Good evening (or whatever time of day it is where you are) to everyone! I hope everyone is staying healthy and happy during this crazy time. I am sending the best wishes to you wherever you are.
I wanted to make a quick post about one of my Independent Study books that I just recently finished. As some of y’all already know, I chose to read Fans, Friends, & Followers: Building an Audience and a Creative Career in the Digital Age as one of my books for this course. To get right to the point: I loved it! I found the sections that I focused on to be highly informative as well as entertaining. I primarily focused on two sections entitled The New Rules and Film and Video which in total was 80 pages. From what I read, I believe that Kirsner’s goal for the book was to engage the reader by showing how people who have successful careers in the arts became successful. This book showed me that there is no one right way to find an audience that suites you or a career that suits you — it really is about trial and error and finding what works for you.
The section entitled The New Rules really helped me to understand that building an arts career in this new digital age is totally different than let’s say building one twenty years ago. You can connect with and reach a lot of people over the internet in so many fun and different ways nowadays that it really shows how far we have come as a society. This section sets up the guidelines for what Kirsner recommends doing to pursue a ‘successful’ career in the arts. He gives the reader a lot of tips and trick that he gained from experience. I don’t want to spoil it all for you, because there is A LOT of good stuff in this book. You can get it here!
The next section, Film and Video, showcases what I believe to be interviews or biographies from successful individuals in the film and video community. They briefly describe how they got to where they are, the ups and downs they had, what they recommend, as well as some personal life advice. The big thing that I got out of this section is very similar to what Kirsner discussed in the previous section too: try a lot of different things! The more things that you try, the more experiences that you will have (whether it be a fail or a success)!
All in all, I highly recommend this book to anyone who is curious about what pursuing a career in the arts looks like in this new digital age. While some sections seem a little outdated due to the quick advancement of technology these days, the advice is still very applicable and relevant in the sections that applied to me.
Thanks for reading and if you decide to get this book, reach out and let me know what you think. Have a great week!
