You Should Study Bad Art

When we talk about studying photography and film, there's typically an unspoken understanding that we're referring to examining highly acclaimed work. It does us a lot of good to examine work at the other end of the spectrum, however.

Question: Can you name the film shown in the first few seconds of the video above? If not, you're missing out. In this great video, Darious Britt talks about why filmmakers should embrace the study of bad movies, but his points apply to all art. The most obvious benefit of studying less-than-stellar endeavors is the relative ease with which you can pick out teachable moments: when a piece of art is really good, it's often the result of a skilled handling of an intricate and delicate balance of many factors, and unraveling that can be very difficult, so much so that many experts still disagree about many such pieces. At the other end of the spectrum, it's relatively to understand where things went wrong, which illuminates the larger mechanisms — the same mechanisms that make good pieces of art work. Honing your ability to spot where and why things go wrong will hone your ability to understand why other things work.

Answer: It's "The Room." Go watch it. You'll thank me later.

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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