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“Can you feel the love?”
In This Chapter
I hate to admit it but I often tear up in sad movies. My wife calls me the Kleenex King because I never fail to ask her for a tissue (or three) if there is a poignant birth scene, a heart-wrenching war movie, anything having to do with harming animals or just general emotionally charged situations.
Why? I’ve been told I’m a sensitive person. Good? Bad? I’d say some of both. Empathizing and being considerate of others’ feelings are both very important to me, and somehow, it seems, imprinted on my genes. Dealing with people who show a lack of consideration is one of my pet peeves. If I hold a door open for someone at a store and they walk past me without acknowledging my gesture of thoughtfulness, or at least offering a simple nod of thanks, I become irritated. If I get what I consider polite, thoughtful service from a person helping me, (often in a telephone service conversation) I make it a point to ask if I can offer kudos to his or her supervisor. And though I’m hardly wealthy, I usually tip generously when someone goes out of their way to offer good service.
p.7
You could say I empathize to a fault, often trying to sense how the people I encounter are feeling and thinking, and why. Many times my intuitions about them are correct, but sometimes not. In any case, the bottom line is this: For better or worse, I’m one of those people who cares about how others feel.
I tell you this not to gain your sympathy, pity or admiration, but to make what I believe is a very important point about the creative process:
Being sensitive to others’ feelings, attempting to empathize with them, can help make your writing, producing or directing efforts “honest” and credible.
If you have an empathetic understanding of, say, how a person who continually breaks the rules and regulations thinks and feels, the performance of a talented actor playing this type of role in one of your programs will almost certainly be “real” and convincing. And that “reality” will have come about as a result of two interdependent elements: the actor’s talent and your empathetic sensibilities.
I once worked with a director who seemed to have no sense of empathy whatsoever. He was very terse, at times even rude, and often gave his actors directions like “No. You start here and end here.” Or, “I need more pace on this. Let’s move it along.” I can’t say that I actually saw him lose work or have to deal with actors’ rebellions. I do know, however, that his sets and shoot locations often seemed tense and his dictatorial manner left little room for exploring other options in performances that might have benefitted him and his projects. On the other hand, I have seen directors work in very collaborative ways and when channeled properly (a skill we will discuss shortly), not only do they often seem to get better results, their crews and actors are typically more content and motivated to go the extra mile for them.
When you apply the idea that sensibilities affect performances, it makes perfect sense. When you write a scene about a seasoned truck driver who gets ticked off when he is disciplined by his boss, the writing will most likely ring true and audience members will identify with it. Why? Because you’ve been able to empathize with that driver and sense why he might be saying to himself, “I’ve been on the road for all these years and you’ve been behind a desk. Now you’re going to tell me how to drive? Give me a break!”
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If an on-camera host in one of your programs is talking to your viewing audience about safety on the job of a telephone installer who frequently climbs poles and crawls into attics, your sense of what it might be like to do that work will influence the way you direct the host and what he might say.
Now this is not to say that you have to be a cry-baby to be a good director, producer or writer. You may not have shed a tear in years. Regardless of how you react to your sensibilities, whether it be emotionally or perhaps with more self-control than I can sometimes muster, the fact that those sensibilities are a part of your makeup, I believe, has an influence on your creative decision-making. And if I’m right on that, what should it mean to you as a creative person reading this book? I think two things:
First, you should remain aware that your sensibilities will certainly influence your creative decision-making, and you should consider those sensibilities an asset to be nurtured. Second, because they reflect true human feelings, you should trust your gut instinct when it comes to judging a performance; deciding on the dialogue on a page of script; your decision to hire a certain writer or director; or making some important decision that will affect the writer or director on one of your projects.
Notice that I said your sensibilities will “influence” your creative decisions. I choose that word because as much as those sensibilities may be a part of your decisions, they are not the only criteria you should consider. The budget, the timeline, and your client’s personality or desires are only a few of the many other elements that will also play a part in those decisions.
And this leads us again to that word “awareness.” If you are aware of this “big picture”—your sensibilities and the other facets of production that play a role in your decisions as a writer, producer or director—you can not only trust those gut feelings, but also put them in perspective with regard to the other important elements of the project.
p.9
If your gut tells you a certain actor is perfect for the role, but your client doesn’t agree, you may have to adjust your thinking and perhaps look for another actor more suited to both your and your client’s tastes. If you feel the script you’ve written highlights the subject perfectly, but your producer has reservations about certain scenes, your best bet is to consider how to make revisions that will satisfy both of you—or, if not both, especially the producer—the person who writes the checks and calls in freelancers or assigns projects. And if you’re a producer and your budget won’t support some aspect of what you would like to do with the project you’re working on, you will be aware that you probably have two choices—find more money or change your mind.
The lesson is simple: your sensitivities to people, situations and the world around you, have a significant impact on your creative preferences. Often that’s a positive thing because it gives you the ability to view a scene, story or character with the empathy needed to guide your actors toward delivering credible performances. At other times, however, if not handled properly, those sensitivities can become a detriment. Directors who ignore this truth and go overboard with “creative justification”—letting their right brain make significant creative decisions with no regard for the left brain “realities” of production—usually end up in the unemployment line! The successful writer, producer or director understands these influences and balances his decision-making accordingly.
p.10
BREAKOUT 2.1 “THE BRASH ‘AUTHORITY’: A DIRECTOR’S DOWNFALL”
I walked through our studio’s master control booth one afternoon and was surprised to hear a freelance director who was new to our operation noisily insulting a camera operator for what he called a “^&%$ zoom!” Meanwhile the client, looking embarrassed and shocked, sat behind the director in a rear viewing area.
When he had finished with the camera operator, the director turned to the client and said something to the effect that he felt he should apologize for the poor work of this individual, who obviously didn’t know what a smooth zoom and a medium close-up were. The client remained silent and red-faced, as the director made it clear that he was the creative authority in the house, and he had very little patience for “amateurs” that weren’t up to his creative standards.
If I hadn’t heard his narcissistic rant, I would never have believed someone new to our studio had said it.
A few minutes later, the departmental director stepped into the booth and sat with the client at the rear of the room (the department heads had a monitoring system in their offices which allowed them to see and hear what was going on in the “booth” and on the studio floor). The two conversed quietly and I realized the executive was apologizing, not for the camera operator, but for the director. The client nodded her head several times and smiled. I could tell she was glad the executive had come to talk with her.
The director was allowed to finish the studio portion of his shoot, which included a few more insults that day, and then he was let go. The additional two days of location work, which had already been scheduled, was assigned to one of our in-house directors as the “authority” was paid and escorted out, never to return.
I believe that most creative people have strong egos. Mine is certainly not weak. But I remain constantly aware of it and never let it encroach on my professional relationships. I try to always remember that I, like all other members of a production group, am replaceable, and overinflated egos often provide a fast track to the nearest exit.