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The Actor's 'ACT LIKE vs. the Actor's 'ACT AS'
...and Being Inside the Audience's Empathy
Audience empathy is that intimate audience mimicry and mirroring of actors as they arrive on screen. Unconsciously, audiences quickly simulate the muscle articulation of actor’s faces and instantaneously experience a reaction or feeling that communicates an intrinsic expectation of the player’s emotional and psychological capacity. This audience empathy creates an inner, emotional pre-expectation of the talent, even before the actor gets a chance to speak…
And the most interesting part of it all?
Film audiences don’t even realize they do this. It happens so unconsciously that if you make them stop, they’ll get irrationally upset and curse you for interrupting the empathy experience. (And if their movie going friends interrupt them while they are absorbing your archetype essences, they’ll curse at them too.)
Understanding the facts about audience empathy and this unconscious psychology will help a production excel and glorify any career. However, if an audience is NOT honored with the ‘act as’ muscular imagery it was expecting and receives some other 'act like’ imagery instead -- their disappointment will turn on the product. A product that fails to accommodate the audience’s expectations makes them feel stupid. They feel stupid for even thinking about enjoying the cinematic product in the first place and the unaware producers have destroyed their audience’s silent trust in them. And we’re talking about ANY type of audience expectation -- from the first audition to final one on the screen. Not understanding the pre-conception of each and every audience involved can wipe out any career or project.
ACT ‘AS’ CHOICES = GREAT FILM CAREERS
CFI Charismatic Dynamics™ helps actors avoid the fatal errors and assists their representatives with objective understanding and product positioning. We help clarify casting decisions and accelerate imaging quality throughout the entertainment industry.
Through the CFI™ screen imaging process, talents become more effective and are groomed more efficiently. Player confidence expands, fear of the unknown is put to rest and actors can inspire and excite audiences with renewed imagery. Mistakes in casting and talent production are alleviated … artistic waste is eliminated … and creative profits are exponentially enlarged.
Within production units; casting arguments dissolve, scripts are clarified and focused on the correct talent, movie audiences are increasingly satisfied, word of mouth advertising and multiple ticket sales dramatically rise, and financial disasters are avoided as problems are rectified before they arrive on screen or in front of your audience.
To be this effective, Charismatic Dynamics™ facilitates a new understanding in the differences between the opposing dynamics of screen and stage acting. Screen acting requires “act AS” behavior while stage acting requires “act LIKE” behavior.
To understand the qualities of a screen talent’s truly believable ACT ‘AS’ behavior (as compared to a screen talent’s ineffective, affected or artificial ACT ‘LIKE’ behavior), talent producers and facilitators must understand the two definitive categories of the actor involved. They must have a way to delineate the actor’s true core-persona.
The core-persona of a talent is a composite identity, being comprised of two key imageries; a single archetypal identity (including a single modifier for the talent’s sub-type) and an essence set identity (including unlimited key descriptor pairs of aspects, attributes, appearances and attitudes for the talent).
There are four biometric indicators inside every human being, which mimicked by an audience, create mental and emotional expectancies of the core-persona. (They are the electro-myographic articulations, modulations, elocutions, and motorizations.)
They are the keys to motion picture archetypes and essencing. (Sexual chemistry and true screen charisma are the big double-doors these keys unlock and open outward into the coliseum of star power and career longevity.) These two key imageries that audiences continuously pre-conceive about anyone else’s personality. These imageries are the Dominant Role Archetype … and the Charismatic Essence Set.
1. The Dominant Role ‘ARCHETYPE’
Every actor is born with a ‘dominant archetype’ that is identified through scientific comparison and identification of the player’s biometric indicators (and their characteristic patterns) to hundreds of thousands of myographic patterns from previously successful industry graduates in media documented archetypal roles or storylines. This process is accomplished with CFI™ biometric scanning software and audience response techniques.
A player’s individual archetype cannot be changed. It is a biological construct that permanently expresses itself in the player’s physiology, and in their innermost behavioral psychology. CFI™ accesses the specific cinematic archetype of each talent through mass audience imaging analysis and digital video evaluations of the talent’s psychographic image and myographic articulation. We then compare that data to the biometrically validated archetypes and essences found in historic conceptions and the perceptualized values of cinematic audiences. This screen imaging process continues with biometric facial identification software and quantifiable data correlations streaming from market ‘audience response’ research and demographic audience analysis.
It’s fast. It’s precise. It’s amazingly powerful. And yes, it is confidential.
Following are standardized letter abbreviations and explanations of the cinematic archetypes.
T = True-Hero Archetype
1. "The Good GOOD GUYS"…or "The Bad GOOD GUYS".
2. These are "Good guys" who do good well, or "Good
guys" who do bad poorly.
And as in all things there is an opposite…
A = Anti-Hero Archetype
1. "The Bad BAD GUYS" or… "The Good BAD GUYS".
2. These are "Bad guys" who do bad well, or "Bad guys"
who do good poorly.
The two archetypes are established by intimate biometric comparisons of the essential archetype to cinematic veterans whose archetypal roles were qualified by global mass audiences over historic periods of time. Research has proven that about two-thirds of the roles in storylines are designed for Anti-Hero actors and the other one-third are dedicated to True-Hero actors.
Finding talent for the company stable is more efficient when you know the ratio of archetype characters in cinematography and you are able to acquire talent accordingly. With this new knowledge, you can avoid sending talent to auditions for incorrect roles or wasting your own casting energies on obviously mis-matched talents. Using this technology, career publicity and image design can be channeled towards those industry audiences with the greatest potential for responsive interaction and receptivity. First impressions are amplified and reputations increase.
It was also discovered that an actor playing a role that matches their own specific archetype will deeply inspire and validate the actor’s performance, but that playing a role outside of archetype is absolute suicide.
When a box-office star blows a leading role, it’s always because they played a role in which they OPPOSED their own true Archetype (as perceived by the audience) or they played OPPOSITE their own Essence set ... and the audience just wouldn’t relate and failed to participate. Actors who know their true essences and archetype can focus their time, talent and financial efforts towards the appropriate roles and increase their chances of employment dramatically (or comedically, whichever may be the case).
Knowing an archetype’s definition is probably the single most important comprehension a serious actor can possess. The second most important understanding to have is that of what your leading counterpart’s archetype is and what kind of chemistry that formulation will or will not generate. Archetypes just happen to be the singular ingredient in cinematic sexual chemistry.
SEXUAL CHEMISTRY IS COMPLETELY INSURED when the archetypes of two actors romantically involved are correctly formulated and it grows exponentially more provocative as the essence sets are arranged. (The reason for this sex chemistry paradigm is rooted deep in biological behavior theory and Jungian archetype psychologies that would take too long to detail into here, but suffice it to say it’s an interesting science and CFI™ will be glad to elaborate on it in private.)
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2. Archetype ‘ESSENCE SETS’
Even though the patterns of an actor’s characterized facial essences are very complicated, individual essences form into groups or ‘Essence Sets’ that directly correspond to two ultimate categories of human expression. The Dramatic Set (aggressive/HARD) or the Comedic Set (passive/SOFT). Essence sets are the combinations of personal attributes or attitudes and characteristics unique to every human talent within their cinematic archetype. An archetype provides the shape of an essence set, but the combinations of facial essences provide the color. Actors in opposing archetypes can share similar essences or aspects of human character, but the spin on each set will be dissimilar in usage.
The facial expressions of talent are delineated and evaluated with the same basic methodology as archetypal data has been. When analyzed collectively by CFI™ techniques, the talent’s personal essence set can be specifically correlated into one of the two charismatic screen deliveries below:
d = Dramatic (these are the players whose respondent audience essences are more passive than aggressive, so that by playing their passive essences in a dramatic or intense fashion, they will create the intriguing and conflicting dynamics which charismatically increase the part.)
c = Comedic (these are actors whose audience verified essences are more aggressive than passive, so that by playing their aggressive essences in a loose or comedic fashion, they will create the conflicting dynamics and audience intrigue which increases their true charisma in this part.)
CHARISMATIC PERFORMANCES ARE INSURED when the player is aware of its publicly perceived essence set and plays it diligently inside of their own true archetype.
It is important to note that in an actor’s personal essence set, there are many combinations of essences supporting the archetype. With CFI™ audience response survey analysis and evaluations, actors can empower their essences for maximum delivery to crucial industry audiences including producers, directors, casting coordinators and audiences at large.
The letter code for a player’s dominant archetype, and the letter code for a player’s essence set are combined into a two-letter code that represents the basic cinematic archetype. (Two other letter codes for two other quotients can also be used in the complete archetype codex, but they are complicated and only available in private consultation.)
The basic archetype identifies the charismatic career direction of a player and their sexual chemistry in relationship to other players. These essential archetype abbreviations can also be found in the lists of top motion picture players available from CFI™.
If all this sounds a bit too technical or mechanical -- fear not. Once we show you how precisely we can facilitate your talent’s charismatic imaging, you’ll realize how rapidly you can focus on even more clients or projects than you ever have before.
We’ll provide you with clear graphics and in-depth explanations of these important characterizations and the roles that exalt your client base.
We’ll concentrate on the details and evaluations, while you concentrate on handling the increasing successes of newly magnified talents.
WHAT ARE ESSENCES?
Since the birth of time and human interaction, we have established our entire communication around ONE principal function of attractive interactive association.
That communication is the process of Facial Imprinting.
It starts when you’re just a babe...
First thing, right out of the womb and loving, well-meaning, nurturing primary caretakers (nurses, parents, social workers and the like) jump you! They put their really BIG HEADS in your face and then they STARE at you! All of a sudden, they begin squirming their lips and chopping their chins toward you! Up and down, side to side, all over the place and they start making FACES! Incredible Faces! HUGE faces that are screwing their eyebrows around, pursing their lips and fluttering their eye lids...
You wonder, but you are helpless to resist. You can’t understand what all this means. So you start squirming on your crib cushion, but you can’t leave, there's a fence around you. You are trapped.
Their heads are so BIG! It’s all you can see! There’s nothing else to perceive! And you want to get involved and have some control in the situation, but all you can seem to do is squirm, squint, cry a few tears and maybe do some spitting and ooooohing. You’re trying desperately to mimic them in reply but it’s a difficult effort to get this new audience to explain ... to explain making you so excited, and yet so emotionally perplexed all at the same time.
Is it really any wonder how later in life our reactions to attractive emotional or sexual flirtations always feel like this?...And have we not just described the origin of movie audience reactions when caught in the spell of a successful actor on a big screen?
There’s the beginning of the birth of neurological facial imprinting. This psychological art of facial mimicry which plagues us all the rest of our lives. This inherent optical interaction and myographical reaction, comprising ninety percent of all communication. It just gets inside our brains and stays there.
Well, of course it gets more refined and more complex after birth. Pretty soon, you’ve seen just about every facial expression in the book (and subconsciously memorized the accompanying vocal tonality and vocabulary that always seem to go with it). You subconsciously know what to expect when someone communicates their self towards you because you can subconsciously mimic that exact same face, and get a good feeling for what they are trying to communicate. (Once you are initially programmed as an infant, it just keeps getting more subconsciously intense and more diverse -- but it always stays the same.) It’s the essence of primal communication.
You keep making them with each other in order to express yourself and ‘the human condition’, subconsciously mimicking every facial expression you see in a visceral attempt to feel or understand what the ‘looks’ on other people’s faces really mean.
Subconsciously mimicking another person’s face is that quality known as audience empathy. It’s the same exact system used by producers of motion pictures or graphic entertainments to emotionally move their captive audiences. You are watching their actors making those amazing faces while you subconsciously mimic them with every muscle in your body reverberating as they come flying out at you from off the screen.
Those faces! -- Grabbing your inner emotions and dragging you down forbidden pathways of love and hate, joy and pain ... simply because you’re subconsciously mimicking them. That is how essences work. They’re the dramatic, emotional results of mimicking muscle articulation on another human face ... just like you did as a baby.
ESSENCES are the powerful ideas, meanings, descriptions and communications we get from observing the human face. They are the words we just can’t help thinking of when interpreting the meaning of what we are watching occur before us. These are the apperceptions, attitudes, aptitudes, attributes, aspects, abilities, activities and appearances expressed in language as adjectives or adverbs. These are the essences created by the technical muscle articulation of an opposing face and that’s the essential foundation...the essence of human communication.
That’s why we call them 'essences'.
In order to accentuate and exalt the very fabric and foundation of any motion picture endeavor, you have no other choice but to accentuate and exalt the essences of those huge-faced players on the silver screen too. But what’s critically important is that you accentuate the essences in agreement with those essences that your audiences (or producers, directors or casting executives) also perceive...or else you have wasted your efforts for nothing. After all -- it’s really your audiences who are buying and selling the talent. They’ll get upset and tell friends not to watch the talent whenever they don’t receive the exact human essences they expected to receive from the talent when they first saw that talent’s face whether in public, theater or at a local casting audition.
The screen essence impressions an audience expects from your talent are the ones you will want to make sure your talents actually communicate! Traditionally, it was an old Hollywood art form to egotistically visualize your talent by yourself and personally predict the future star who would shine above the rest. These days, it’s way too risky to guess on your own. You need a more precise method -- one involving in-depth essence survey analysis and market testing of the actual people who decide (with minds and wallets) which talent's essences are working for them...and which talent’s essences are not.
Charting 'audience understood' and 'audience expected' screen essence is our specialty. Intrinsic essences are what we creatively identify and productively exploit in the entertainment business. With screen essence imaging, we’ll show you how to incorporate the precise and powerful formulas for achieving actualization of your actor’s essences quickly, efficiently, consistently, dramatically and profitably.
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