GARY MASON

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gary@gary-mason.com

Acting

Be cool to younger kids.

Acting, Encouragement, Voice Over, Wisdom

WELCOME!

Several new subscribers have joined us again this week and I want to thank you for subscribing and welcome you!  Thanks for joining!

Continuing the series

With this week’s topic “Be cool to younger kids”.

Everyone was the “younger kid” at one point.

No one was born an adult.  At one point in your life, you were that goofy young kid who couldn’t WAIT to grow up. Of course, what you didn’t know was: it’s a trap!…adulthood is a LOT more stressful than being a kid…but I digress.

Did you?

Many, if not most (if not ALL), of us had someone growing up who we looked up to and who was “cool” with us.  Someone who didn’t treat us like a snot nosed kid who was just a pain to be around.  For me, that was my Uncle Jim (no, not a crazy uncle, although I had at least one of those too).

More like a big brother

Uncle Jim was my mom’s youngest brother, and he was just 10 years older than me.  For a period in my childhood my grandmother and Uncle Jim lived with us.  My grandfather had passed away and she was struggling to make ends meet.  It was the 1960’s after all and women were not heavily in the work force, my grandmother, in her 60’s, had a rough time finding employment late in life.  Consequently, they moved in with us.

I idolized him

Uncle Jim was a teenager when they lived with us, and I was just a kid (6 or 7 years old) so you’d think he would have been all “Go away, kid, ya bother me”…but he wasn’t.  He took me under his wing.  I remember him teaching me to throw a football and ice skate and catch a baseball.  Believe it or not he would take me with him on dates to the beach and sometimes just he and I would go to the local amusement park Geauga Lake.

Me and Uncle Jim at Geauga Lake. Yeah, this was more than a couple weeks ago.

And I was no prize as a kid

It’s not like I was the best kid to have around.  I remember always wanting to wear his clothes (which aggravated him I suppose) and when he shipped a box back home from the army when he was getting out (he was drafted during Viet Nam) I tore it open and “stole” the clothes. I wore them every day for the 3 months till he got back, ruining several pairs of pants.  Then I learned once that you could stick a pin through a box and play an album (way back when vinyl was a thing) by resting the pin in the groove and turning on the turn table. Of course, that only worked once as the pin carved vinyl out of the groove.  I ruined more than one album that way.

He was a mentor

He’d get angry with me, for sure, but never in a mean or demeaning way.  Instead, he mentored me, and took the time to explain why whatever I did was wrong and how to act.  He was my mentor growing up.  He was “cool” to me.  He treated me like a human and helped me to grow and mature.

Even as an adult

He was ALWAYS cool with me, even as an adult.  Of course, we developed a much different relationship as I got older, a more mature adult relationship.  But he never stopped mentoring me or being a “big brother” to me.

He’s gone now

Sadly, Uncle Jim passed away from pancreatic cancer, likely due to exposure to Agent Orange during his time in the army, more than 20 years ago.  He was just 50 years old.  But he is still there for me.  To this day, at the ripe old age of 61 years, I look up to him and think about some of the lessons he taught me.  It’s safe to say that, even though he is gone, he still influences my life.

Even as he was dying

My last memory of Uncle Jim was on a trip to Myrtle Beach, his favorite vacation spot.  He was pretty far along in the disease and had a hard time getting around and doing things.  Cancer is a HORRIBLE disease, and it took so MUCH from him. As I and my family (by this time I was married with 4 kids) were getting ready to leave I hugged him, told him I loved him and asked if he was alright.  He hugged me back, looked me in the eye and said, “Are YOU alright?  It’s OK, everything is going to be OK”.  He was always looking out for me. Excuse me, I seem to have something in my eyes…BRB.

Uncle Jim’s reputation

Here’s the thing.  It wasn’t just me.  Ask anyone who knew Uncle Jim and they’ll tell you he influenced them as well.  Both of my younger sisters feel the same way about him.  He has a reputation as a kind, loving, patient man.  He built that reputation over a lifetime of being…well, kind loving and patient.  His actual kids may feel differently, but frankly I doubt it.

The entertainment industry

The thing about this industry is that everyone, every actor, voice actor, stand up comic…EVERYONE starts out just like everyone else.  At the beginning.  Robert Di Niro didn’t BEGIN his career as an award-winning performer.  No one does.  Each and every one of us in this industry started out as a “younger kid” on set.  No matter where you are in your journey, there are those people who have a lot less, and a lot more, experience than you.

Add to that

The notion that the industry is, as I have said before (more than once…here and here for example), built on relationships and you can probably guess where this is going.  More experienced actors should be cool to those with less experience, not look down on them as a nuisance.

A story from my experience

Many of you know that I am a relatively new performer.  I began my VO career at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, and my screen acting career early in 2021 (January 2nd, 2021, to be exact).  My first gig was as a background actor on a limited television series, which BTW was very exciting for me.  At one point I was on set with a “name” actor.  Not a BIG name, but someone you are likely to recognize depending on what you watch on TV.  I was behind him at position 1, standing in a set that was a hallway in an office building.

Apparently, I was too close

I was standing about 3 feet behind this named actor waiting for the scene to begin when he turned and said sharply: “Back up”.  I backed up a couple feet.  “No, go around the corner!  I go on action”.  In other words, don’t come back around that corner till after I leave.  I was background.  The order goes something like this: Quiet on set, Roll sound, Roll cameras, Background…and…action.  If you can’t tell, background moves BEFORE the principal actors start.  I should have “gone” before him.  He was just being rude.  I honestly hope I never see that guy on set again, because I will forever have a negative opinion of him.  No, I won’t tell you who it was.

Later

In a different scene, I got bumped to “featured” background where I was essentially set dressing for the principals who were acting in the scene.  There were 4 other “named” actors in the scene, and each of them introduced themselves to me and welcomed me to set.  One, another guy whose name you’d recognize, then made it a point to say hello and chat with me for a moment whenever we passed one another.  They made me feel welcome and part of the project, even though I was just a body taking up space for the sake of the scene.  It’s noteworthy that the first guy I mentioned was ALSO part of that scene and refused to speak with me.

It’s a small thing

It seems so small and inconsequential, but I’m sure it will stick with me for a long time.  One day I may work with that one guy again, and it’s gonna start off awkward for me.  He basically said, “Go away kid, ya bother me”.   I hope to work with the others some day! On the plus side it made me realize I never want to be “that” guy.

Go away kid, ya bother me!

Remember where you began

When you are a famous actor and on set, try to remember where YOU started and instead of looking down on new actors, help to build them up.  Be cool to younger kids.

P.S. If you are looking for your next great Non-Fiction read, head on over to “March Into Knowledge” and check out some great free content!

If you enjoyed this, please leave a comment below to let me know.  If you DIDN’T enjoy it, well, I’d like to hear from you too!  And please feel free to share this blog on social media or with other people you think might enjoy it.

If you haven’t already, please feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss anything!

Don’t Boo. Even the Ref is Somebody’s Son

Acting, Encouragement, Voice Over, Wisdom

WELCOME!

Several new subscribers have joined us this week and I want to thank you for subscribing and welcome you!  Thanks for joining!

What’s going on

Right now, I am 21 posts (this is number 21) into a 32 topic series based on a list of 100 wisest words from a teacher.  Why not 100?  Well, some of them…while definitely wise…didn’t lend themselves to a blog I could tie to either VO or acting.  So, I culled it down to the 32 I thought best fit.  Yeah, it started as 38…but well…I culled again.  Anyway, if you want to see the earlier posts, head over to the blog archive page and have a look around.

Continuing the series

With this week’s topic “Don’t boo. Even the ref is somebody’s son”.

Why do we boo?

I mean, I think we all know what booing IS, but why are some people compelled to do it?  According to Wikipedia we boo to “…show[ing] displeasure for someone or something, generally in response to an entertainer, by loudly yelling, “Boo!” and sustaining the “oo” sound by holding it out”.

It’s KIND OF Universal

While the idea of booing is pretty universal, in other words the idea of using a verbal gesture or sound to show displeasure is universal, the actual word “boo” is really only an English phenomenon.  In other country’s people will whistle, or sometimes hiss to show displeasure.  In some places, it’s just “ooooo” without the B.

Booing at Halloween is OK, though

Not all boos are bad!  We also use the boo sound to denote ghosts.  If your little one, or even you, are dressed as a ghost, boo to your hearts content.  Also, if your spouse or significant other should be slightly distracted when entering a room…yelling boo is acceptable.  Well, except to them.  If you don’t mind ticking off your partner, go ahead and yell boo when they walk around the corner.  Oh, but make sure you videotape it with your phone so we can all laugh at you when you get your butt kicked.

It’s been around a while

Booing is not a new idea.  The first record of booing comes from ancient Greece at the annual Festival of Dionysia in Athens where playwrights competed to determine whose tragedy was the best. The audience applauded to show approval, and booed or whistled to show displeasure.

Ancient Rome

In ancient Rome during gladiatorial games, audience members (and the emperor if he was there) used applause and booing…along with either a thumbs up or thumbs down…to signal whether or not the gladiator (performer) should be fed to a lion or live to fight another day.   I’ll just note that I’m pretty glad lions are not a part of performances today.

In both of these cases

For both the Greek and Roman performances, audience participation in this way was not only expected, but required.  Applause or boos determined who “won” the competition.  It was kind of like a real-time Rotten Tomatoes.  But a low score (in the csse of Romans at least) could be pretty detrimental to the performer.

Modern booing

The practice of booing continues today.  Thankfully, booing at stage plays and musical performances are rare, but in the 19th and early 20th centuries not only might you get booed, but people would also throw rotten fruit and vegetables at the stage.  As I think about that, I consider the amount of planning that had to go into it.  First, you had to buy fruit & vegetables, then let them rot, then remember to bring them with you to the theater.  Seems like too much work to me.

Today

If you are going to hear booing at a public event these days, most likely you are at a sporting event.  Fans tend to boo THEIR team when they make a mistake or a bad play and tend to boo the OPPOSING team when they make a good play.  Most often though, fans boo the ref when they make a call that the fans don’t agree with.  Personally, I’m not sure why anyone would want to officiate a sporting event. No matter WHAT they do, someone is going to be unhappy.

Critics

Everyone’s a critic.  Just take a look at Amazon and read some of the reviews.  I swear there are people out there whose goal in life is to complain about everything. An “official” critic, one who writes critical performance reviews for a magazine or newspaper, are what I call “Professional Booers”.  Man, a bad review can really sting!

Performers

Whether you are a commercial VO artist, an audio book narrator, or a stage/screen actor, a bad review can set you back pretty hard.  Sometimes it feels like just not getting selected for the job is a form of bad review, although that’s not necessarily so.  Since performers are typically in the public eye, a bad review is ALSO public and can be, at best, embarrassing and, at worst, humiliating.

At work

At my day job, which for 41 years was with the US Navy (20 active, 21 as a Federal employee) our motto was: Praise in public, punish in private.  Calling someone out publicly for bad performance was not something you wanted to do because it was bad for morale.  Public praise served two purposes: Building up the good performer and encouraging the rest of the team.

As a performer

In this industry it seems the motto is: Praise in public, punish in public.  You really have to have a thick skin to be in the performance industry!  We’re taught, and we tell ourselves and others all the time, to ignore reviews altogether.  It’s great in theory, but very difficult to put into practice.  We performers tend to look for validation of our work, and reviews are the way we get that.  Sure, box office numbers and show ratings help, but we really would like to hear that all that hard work preparing for and performing a role was appreciated.

So, we read them

We really can’t help it.  We can tell a fellow actor to not pay attention to reviews in the morning and be agonizing over a bad review by lunch.  I think it’s human nature.  Anyone who has gotten a bad review will know that feeling of being stabbed in the heart.  Bad reviews, getting publicly booed, just don’t feel very good.  It can affect your performance going forward which just make the whole thing like a self-licking lollipop;  bad review, decrease in performance because of it, leading to more bad reviews…etc, etc…

It CAN backfire though

Sometimes, particularly in sporting events, getting booed (especially by the opposing team’s fans) can harden a player to perform even better…but honestly, that’s rare.  Typically getting booed makes you self-conscious and reduces performance.

Ever been booed?

Or had a bad review, or been called out for poor performance at work?  How did that make you feel?  Probably not very good!  My mother used to say, “If you don’t have anything good to say about someone, don’t say anything at all”.   And of course my dad who said: “Never treat anyone in a way that you wouldn’t want to be treated”.  Both pieces of good advice.

Next time…

The next time you are feeling inclined to send out a resounding Booooooooo!, or to write someone a critical review, stop for a moment and think about how what you are about to do would make YOU feel if you were in their shoes.  And remember:  Don’t boo. Even the ref is somebody’s son.

P.S. If you are looking for your next great Non-Fiction read, head on over to “March Into Knowledge” and check out some great free content!

If you enjoyed this, please leave a comment below to let me know.  If you DIDN’T enjoy it, well, I’d like to hear from you too!  And please feel free to share this blog on social media or with other people you think might enjoy it.

If you haven’t already, please feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss anything!

Know at Least One Good Joke

Acting, Wisdom

Continuing the series

With this week’s topic “Know at Least One Good Joke”.

Jokes

Everybody loves to laugh.  I’d be hard pressed to believe there is anyone out there who simply doesn’t like a good laugh.  If you exist, I’d like to hear from you, but not more than once because, hey, who likes to talk to someone who doesn’t like a good laugh now and then?  Certainly not me.  I want to hear from you if you exist just so I know who to stay away from!

Comedy

Look around, there are a million comedians out there all working hard to make us laugh.  I like a good stand-up comedy routine so much I actually took a class to learn how to do it.  If you have 5 minutes and are so inclined, my five-minute graduation set is below.

Sorry about the sound quality, this was recorded by a friend in the audience on his cell phone and in a not very recording friendly space.  Still, you can hear most of it.

It aint easy!

Aside from the idea of getting up in front of a room full of people and having all eyes on you, even preparing for a stand-up set is not easy.  First, you must prepare an ORIGINAL set of jokes that (hopefully) make people laugh.  It amazes me that comedians can put together and hour long set that is both original and funny.

Anatomy of a joke

If you are interested in learning more about stand-up comedy, reach out and I can help you find resources.  The (very) abbreviated anatomy of a joke is this:

  • Setup
  • Story (or detail)
  • Punchline (or punch word).

Think about every joke you’ve ever heard, and you’ll find this structure in there somewhere.  There is quite a bit more to it, but broadly speaking every joke contains these elements.  Again, this post is NOT about becoming a stand-up comic so if you’d like to learn more reach out and I will help if I can.

What really is humor?

The short answer is humor is what makes us laugh (duh, right?).  But humor is totally subjective.  A joke may be well received in one situation, but not in another. I guess, based on that last sentence, this blog post should more appropriately be titled “Know at Least One Good Joke for Every Situation”.  Humor can be used as a weapon to alienate people as well as means to bring people together. Sarcasm, in particular, can have a corrosive effect.  I’m going to go out on a limb and confess that sarcasm is my “go to” form of humor and I need to work on that.

And yet…

Humor, and the study or contemplation of it, have been around for millennia.  According to Peter McGraw and Joel Warner in their book, The Humor Code: A global search for what makes things funny;

“Plato and Aristotle contemplated the meaning of comedy while laying the foundations of Western philosophy… Charles Darwin looked for the seeds of laughter in the joyful cries of tickled chimpanzees. Sigmund Freud sought the underlying motivations behind jokes in the nooks and crannies of our unconscious.”

Four styles of humor

Researchers have found that there are four basic styles of humor.

  1. Affiliative humor. Funny personal stories and jokes. This style of humor is lighthearted and tends to ease tensions.
  2. Self-enhancing humor. This style can help people deal with stress.  Looking for joy in a stressful situation is self-enhancing humor.
  3. Aggressive humor. Aggressive humor relies on jokes to humiliate or manipulate. It makes one person feel better at another’s expense.
  4. Self-defeating humor. AKA self-deprecating humor. Regularly putting yourself down in a humorous way is the self-defeating humor style. If you do this right, you become more “approachable”, but it can be overdone which reduces your status in the eyes of others.

Why is it good to laugh?

Research shows that laughter is strong medicine. Laughter draws people together and triggers healthy physical and emotional changes in your body. It strengthens your immune system, boosts your mood, diminishes pain, and reduces stress.  It’s true, laughter really IS the best medicine.

Humor in the workplace

The Journal of Managerial Psychology found that, in the workplace, there are 10 benefits to humor:

  1. A lighter mood
  2. Reduced stress
  3. Faster interpersonal bonding
  4. A greater sense of belonging at work
  5. Better perceived leader performance
  6. Overall workplace cohesion
  7. Improved mental health
  8. Closer relationships
  9. Reduced inhibitions
  10. More happily resolved disagreements

Most of us have experienced working in a place that allowed or even encouraged humor and I think we can all agree that working in a place like that is much better than one where the atmosphere is dour and UN-humorous.

It sure beats fighting

Scott Weems, a cognitive neuroscientist and author says: “My first thought when I think about humor is it’s a great way for us to have evolved so we don’t have to hit each other with sticks”. Humor can definitely be used as a way to deflect precarious situations.  Although it didn’t work for John McClane!  Yippee Kai Yay! But those movies, and their popularity, sure show how humor can reduce  stress in an audience.

On top of that

At least for guys, humor helps attract partners.  Not suggesting women are not funny, and also not saying that men reject female comedians, far from it.  But research in 1996 by Robert R. Provine, professor of psychology at the University of Maryland, shows that women most often sought a mate who could make them laugh while men most often desired women who appreciated their humor and laughed at their jokes. If you ever look at a couple and wonder “How did he manage to attract her?” my guess is he makes her laugh.  Well, either that or it’s possible he’s filthy rich…but that’s another topic altogether and I’m sure I could find studies about it, but I don’t want to.

Humor as we age

Did you know that as we get older, we tend to laugh less often?  Yeah, I didn’t know that either.  According to a 2019 Gallup poll, the average 4-year-old laughs up to 300 times a day while the average 40-year-old only laughs about three times per day.  It’s a sad state of affairs if you ask me, but my suspicion is that the stresses of life as an adult has a lot to do with it.  Not many four-year-olds have a job they hate that they need to pay for a mortgage and food and all the other things we adults are responsible for.  Looking at the news these days, it’s no wonder us older folks tend to laugh less.

On-Set

One of my favorite things when watching a movie, especially an action movie or thriller, is when the producers include a series of outtakes or bloopers during or after the credits.  For me, the more stressful the story the funnier the bloopers.  It’s fun to see the cast and crew actually enjoying themselves on set.  I’ve been on sets where people were very serious about their work and no amount of cutting up or joking was allowed.  I still have fun on set, but the ones where a bit of levity is permitted are SO MUCH more fun to be on.

You DO have to be careful though

So, another confession.  I’m a bit of a cut up myself, and in high school I was definitely the “class clown”.  I love to, and am told I’m pretty good at, finding the humor in otherwise very serious situations.  No, I’m not THAT guy at a funeral…give me SOME credit!  I do like to make funny comments about situations though and I have to really watch my tongue sometimes.  Film making is a serious, and expensive, business.  While cracking a joke on set can certainly lighten a mood, it also slows down production and that can be frowned upon.  Especially if you are one of the “junior” performers on set.  So, unless you’re Jack Nicholson or someone else at his level, be careful making jokes on set while you’re working!

But as we can see

Humor is definitely a good component to any situation if used wisely, sparingly and with care.  Never use humor to belittle someone or make them feel unworthy or stupid, don’t be the person who is constantly cutting up and be mindful that your jokes COULD be costing production money.  But humor should be a tool in your toolbox, so everyone should Know at Least One Good Joke!

P.S. If you are looking for your next great Non-Fiction read, head on over to “March Into Knowledge” and check out some great free content!

If you enjoyed this, please leave a comment below to let me know.  If you DIDN’T enjoy it, well, I’d like to hear from you too!  And please feel free to share this blog on social media or with other people you think might enjoy it.

If you haven’t already, please feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss anything!

Forgive yourself for your mistakes

Acting, Encouragement, Voice Over, Wisdom

Continuing the series

With this week’s topic “Forgive yourself for your mistakes”.

Mistakes

Everyone makes mistakes.  It’s just a simple fact of life; humans are not infallible.  So when you DO make a mistake, the first thing to know…I mean REALLY know…is that you are not alone.  Some mistakes are worse than others, but it’s safe to say that no matter how big of a mistake it is, there’s a good chance someone else has made the same mistake!

It’s encouraging

While it’s encouraging to know that not only does everyone make mistakes, but people have also made the same mistake you did.  Unfortunately, for most of us, it doesn’t make it any easier to forgive ourselves for those mistakes and move on.

Of course, it depends

Some things are easier to move past than others.  A typo in a paper for college that gets you a slightly lower grade?  Meh, no big deal.  Send a text meant for your spouse to your boss accidently?  A little harder to get beyond.  Betray a trust in your marriage and lose your spouse?  Not so easy.  My guess is there are a lot of people sitting in prison right now who made mistakes that ruined their lives who are having a tough time forgiving themselves.

Guilt and shame

The problem is how these mistakes make us feel.  Of course, mistakes don’t make us feel good.  Generally, we feel either guilt, shame, or a combination of the two.  It’s important to know that guilt and shame are different, and to understand those difference.  These feelings can be useful, but also detrimental depending on what we do with them.

Guilt

Guilt is how we feel when we regret what we’ve done.  It’s good because it reminds us of our mistakes and causes us to act more intentionally in the future.  It reminds us not to make the same mistakes over and over again.  Guilt is our “conscience” if you will, and it helps us remember what went wrong leading to one of my favorite things: experience.  My dad used to say, “Experience is the thing you get just AFTER you needed it”.

Shame

Shame on the other hand is not quite as useful.  While it CAN help guide future actions, problems arise when the shame we feel makes us feel unworthy, deficient, or hopeless.  Feeling shame makes correcting behavior more difficult.  Shame can lead to what actors call the “impostor syndrome” where we feel as though we are not good enough.  When we feel that way, we are less likely to keep trying, assuming we’ll never be good enough.  Shame is typically “secret” and leads us to feel isolated and alone.

Mistakes can lead to growth

I’ve written about this before.  Mistakes, or failures if you will, help us to grow.  Both personally and professionally.  Mistakes show us what DOESN’T work, so we can ultimately learn what DOES. Success is built one mistake at a time.

To make things easier

For the purpose of this post, and honestly every post from now on, I’m going to lump stage, screen and voice actors together and just call them “actors”. These types of acting have a lot in common and what I write about for sure applies to all three. This should make things a little easier and less wordy.  Well, easier for me to write about anyway!

Actors are unique animals

Actors are unique in that what they do is very public.  One would think that we are arrogant, or at least very confident, and LOVE being the center of attention.  But for many, if not most actors, that is very far from the truth.  A lot of actors, and I am talking about actors whose names you (and most everyone else) know, feel they don’t deserve the attention they get.  I know it’s hard to believe, but it is absolutely true.

Not to mention

On top of that, a lot of these actors have made some pretty serious mistakes, both on and off stage.  It’s tough when mistakes have a severe impact on your career, but it is imperative to forgive yourself for making them.  It can take some time to repair the damage, but one thing to keep in mind is:  Other people are going to forgive you (probably long) before you forgive yourself.

How do you manage to forgive yourself?

Forgiving yourself for minor screw-ups is fairly easy.  It’s the bigger mistakes that take some time, and thoughtful action, to overcome.  There are some steps you can take to help make it a bit easier though.

Set reasonable expectations

The first thing everyone needs to do is make sure your expectations are reasonable.  You aren’t going to be the starting quarterback at the Super Bowl, or even make the team, when you first start out.  Trying to be perfect or achieve well above your level of talent and experience, is a recipe for disaster and is likely to lead to some pretty monumental mistakes.  I like to say, if you set your expectations low, it’s tough to be disappointed

Be Aware

Setting reasonable expectations BEFORE you make a mistake will go a long way to helping you avoid them, but what happens AFTER you ‘ve made a mistake?   The first thing to do is to reasonably assess the severity of the mistake.  Odds are you think the mistake is bigger than it really is.  Make sure you are unemotionally assessing what happened to know how to react.  Blow an audition?  It feels crushing, but overall it’s not really a big deal at all, and the casting director is not going to remember you forever.

Remember you are not alone

When we are learning to walk, we continually fall and get back up. The same is true throughout life – we “fall” and to move forward we have to get back up.  Remember that this is true for EVERYONE, even people who seem to have their entire life together.  The secret is:  They don’t.  No one does.  Be realistic – You are GOING to make mistakes.  Failing to forgive yourself makes you stagnate and keeps you from success.

Give yourself a break

You’re not perfect.  Think about what happened and ask yourself this: If it was someone else, would you forgive THEM?  Probably.  So why wouldn’t you forgive yourself?  Chances are other people have already forgiven you, so give yourself a break and understand that it is OK to forgive yourself.

Take positive steps

Think about what happened.  Is there something that you could or should have done differently? Is there anything you need to do now to rectify the mistake?  Now that you’ve forgiven yourself it’s time to take some positive steps toward either making amends or correcting behavior.  It is now that you should begin making sure you don’t make the same mistakes again.

At the end of the day

Mistakes are going to happen, some big and some small.  Those mistakes are only really an issue if you park there and agonize over them or when they make you feel unworthy or less valuable.  We all make mistakes, the key is to forgive yourself and move on, learning from them to help prevent yourself from making the same mistake repeatedly.  So from now on, work hard to learn how to Forgive Yourself For Your Mistakes!

If you enjoyed this, please leave a comment below to let me know.  If you DIDN’T enjoy it, well, I’d like to hear from you too!  And please feel free to share this blog on social media or with other people you think might enjoy it.

If you haven’t already, please feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss anything!

Never Answer the Phone at the Dinner Table

Acting, Voice Over, Wisdom

Continuing the series

With this week’s topic “Never Answer the Phone at the Dinner Table”.

A hot topic

As much as I dislike controversy, I’m going to go ahead and write/post this one anyway.  I suspect everyone has a way to feel about this topic, and I look forward to what COULD be a spirited debate in the comments.  Just try and keep them on topic and friendly.  I DO moderate comments, so I won’t let a discussion devolve into anything not nice.

Phones in the WayBack machine

WAY back in the day when I was growing up, we didn’t have a phone that we could carry around in our pocket all the time.   As a matter of fact, our phones were not ONLY attached to the wall by a cord, but the handset was attached to the phone by a squiggly little cord.  And just to fully date myself, there was no such thing as an answering machine or caller ID.  Oh, and the dial was rotary…so it took a LONG time to dial.  Plus you either had to know the number or look it up in this thing called a “phone book” that, believe it or not, listed every person’s name, address and phone number in the local area.

If you’re old like me

You’ll remember that squiggly cord and how, after trying to stretch it out to get some privacy when your girl/boyfriend called, it got all knotted up and tangled and left you stranded within a couple feet of the phone.  Fun times.  Eventually we got cordless handsets, which were awesome, but also didn’t work too well if you got too far away from the base.  Oh, and everybody in the house shared the same number.  Weird, right?

Eventually

Eventually, we got answering machines with a little cassette tape in it (ask someone older than you if you don’t know what a cassette tape is) and we could start “screening” calls by listening as whoever it was left a message.  This was great, unless it wasn’t…like when that girlfriend left a mushy message for you so your entire family could hear it and pick on you for it forever.  Yeah…that happened.  Screening was the precursor to caller ID BTW.  My guess is you can find some of these in a museum somewhere, like the American History Museum in DC (A place I highly recommend if you are nearby and have any feelings of nostalgia).

And now, finally

With today’s technology you carry your phone around in your pocket.  You are connected to the world 24/7, and oddly every person has their very own phone number.  No longer do you call a “house” and ask if the person is there.  You call “the person” directly.  Houses now have as many phones as there are people to use them…well, usually anyway.  These days kids are getting phones at a younger and younger age.  It’s kind of mind boggling for an old codger like me, but change is the way of the world.

Back in the day

When I was a kid, families routinely sat down together for dinner.  There were exceptions, to be sure, but generally speaking, believe it or not,  families had dinner together between 5 and 7 PM.  It was generally accepted that calling someone during the “dinner hour” was rude.  Essentially, at least in my house, if the phone rang during dinner it had BETTER be an emergency.    Unlike most families, we answered the phone if it rang and if it was not an emergency, there was hell to pay!  Many, if not most, families just ignored the phone during dinner; if it was important, they’d call back.

Not to mention

Another piece of nostalgic trivia is this: It was considered rude to call anyone after 9:30PM.  The whole “It damn well better be an emergency” thing applied to that as well as calling BEFORE 9AM.  To summarize: If you wanted to call someone you first had to wait till after 9AM, then pause from 5-7PM and wait till tomorrow morning at 9 if it was after 9:30PM.  Oh, and if no one was home then you never even knew someone had called.  AND, if someone was on the phone when you called you got a BUSY SIGNAL…which meant you had to try again a little later.  Complicated rules, but we managed to get by.

We have it a lot better now

Honestly, I say this with absolute seriousness.  These days when the phone rings you can see who’s calling, at least their phone number if you don’t have them in your contacts so you can decide if you want to talk to them.  And whoever it is they are calling YOU, not anyone who might be a member of your household or possibly visiting.  Not to mention that hardly anyone actually just randomly calls anymore.  These days they’ll send a text which could be (likely is) the entirety of the communication or at the very least ask if you are available to call.

Well, except my daughter

My daughter randomly calls…and I confess I LOVE that (Shhh…don’t tell her) several times a week.  She also texts pretty routinely as well.  All my kids text routinely, and I confess I love THAT too.  Again, don’t tell them I said that.   All my kids are grown, independent adults in their 30’s and 40’s.  For those of you with small kids, hang in there it gets better when they are adults, and you are not responsible for them anymore.

Back to the topic

Sorry, took a slight detour there.  As you can see, historically it was generally considered rude to even MAKE a call during the dinner hour unless there was some good reason to interrupt people eating.  These days, with people eating at all different times and not necessarily all together around the dinner table, the onus has shifted from the caller to the callee (that must be a word because there is no red squiggly line under it).

We are now uber-connected

And I’m not talking about ride sharing apps.  Today, not ONLY do we have our own personal phone in our pocket, that phone includes the entire internet (usually) and many apps for both connecting to each other and for playing games.  They are not my grandparent’s, or even my parent’s, phones!  But most people (in my experience) still think it is rude to interrupt dinner by taking a call, or answering a text, during a shared meal.  IMHO, letting our devices interrupt in person interactions diminishes those relationships to some degree, but that’s just my opinion and you may feel differently.

In business

This “rule” doesn’t only apply to the dinner table  It also applies to the conference table, coffee shop table, or any table where you may be meeting someone.  In this freelance business of VO and acting the opportunity for in person interactions is even less than for people with a “day job”.  Most of our days are spent right here behind our keyboards trying to find work and make industry connections that either allow us to help someone achieve their goals or help us advance our business (usually both at the same time).  The opportunity to sit across the table from a client, or potential client, is rare.

Disconnecting

Answering your phone or responding to (or even just CHECKING) text messages and emails disconnects you from whoever you are sitting down with.  It sends the message that whatever is happening on your phone is more important than what is happening at that table.  There is nothing going on that can’t wait for an hour.  Sadly, having this technology at our fingertips has created a “right now” mentality that could damage relationships.

How do YOU feel

If you are sitting across from someone, whether business or personal, how does it make you feel when they are interrupting your interaction by constantly checking their phone?  For me it makes me feel less important to them.  It absolutely makes me a bit reticent about our relationship and how invested I might want to be in it.  I believe this is pretty universal.

There are exceptions

I recognize there could be times when you absolutely MUST pay attention to your phone.  Maybe a loved one is ill, or there is a huge contract that is time sensitive.  Maybe something critical is happening at your “day job” that requires immediate attention.  These are all good reasons to be alert to what is happening on your phone, and there is a way to handle that.  Simply let whoever you are with know up front that there is something important going on that may require your attention, apologize that it could interrupt whatever you are doing in the moment and let them know that you are OK rescheduling with them if that’s an issue.  Most people will understand and make allowances.

Otherwise

Unless there is some known issue that could pop up, put your phone on silent, disable vibrations and leave your phone in your pocket (or even your car) until you’re done with whatever you’re doing and Never Answer Your Phone at the Dinner Table!

 

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Don’t Stare

Acting, Voice Over, Wisdom

Continuing the series

With this week’s topic “Don’t Stare”.

Here we go again!

With yet another topic I thought would make a good post, until I actually started to write it!  I’ll confess that when I set out to write a weekly blog, I had no IDEA it would be such an exercise in creativity.  In case you don’t believe me…give it a try!

Staring

OK, enough of my whining, on to the topic at hand.  We sighted people look around us every day and because of the immense amount of visual data we have a tendency to try and put what we see into (what I’ll call) “buckets” in our brains.  In other words, we categorize things in order to understand them.  We do this to aid in recognition.

Patterns

The things around us tend to fit patterns we have learned over time.  We are able to easily recognize things with a quick glance because they fit the pattern we are used to.  For example, we can easily recognize things like people, dogs, cats, cars, houses…and the list goes on.  We can recognize them with a quick glance, because they fit a familiar pattern.

And if they don’t…

But when something we see does NOT fit a familiar pattern, a quick glance just won’t do. It won’t allow our brains to recognize what it is, because it’s unfamiliar or the pattern is broken, or inconsistent. For those things, we need to take a longer look.

Interestingly

What’s interesting is that when we are faced with seeing something that does not fit a familiar pattern, staring helps us categorize it so that when we see it in the future it IS recognizable. Study a new chart at work, or a schematic you are seeing for the first time and you’ll see what I mean.  When it’s first presented, we need to take time to study it, but after it is familiar we can easily understand the important features.  We also are able to quickly spot changing trends or anomalies.

In action

Just check out some of these interesting pictures that require a little more time than normal to get an idea of what’s happening to illustrate what I’m talking about:

There may have been some duplicates there, I didn’t look through all of them, but I hope you enjoyed them. As you can see, when something doesn’t fit the pattern we are expecting, we do a double (or triple or more) take to give our brains time to figure out what’s happening.

You can’t un-see it

I’m sure you’ve seen an optical illusion where there is a “hidden” object within a more obvious one.  This is the kind of thing I’m talking about:

Do you see a couple of gnarly crooked trees below, or a sad woman? For me, at first glance I see trees.  After looking at it for 30 seconds, I see a woman with her head down.  It took me a bit to see the woman, but once I saw her, I couldn’t UN-SEE her.  It’s fun, and I bet you can find, or have seen, many examples of this in your life.  The key here is that, sometimes, staring at something is useful in that it trains your brain to recognize things.

Brain function

A 2012 study at USC has shown that brain activity in someone who views something unfamiliar for the first time is very high, but then reduces significantly on subsequent viewing.  That explains why kids stare at people with disabilities and why you hear parents saying, “Don’t stare, it’s not polite”.  It is their brains attempting to make sense of the world around them.

People

The issue with staring occurs when we see people who don’t fit a familiar pattern.  When we see someone with a noticeable difference from what we are accustomed to; a disability, or a scar, or birthmark that does not fit a familiar pattern, we have a tendency to stare at them.  Honestly, the desire to stare is understandable given our desire to understand and recognize what we see.  The problem is it makes the person you’re staring AT uncomfortable.

Some people WANT to be stared at

As entertainers, it’s what we thrive on.  Voice over artists, not so much since we are squirreled away in our studio booths most of the day, but staring pertains to them too…we’ll get to that momentarily.  Actors, stand-up comedians, acrobats, magicians (especially magicians), jugglers…all of these people do things that are, to many, unfamiliar in the HOPES that other people will stare at them and enjoy their work.

Besides that

As entertainers we are trained to SPOT patterns as well.  In scripts.  From a 200-page feature film script to a one sentence radio spot, we look for patterns that help us decide who a character is, where they are, who they are speaking to and why.  We look for clues as to what relationship we may have with other characters or the audience, how we feel about them (and why we feel that way), how they likely feel about our character (and why) and a myriad of other patterns.

Most people don’t realize

When a “civilian” hears a radio ad, or watches a TV show, movie, or play, they just don’t realize the amount of work that went into producing it.  Leaving aside things like development, pre-production activities, principal production, and post production…which is handled by the production team and is an enormous amount of work…the performers themselves spend an awful lot of time preparing.

We stare…at the script

We stare at the script and read it over, and over, and over again.  Even a short :30 second voice over read.  We ask ourselves:  Who is this person?  Why are they saying this?  Who am I speaking to?  Where was I, and what was I doing, just before this scene begins?  If the story our character is based on is from a book, we read the book to get an idea of what the author says about our character.  If there is no “source material” for our character, then many of us write a detailed biography for our character.

They didn’t just appear

Characters in a story…and even a short radio ad has a character in a story, albeit a very short one…didn’t just appear on the scene.  They had a full life leading up to the scene.  A life that dictates how they act, how they speak and move, and how they relate to the other characters in the scene.  And when they leave the scene?  Unless they’re leaving because they just died, they are headed somewhere and have something they need to do.  All of this determines why a charcter does what they do…and how.

It must be BELIEVABLE

The best performances make us suspend our disbelief.  We watch Superman, knowing without a doubt (unless you are a young child) that no one like this character does, has ever, or ever will exist in real life.  Yet we believe it, even just for the time the movie plays.  Why?  Because the actors have crafted, or had crafted for them, a believable back story.  The actor fleshes them out as a “whole, fully realized” character.

So if you are watching a performance

If you’re watching a performance, go ahead and stare. If you are a performer, stare at the script, pay close attention to what your scene partner (if you have one) is doing and figure out the pattern that brings out the essence of the character to bring them to life.   But, if you notice some inconsistency in an expected pattern when looking at another person?  Be Dudley Do-Right (There you go Josh) and DON’T STARE!

P.S.

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