Collaborations - pros and cons?

[Rig]

I'm finishing up an essay for my Fine Arts class right now - we had to pick an art-related topic and write 12 pages about it. Anyways, I decided to write about "Technology in Art", and I've devoted a large section to collaborations over the internet.

So yeah, I was wondering if you guys had any opinions about collaboration over the internet. NG is a great platform for that sort of thing, and you guys in the Flash forum generally know what you're talking about, haha. I'll reference this thread in my bibliography, and my teacher will check it out and all that. Who knows, I might quote you :D

Alright, here's some questions you could answer if you don't know how to respond. In your opinion, what are the pros to internet collaborations? What are the cons, if any? Would you rather collab over the net or in person?

This isn't mandatory for my class, but I thought I'd get more opinions on the topic :)

[Hoeloe]

Internet collabs need a hell of a lot more organising and it can take a lot longer as you can't always get into contact with everyone.

[Morningdeath]

Internet collabs:
Con's
When you do an internet collab there is usually only a 50 % chance that everyone will actually finish. Also the result may be worse if time isn't taken. Communication with other artists becomes harder as well.

Pro's
U can make more with more people and there is a significant style diffarence between people making it more collabish. (if u know what I mean)

[ProfessorFlash]

Pros:
-Less work for you

Cons:
-The quality of others might not be up to your stantards
-Internet relationships can break easily
-No guarantees of anything

Yea... I guess that tells that I am a solo person, though I already knew that :).

[Lochie]

The more the merrier.

[Luis]

Pros:
- You can work with ANYONE... someone in australia, tahiti, whatever. With the lack of the internet i woulda missed out on working with some very talented people.

- You dont have people breathing down your neck. I cant speak for everyone but i dont like people watching me when i drawl. in an online environment you are safe from that

-You are exposed to alot more styles, artists, personalities. This is sort of like the first one on the list i guess.

==================

Cons:

- Personal collaborations are well.... more personal. in online collaborations you run into issues with varying timezones and slow feedback time. Online collaborations seem to take alot longer to create no matter how simple it is. Its tough to get people on the same page.

- I think the feedback is more valuable offline. Maybe I'm a bad communicator but to sit next to someone and go through their animation and say oh i would have this move in like this or that and explain it with hand gestures and stuff would be uber helpful. it just feels alot more collaborative.

- As a result of the above. Most collaborations online (atleast here on ng) are just a mishmash of animations... they arent REALLY collaborations.. thats sometheing i really want to change .. slicing a song into pieces and handing them out has been done to death already... think of something more collaborative.

[jimmick]

Organising a collab

-pros
Lots of points toward your name
BIG submission, more noticable

-cons
People are idiots
People are worse than you at animating, no matter how bad you think you are
"WHAT? I'M NOT BEING CO AUTHORED? FUCK YOU I'M TAKING MY PART OUT"

Joined
-pros
little work
fun
slack off

-cons
Unless you lick MAJOR balls you don't get squat
Get overshadowed
Kicked out
Self esteem

gonna go / wrists
jokes

[mechanixnut]

hoow about this rant that I posted earlier

I think collabs are just for having fun and meeting new people. You can also learn a thing or two from them. I know I have. It is also a good way to improve your skills at animating, and you get positive feedback from others and you can help people with their animation skills with your feedback. I know you can just do that in the portal, but during the making process I think it is much more useful for the feedback.

I agree with you on the collabs that have very poor animations and few good ones, but it also shows that just about anyone can work together. It is just like that last one that I had worked on (The Easter Collab), most of the animations were shit but we still managed to get a good score because of the few good animations we had in it and the really good joke we had at the end.

The best way to give people feedback is just to tell them straight up what they need to do to make they're stuff better. I know I have had to do that many times in the last couple days. It is just a good feeling when you help someone become a better artist, and also seeing the potential for those that could be a really good artist if they just keep practicing and challenging themselves to do better.

I have also seen some collabs that have just fallen apart after they were started and it is really sad when the collab was a brilliant idea and most people that madea post thought it was the stupidest idea ever. I tried to start a collab a couple days ago and one post that was made by a mod made everyone that looked at it want to not join, so I was a little saddened that one persons saying can cause a complete failure.

The thing that is the worst that I have seen about collabs that have been made are the ones that people only let those that have a BA of 3.0 to join. That I think is unfair expecially to those that do have talent but just not the score to back it up and for those that have a really good idea for the collab that could have potentially made it get a great score or even the front page.

Back to your question. I find that some collabs are just used for some really lazy artist that can't make a good video by themselves and have to mooch off of others so that they can get a good score. There is also collabs I have seens where the host of it was a really good artist on their own and just want to do a project to help out those that can't do their own video and help improve their score and talent as an artist. This also helps build up their confidence to make their own animations without fear of it getting blammed out of the flash portal in the first day of it being submitted.

Anyways there is something to think about.

Peace out

[Rig]

Thanks for your opinions, guys! I've mentioned some of you :)

[Ockeroid]

Out side of the NewGrounds style, you can still collaborate with people online (e.g. people you already know) and this can be really useful.
There are still some of the problems of being more delayed in response time from time zones, etc. But one of the pros of this is it can be done more in your own time. If it were in real life with other people, there would have to be a lot more focusing on it and having to do it an set times when the other person is available.
If you were doing it online, you could potentially manage doing another unrelated project at the same time, because you have more freedom over time management.

Good luck with your essay!

[HandsomeJake]

I think collaborations bring out the best in flash art. Great, focused programmers working with awesome focused artists make some of the best games.

A good animated collab brings many styles to the viewer in a short amount of time. Getting together a lot of people under one idea is easier on the viewer in my opinion. He or she isn't stuck inside the imagination of one person. Instead, they get to take in the ideas of many people all at once.

Collabs are also great for exposure in the flash community. If your part is of note alongside a part from a more famous artist, it gives you a great deal of credit.

Unfortunately though, I think a lot of artists rely on collabs much too heavily. I see plenty of users on NG that have sky high Batting Averages with none of their solo projects even effecting it.

[Rig]

lolbomp!
I'm gonna get this thing in on Tuesday.

[PyroflameGames]

I never really had any problems when I organized the Explosion Collab. Sure some people didn't comply, but I just got around 30 people to join, and only around 23-25 did something, which was expected and not really a problem. It has a score of 3.81 or something like that right now.