How to be excellent.

I wrote a while ago on the three tiers of excellence, i.e. the stages one typically goes through to become excellent. But what does it take, exactly, to reach that third tier? What qualities define something such that we say "That was REALLY good" as opposed to, "Yeah, it was ok, I guess"?

I've been pondering this lately, and here's the formula I've come up with that I think can apply to any commercial industry, personal skill or national pride. I submit it for your feedback.

Step 1. Make sure every single aspect of your project is done well according to industry standards.

Step 2. Perform one or two aspects in an extraordinary, innovative way.

That's it! Easy enough, right. Actually no. The trick is, you absolutely have to have both. Too many people think they can get away with just one or the other, and are flabbergasted when the public doesn't respond well.

As examples, I shall delve into one of my favorite pastimes - the movie picture industry. As I do, I ask you not to succumb to the tempation to judge these movies based on how well you enjoyed them, but by how well they were received by the public en masse. Your personal tastes may differ, but if it appeals to a majority of our decidedly motley nation, then I would posit that the authors have indeed produced excellence, even if it's only excellent at predicting what the baser sects of our society want to see.

Exmaple #1 - The Matrix. This is my example of something done right. Let's see how they measure up to my formula: Step 1: Yep, Acting:good, wardrobe:good, writing:good, fun action scenes and funny one-liners:check. Now let's look at Step 2. Anything earth shattering? You betcha. The story itself was a complete mind-bender (at least at the time, it's been redone by now, but at the time, it was a completely new thing). Also completely new was the addition of bullet-time videography. People had never seen that 360 pan around a actor before. It was intense. You can quibble, I'm sure, over some minor points of my review, or quite possibly complain that I've missed something major, but hey - I'm not a film critic. The main point I'm trying to make here is that they did everything well, and a couple things they did extraordinarily well. Now let's look at some examples that thought they could get away with only one of these steps.

Example #2 - Waterworld. Personally, I enjoyed this movie, but as far as the general public was concerned, it was a total bust. Why? Because the creators thought they could get away with only following step 1. Everything was done well. Acting, photography, writing, story, plot twists, pacing, wardrobe. But there was nothing extraordinary about the film. It was just another - albeit well-done - post-apoctolyptic drama/thriller/thing.

Example #3 - Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace What a perfect example of following Step 2 without following step 1. Here was a movie that had incredible special effects, lush beautiful landscapes and environments, fantastic, broad-reaching story. But it failed miserably in some of the basics: Namely acting and dialog. Mind you, there were some great actors in the movie, but they were either not allowed to pace their lines well, or just not directed well - I don't know the business well enough to know. I only know that every conversation sounded artificial and...well...scripted. And don't even get me started on Jar-Jar Binks.

Obviously, the existence of three examples that support my theory do not prove anything, but I think that if you look around at the things that you call excellent, you'll find that they almost always follow this pattern.