Have you heard the big myth? It has been passed around like a game of telephone. It is so commonplace that many consider it a fact. They myth is “the camera sees you think.” The logical progression goes like this: Today’s 4k digital cameras have super vision. They can see every pore on your face and, if you still see movies in the theater, those pores get magnified to 40 feet wide. Therefore, all a good actor needs to do is think. If the camera really saw you think though, neuroscientists would be decades ahead of where they are in their research. What the camera actually sees is movement, shape, light, and color. The camera cannot read your mind. But the myth, unfortunately, leaves many talented actors stuck in their head.
The task of all artists is take what’s inside your head and make it available for the world to touch, taste, smell, feel, or hear. If you were a pianist, your job would be to express yourself through the piano into the listener’s ears. A poet shares their passion through their pen; a painter puts their creativity on the canvas. Where does the actor communicate what’s in their head or heart?
The late American author David Foster Wallace may have shed some light
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