Making Something From Nothing

For some reason, the ability to make something artistic or wonderful from things that are thrown away fascinates me. There are several artists that use discarded materials to make their art. One guy carves what's left of tiny little pencils. The lead becomes his sculpture. There are lots of women who weave purses and decorative household items from candy and gum wrappers. There's a guy who takes the wood from busted down pallets and glues it together to make the most amazing jewelry boxes.

Making something out of nothing seems like genius to me. I recently learned how to oil paint. It's a fun and relaxing hobby. I paint canvases for friends and relatives. But in the back of my mind, I'm always aware that each tube of paint costs me $14. My art has overhead.

Online, some kids started a weekly movie serial called Red vs Blue. One of the most interesting things about this movie series is that these kids did it by playing the online version of Halo and screen capturing their characters as they played. They actually sit around playing the game, then do voice-overs to add the dialog and make the film funny. They are basically making comic genius from nothing. I'm sure they had to get some permissions to reuse their game stuff (their worship of Microsoft is near sickening in the opening credits, so I'm sure it was free) but it's basically something from nothing. I don't know if they make a living wage at this... or if just making it gave them some kind of business, but I know I bought 5 seasons of it on DVD.

The next thing that caught my attention was "auto tune the news". Here's a tactic where you take soundbytes from the evening news and mix them into a song. One group really started it and now all kinds of folks on the internet are doing it. If you go to www.Youtube.com and search on "autotunethenews" you'll get a bunch of songs with videos that take soundbytes and mix it into real music. Some of the songs are actually available for download on iTunes. The 'bed intruder' song is for sale and the proceeds of the song are being split with the guy from the news that they got the soundbyte from. He lives in the projects and his interview with the press spawned the song. So the producers offered to split the sales with him in exchange for his permission to use his voice in the song. Brilliant. Here's a guy in the projects whose sister is attacked and he's interviewed while the adrenaline is still pumping in his blood... he acts and sounds crazy and is caught on tape. I don't know what the payout is from the song, but it's been downloaded several thousand times. He's made some pocket change.

When an author lays their hands on the keyboard, they are basically making something from nothing. The ideas and plots that flow through their fingers into a manuscript may or may not be recycled ideas, but it's certainly a new something being created. Books and stories give countless hours of entertainment to millions of people. Very few authors make a living wage. But I'm glad every day that they sit down and do what they do so that I can be entertained.

--Sandee Wagner