Commissioned Work Quotes

When I was at Stratford, the very first thing that I was commissioned to work on was trying to make a musical out of the documentary material about the General Strike, which was the next big historical event in England, after the First World War.

That's one thing that's always, like, been a difference between, like, the performing arts, and being a painter, you know. A painter does a painting, and he paints it, and that's it, you know. He has the joy of creating it, it hangs on a wall, and somebody buys it, and maybe somebody buys it again, or maybe nobody buys it and it sits up in a loft somewhere until he dies. But he never, you know, nobody ever, nobody ever said to Van Gogh, 'Paint a Starry Night again, man!' You know? He painted it and that was it.

A commission and an original are two different things, and both have their virtues and vices. A commission is a bit more collaborative, in that you outline the story that you think should be told, and then you write it.

I don't know if I have some kind of defiance disorder or something, but if I'm hired to write something by "The Man," or by a studio, for whatever reason, it's really hard for me to finish. I inevitably wind up using that time to write something else.

Having something commissioned made it easier for me to share my work and see it out there and have people read it without feeling like there was a piece of my soul on the page.

I wrote four novels under the name Amy Silver. The first one was commissioned, and I was given basically the whole plot and the characters. They told me what to do, and I went straight away and did it. After that, I continued, and I was coming up with more my own ideas, although they did steer me.

'Sabotage' was a work for hire. It wasn't my original idea or script or anything.

I happen to take photographs, and they happen to be used for a lot of things, but they're not really made to order. They're paid for, but they're not made for order. I've never really done real commercial work.

Right now, scientists are in exactly the same position as Renaissance painters, commissioned to make the portrait the patron wants done, And if they are smart, they'll make sure their work subtly flatters the patron. Not overtly. Subtly.

Back to the painting of the Sistine Chapel, there's always been run-ins between benefactors and artists.

There's so much of this thing now, where you're supposed to do all the work before you get the commission. I think it's really good to try to resist that. If you just have a week to come up with a pitch for something, your ideas aren't going to be very good. Get your income from somewhere else, and keep your writing not tied into these contracts.

To make money, I did portraits. The truth is so bizarre! I'm kind of embarrassed. I was like a 19th-century pirate painter. I'd say, 'Your mom would love a painting of you!' A salesman! I'd hawk paintings.

A commission and an original are two different things, and both have their virtues and vices. A commission is a bit more collaborative, in that you outline the story that you think should be told, and then you write it. And then, there are notes and you change it, in the conventional studio system.

When I do a film score, I am basically nothing more than a fancy pencil for hire. I don't own any of the music when I am - it belongs to the film company - and likewise, when I am done, even if I come up with something astounding that I may want to revisit... in the world of film composition, you can't do that.

I have just returned from Arenas and feel very tired. His Excellency loaded me with a thousand honours; I have painted his portrait and that of his wife and boy and girl with unexpected success, for other artists had been there previously and not been successful.

When you become published and become a reviewer, piles of books come along and you are pushed by fashion and what you are commissioned to do.

It got to the point where most of my time went toward writing novels. I would still occasionally write short stories, but only when I was commissioned by an editor to write for a themed anthology or special issue.

The trick is to compose what one wants to compose and to get it commissioned afterward.

Most everything I've ever written has .been done to 'assignment.'

It might shock you, but I haven't been to that many fashion shows, and I'd never done a commissioned piece for a fashion house.

[Me book is] called Stock Photographs. It was done at the Fort Worth livestock show and rodeo. I was commissioned to shoot there by the Fort Worth Art Museum for a show. I probably shot a total of fourteen days, give or take.

There is an implied warranty that a commissioned work should last a lifetime. There is to be no charge.