How to Nail Your RESULT Every Time

I’ve recently started screen acting for fun.

I thought it would be cool to learn how the greats deliver a real performance that moves cinema-goers into a new experience of life.

It involves a level of mastery and presence… Think Al Pucino and you’ll see what’s inspired me.

Anyway, this weekend I was working on a show reel… basically a demo reel which show cases an actor for casting directors to see what they can do.

So I learnt some scripts I was sent and the idea was we were just going to shoot them out on location with a group of other actors, a director and a film crew.

Man, I was bricking it on Friday night!!

What if I suck?

What it I look like a moron?

What if I can’t remember any of my lines??!

(does any of this sound vaguely familiar??)

Anyway, by the time we got to shooting the first scene… something really clicked. The director, Paul – awesome chap – explained the key to shooting a great scene is not to act.

Huh?

Don’t act?

Yeah… that’s the thing… To nail a great performance, what it takes is to think a single thought at the time and just behave as you would if the camera wasn’t on you.

Think a single thought.

I can do that… I thought.

But how rarely do we ever do this?

Normally we’re thinking about several things at once: what should I do with my face, how can I feel that more, how do I *show* that I’m feeling this, what should I be doing with my left hand at this point, should I say it like this, or that?

The list goes on.

But come the first scene, when the cameras rolling and there’s no time to think of all these things… he said, “just think that one thought, that your character is thinking. And then change the thought at the appropriate moment, and just think that thought”.

Wow!

What a revelation!

And it worked!

It started to FLOW!!!!

What really struck me in the pub afterwards as I was processing what had happened that day, was how this applies directly to growing a business.

It’s not about being able to juggle a million thoughts and ideas at a time. It’s about having a single intention, and then bringing that to fruition, then at the appropriate time switching and bringing that idea to completion, and on and on.

Thinking about how you’re going to get more clients, then how to pivot your niche, and how to set up your auto responder system and blah blah blah – doesn’t get the results.

Those thoughts zap your power away.

Getting more customers on to the books – is a single intention.

Producing XYZ product – is a single intention.

Getting a talk prepared – is a single intention.

During which – nothing else should happen – else you end up “over egging it” – and look like an amateur on screen.

Just one thought.

One intention.

Make it happen.

Then move to the next thing.

Shoot like a pro…

That’s it.

Leave a comment below, and let me know – what’s the one thing you’re going to make happen this week.

I read every response.

 

To Your Inevitable Success!
Laura Leigh Clarke

 

 

 

 

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