Walk the Walk and Talk the Talk - Page 2 |
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| Pretend that you are on the great wooden roller coaster at Cedar Point, Ohio. You have climbed to the top and are about to go over and straight down this man made mountain plunging more than 10 stories or so at 4 gs to the ground. What kind of pressures do these environmental stimuli cause on your physical body which in turn cause emotional responses within? You may become afraid, light headed and determine at that moment life is definitely over. Get me off this thing! The outside forces have caused your inside emotions to respond. Our primal animal instincts have been turned on. All healthy people have these instincts and respond similarly to these same forces. | ||
| Therefore, in our work environment, whether our work habits are learned by training or on the job experience, our behavioral responses on the job will be similar to other people in the same profession. Not totally the same but similar. | ||
| So if you need to portray a person in a certain career or type of emotional nature where the result is credible to people viewing you, you must find out how a real person similar to this character reacts and feels. | ||
| Therefore in laymen‘s terms, the principle of "mirroring" is: If you replicate the feeling, movement and attitude of a real life character, your outside actions will be similar to his. | ||
| Example | ||
| With the colonel that I visited, he and I walked and talked through a full morning. I talked with the same pacing and volume as he. I walked with the same pattern that he walked. I stood with the same posture as he. | ||
| As an example, when I was being fitted for trousers, he leaned against the trouser rack placing one foot over the other. About 5 seconds later, I walked to the opposite side of the rack, leaned against it the same way as he did and crossed my foot over the other. | ||
| At the end of the morning, he and I had become very acquainted, because I had become similar to him finding a common ground with him. Of course, he had no idea of what I was doing or it would not have worked. He would have not been himself and would have become more of the stereotypical Colonel. | ||
| During the shoot, I used the feelings learned from this experience and replicated them before the camera. It worked. I effectively portrayed a Huntsville Military Colonel. | ||
| When the program was played before a Pentagon review committee, one question asked was, "What division was I from?" | ||
| How can you apply this? The best is to find a person that actually does the job that you are trying to portray. If you can find no one doing that job who can perform on camera to your expectations, have a professional talent understanding mirroring principles visit with the type of person similar to the character. Tell your talent that part of their job is to portray this person or to be like them. If they will follow the guidelines to walk the walk and talk the talk, the portrayal will be effective. | ||
| As the old saying goes, "Walk a mile in my shoes (and you'll know about me)." | ||
Copyright Jim Powell 2001 All rights reserved |
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