that after the wicks were already added, due to confusion regarding Sugar Wiki and What Goes Where on the Wiki.
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
I added a to-do list to the opening post and pinned it.
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
I made Sandbox.Wick Cleaning For The Art to keep track of which namespaces have been cleaned (but I don't know if there's anything to add yet).
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Waffle Cat (she/her)
I agree with everything said, but I have one question. Aren't all fan works Doing It for the Art as a matter of principle? I don't think we should list examples of specific fan works on that trope because, for that kind of media, it's an Omnipresent Trope. The first bullet point under the Fan Works folder is all we actually need.
The only noteworthy fan works in that regard would be the aversions, and those mostly fit Ascended Fanfic. If not, then it's usually a matter of the author creating a Patreon page (or similar ones) or profiting from Youtube ads. However, some authors also do original content from which they profit. It's kind of a case-basis scenario, I think.
Edit:
We also should rehaul the Doing It for the Art description. It's what caused the misuse in the first place, after all.
That and the fact the part about "openly stated by the creator" would make it a subtrope of Word of God.
Edited by Asterlix on Aug 18th 2022 at 12:15:38 PM
Here there be cats.
the Retromancer
Good point, vast majority of fanwork creators don't benefit at all.
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
Waffle Cat (she/her)
I have a proposition for a new trope description.
Proposed Description for Doing It for the Art:
Creators are motivated by a wide range of often-overlapping motivations — it's their way to make a living (Money, Dear Boy), they are paid to overtake/direct some project (Executive Meddling), a real-life story inspires them (Based on a True Story), or, most relevantly for this discussion, they aim to create art (Doing It for the Art).
Their concept of what True Art entails is irrelevant; the underlying idea is that, for these creators, their craft is an end in itself. This page is for when a creator has confirmed they prioritized art over profit.
For instance, an author will feel the happiest after putting the finishing touches on a book he painstakingly, carefully crafted. That's the reward. If the author happens to profit from the book, well, that's either a welcome bonus or an egregious offense. All in all, the opposite of people who create some fictional work in the hopes it would launch them into fame and make them wealthy.
Another irrelevant thing is the quality of the end product. However, it's common for this kind of creator to put a lot of effort into the creative process; therefore resulting in Shown Their Work and/or Development Heaven. If that's the case, post it on the appropriate pages; only list here the "what, when, and where" of a creator who has openly stated art is their main motivator.
Edited by Asterlix on Oct 30th 2022 at 10:03:24 AM
Here there be cats.
if fanworks universally qualify because they're always unpaid, that needs to be in the description, because putting it in a bullet would be a general example.
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
Nothing universally qualifies because the creators have to specifically state their motivation(s) or lack thereof. It's not a matter of being unpaid; it's about the creators openly stating they don't care about getting paid to do the work.
Edit: Removed the bullet point entirely instead of moving it. I left the other one because I feel that Tropes Are Flexible (even if this isn't actually a trope since it's Trivia) means financial success may not be the only relevant kind of success, since that one involves the author writing it with the expectation that nobody else would read it, but it happened anyway. Correct me if I'm wrong on that one, though.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Oct 26th 2022 at 9:29:14 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Waffle Cat (she/her)
Is my proposed trope description up to snuff?
Here there be cats.
(she/her)
I haven't been following this closely. What's wrong with the old description?
It seems ok but we shouldn't link the article to itself in the description.
Macron's notes
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
That's a pothole to Title Drop, not Linking to an Article Within the Article.
But anyway, I'd also like to know what's wrong with the current description before giving the go-ahead to change it.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Oct 27th 2022 at 6:17:33 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Waffle Cat (she/her)
IIRC, it needed to be clearer as well as include a distinction from Development Heaven and Shown Their Work. Hence, my proposal.
Edited by Asterlix on Oct 30th 2022 at 4:31:36 AM
Here there be cats.
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
After taking a look at it a bit more, I suppose it works, though I'd rather wait for more feedback (not just from other mods, and either way, this is just my opinion and not a mod statement). The only change I'd make is formatting True Art normally instead of using curly brackets to put it in lowercase, since we usually just type trope names as-is in descriptions.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Oct 30th 2022 at 7:56:48 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Crown Description:
Consensus was to spin misuse of Doing It For The Art into a new Sugar Wiki YMMV page. What should its name be?
The new laconic is great. I think it describes what the page is going for more. Good job.