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Speaker 1: This is a podcast about failure with me. Lola Berry, author, nutritionist,

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Speaker 1: and yoga teacher, join me as we get to know

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Speaker 1: these guests and learn about how their failures have ultimately

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Speaker 1: shaped their dreams.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Fearlessly Failing with Lola Berry.

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Speaker 1: Hello, it's Lola here, coming to you live from talkie.

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Speaker 1: I am like a kid in a candy shop for

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Speaker 1: today's guest. I I'm going to heads.

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Speaker 2: Up at here. I give you a little warning.

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Speaker 1: I was so nervous because you know, when you interview

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Speaker 1: a hero, you're kind of like, oh so. Ian Sinclair

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Speaker 1: is an award winning theater director. He's a sort after

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Speaker 1: acting teacher. He's a dramaturg and story because he's head

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Speaker 1: of acting at Sixteenth Street where I study. Director at

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Speaker 1: Melbourne Theater Company, Sydney Theater Company, Queensland Theater Company. He's studied,

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Speaker 1: worked all over the world. This guy is the best

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Speaker 1: of the best of directors in Australia. And I'm sure

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Speaker 1: he's very, very humble, so he won't say that, but

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Speaker 1: he absolutely is. He has assistant directed for the wonderful

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Speaker 1: Kate Blanchet. He will change the whole way that you

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Speaker 1: think about Harry Potter and Star Wars. After you listen

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Speaker 1: to this, when you talk about story theory. He's passionate

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Speaker 1: about human behavior, the way that the brain, the human

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Speaker 1: brain is wired and works. So even if you're just

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Speaker 1: into human behavior, you will get something out of this podcast.

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Speaker 1: Now you will hear us talk about our play called

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Speaker 1: burn This. Because of COVID nineteen, the release date will

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Speaker 1: have been pushed back a little bit, So just a

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Speaker 1: heads up when you're listening to that.

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Speaker 2: From the bottom of.

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Speaker 1: My heart, thank you so much In Sinclair for jumping

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Speaker 1: on the podcast Total honor. I'm so excited for this

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Speaker 1: next guest. This is Ian Sinclair, who's You've done so

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Speaker 1: much stuff, so I'll give you like a nice little intro,

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Speaker 1: but you're also my teacher at the moment.

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Speaker 3: At the moment, Yeah, it's really exciting.

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Speaker 2: So I've made some notes on you. Please correct me

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Speaker 2: if i've there's a.

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Speaker 3: Lot on you really have been a lot.

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Speaker 2: I went down the rabbit hole.

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Speaker 4: Because I'm analogue now, so I don't have any real

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Speaker 4: idea of it anymore because I don't apart from getting

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Speaker 4: on YouTube and listening to podcasts, so that's sort of

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Speaker 4: thing I don't engage in that.

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Speaker 2: I like that the whole about you.

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Speaker 1: But so from what I've read, award winning theater director,

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Speaker 1: sought after acting teacher, dramaturg and story consultant, head of

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Speaker 1: acting here at Sixteenth Street Director Melbourn.

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Speaker 5: Theater Company, Sydney Theater Company, Queensland Theater Company. And there's

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Speaker 5: more like I've seen camera, like I've seen all pinch

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Speaker 5: of resident drama Turget playwright Australia. And then you've done

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Speaker 5: all these incredible studies. So the Royal Academy of Dramatic

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Speaker 5: Art King's College, and is this specializing in text and performance.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, the masters that they had at the time was

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Speaker 4: called Text and Performance Studies, And so you'd spend half

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Speaker 4: of the time at King's College, London doing the theory

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Speaker 4: and then the other half over at RADA doing the practice.

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Speaker 4: So you'd sort of get up in the morning and

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Speaker 4: go over to King's College on which is just near

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Speaker 4: Waterloo Bridge on the Thames, and then you know, and

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Speaker 4: it was such a such a shake up because I think,

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Speaker 4: you know, over there the education system is a bit different.

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Speaker 4: I did my BA in Canberra and you know, like

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Speaker 4: in those days, I don't know what it's like now,

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Speaker 4: but if you hadn't done the reading, it's still turn

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Speaker 4: up for the you know, and you just kind of

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Speaker 4: act a bit shy and you get away with it.

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Speaker 4: But over there, you know, halfway through the seminar, you know,

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Speaker 4: the professor would say, and now mister Sinclair will explain

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Speaker 4: the use of the ecclaimer.

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Speaker 2: You know when you go, oh, so the stakes were hot.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so I really had to pull my socks up.

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Speaker 1: I also googled pictures of both places, and it looks

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Speaker 1: super fancy compared to what we've got here, like it

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Speaker 1: looks it feels British.

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Speaker 4: Oh sure, you know, I mean that they use They

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Speaker 4: used the site that King's College, London like quite often

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Speaker 4: for you know, they in action movies and that sort

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Speaker 4: of thing where they turn up at the sort of

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Speaker 4: imposing m I five looking kind of spot. You know

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Speaker 4: that they quite often used that. So they had film

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Speaker 4: crews there quite a bit.

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Speaker 2: I love that. So did I give you a good

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Speaker 2: Is this a good little taste of who you are?

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Speaker 3: Sure? Yeah, I guess so.

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Speaker 1: You're obviously really passionate and this is what I've learned

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Speaker 1: through being lucky enough to train with you. But you're

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Speaker 1: very passionate about human behavior, which I want to dive into.

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Speaker 1: But one thing that I don't think I told you

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Speaker 1: when I auditioned for this school, which the audition was,

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Speaker 1: I went purely just like half an hour room with Anne,

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Speaker 1: sign me up, and I got I was so nervous

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Speaker 1: that I got a like I did a one on

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Speaker 1: one private lesson with an acting teacher to prepare me

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Speaker 1: for the audition.

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Speaker 3: Oh wow.

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Speaker 1: And he said, who are you auditioning with? And I

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Speaker 1: was like, I'm whattion with me? And he goes, oh,

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Speaker 1: here's the actor's director. You're in safe hands.

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Speaker 2: Have you heard that before about this?

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Speaker 4: Well, it's I guess it's a goal of mine to

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Speaker 4: be an actor's director. I mean that's actors director and

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Speaker 4: a playwrights director. I guess, you know, because I see

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Speaker 4: the whole job as in some ways the director's job

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Speaker 4: is to It's like being the best man at a wedding,

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Speaker 4: where you've got to get the playwright or the screenwriter

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Speaker 4: in the same room with the actor and for them,

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Speaker 4: you know, even though they might have cold feet at

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Speaker 4: the time, to talk them both into why it's such

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Speaker 4: a great idea that they should be together.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, like the Peacemaker almost.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess so, yeah, I love it.

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Speaker 1: So quickly, just about the acting stuff before we dump

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Speaker 1: into dive into human behavior. You've worked with some pretty

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Speaker 1: incredible people, and I've heard you in class kind of

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Speaker 1: like refer to Max Stefan Clark and the way in

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Speaker 1: which you teach us and that's kind of the is

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Speaker 1: that the actions kind of theory?

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Speaker 3: All right? Yeah?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, So actioning is a is a I guess the

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Speaker 4: best way to describe it is that it's a it's

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Speaker 4: a reduction or a boiled down version of all of

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Speaker 4: the principles that Stanislavsky sort of introduced that created the

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Speaker 4: revolution in acting. But Maxtuf a clerk, spent a lot

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Speaker 4: of time honing those that those skills, and it was

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Speaker 4: really given, I guess, its sharpest edge in the late

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Speaker 4: eighties early nineties when Verbatim theater came about, where suddenly

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Speaker 4: trained actors you know, were being replaced by people off

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Speaker 4: the street in shows, you know, and so so Max

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Speaker 4: had to work out a way to train an actor

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Speaker 4: to be able to be working on a professional level,

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Speaker 4: or at least using the principles that professional level actors

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Speaker 4: use as quickly as possible, and so the actioning process

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Speaker 4: really got it had a sort of foundation through that

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Speaker 4: had its sort of proving crucible moment in that through

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Speaker 4: that art form.

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Speaker 1: You know, I love and you're and this is the

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Speaker 1: thing that you said to me, and I didn't have

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Speaker 1: this in my notes talk to you about. But when

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Speaker 1: you come from acting from that more actions behavioral based

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Speaker 1: kind of like mindset or just coming from it from

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Speaker 1: that angle versus like you see a lot of people

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Speaker 1: that kind of try and find the pain in a scene,

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Speaker 1: all that of trauma kind of and I remember in

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Speaker 1: my audition You're like, we're not about that, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm not about that at all.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's it's quite that all of that

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Speaker 4: pausing and startering for me is trying to work out,

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Speaker 4: actually what what? Because I think emotions are terrifically important.

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Speaker 4: Of course they are, But the trouble is that they're

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Speaker 4: not very eloquent, and they're not very manageable. You know,

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Speaker 4: if they've ever tried had somebody tell you to cheer up,

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Speaker 4: you know what I mean?

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Speaker 5: Right?

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Speaker 4: Like an actual fact, there's quite often that emotions are

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Speaker 4: anarchic and rebellious, and they belong to a much more

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Speaker 4: ancient part of your consciousness and your motivational structure, and

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Speaker 4: they're absolutely part of it all. But I find that

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Speaker 4: actioning is a really wonderful way to get in, to

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Speaker 4: sort of get into a get in on the ground level,

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Speaker 4: but be able to manage and control what you're doing,

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Speaker 4: you know. And so Max would often say that emotions

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Speaker 4: are like teenagers. You can't tell them what to do,

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Speaker 4: you know. And so the phrase, the way he described

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Speaker 4: it quite often is that you know, it's yes, think

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Speaker 4: about you know, there's nothing worse than being a parent

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Speaker 4: of a teenager that you're trying to control, you know.

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Speaker 4: But you can make the environment really good for the teenager.

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Speaker 4: So you can, you know, you can let them know

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Speaker 4: that you value them and that you pay attention to

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Speaker 4: them and that their experience is important. You can also

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Speaker 4: give them a room out the back that is entirely theirs.

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Speaker 4: You can let them, I don't know, smoke bonds and

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Speaker 4: have sex and do all the things that the teenagers

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Speaker 4: want to do. And so when they come, it's wonderful,

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Speaker 4: but it's not a disaster if they don't, you know.

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Speaker 4: And so because you don't want to be the kind

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Speaker 4: of parent on a Saturday night, all tangled up and

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Speaker 4: anxious that your seventeen year old is out doing what

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Speaker 4: a seventeen year old does. Yeah, and so there's that.

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Speaker 4: And you know, quite often they say that trying to

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Speaker 4: control emotions is a little bit like hurting cats as well.

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Speaker 4: So I'm not saying that they're not in. Yeah, you

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Speaker 4: know that it's not in that it's not welcome. It's

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Speaker 4: just that you can get yourself tangled up fast and

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Speaker 4: trapped in paradoxes quickly as an actor if you try to,

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Speaker 4: if you try to just dive in, grab hold of

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Speaker 4: these astonishingly powerful and unwieldy beasts. You know, and emotions

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Speaker 4: are just one, you know, one evolutionary step away from

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Speaker 4: like brain stem responses and anybody. And once you try

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Speaker 4: to control brain stem responses, I mean, have you ever

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Speaker 4: tried to not eat or have you ever tried to

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Speaker 4: not have sex with somebody who who you know when

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Speaker 4: those impulses come, or to not sleep. Yeah, and so

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Speaker 4: you're courting disaster. I think if you, if you you know,

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Speaker 4: ride that those bucking broncos too hard because the will

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Speaker 4: doesn't have the same amount of stamina the conscious will,

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Speaker 4: the esthetic consciousness. It's a wonderful skill that we have

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Speaker 4: and a very important evolutionary advantage that we have. But

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Speaker 4: I think it's, yeah, it's it's courting disaster to think

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Speaker 4: that you can just hop in hop inside the ancient

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Speaker 4: mechanisms which we've evolved to have over like not just

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Speaker 4: one hundred and eighty thousand years that humans have been

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Speaker 4: on Earth, but we evolved in a direct line from

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Speaker 4: all the other creatures too, and those forces are so powerful.

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Speaker 4: And so it's working out a way that we can

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Speaker 4: allow the beast in the room as well as the

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Speaker 4: smart creature, you know, as well as the as well

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Speaker 4: as the prefrontal cortex.

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Speaker 3: You know.

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Speaker 1: That when I watch I've been auditing you lately, and

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Speaker 1: I've noticed this way of like tapping into emotion and

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Speaker 1: feeling from a more from from the action kind of process.

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Speaker 1: It feels more sustainable, Like it doesn't feel like it

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Speaker 1: comes at a cost to your Oh, I've got to

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Speaker 1: unpack that for the next two hours.

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Speaker 2: If I've had to find this emotion.

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Speaker 1: And there was a moment where you were directing an

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Speaker 1: actor and he went for ahead. He was playing a

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Speaker 1: wonderful character that went from being like quite irate and

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Speaker 1: worked up and then quite emotional. Yes, and your cue

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Speaker 1: was quick in your breath, oh yeah. And it's like

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Speaker 1: you made this environment much easier for him to tap

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Speaker 1: into something without it coming to a cost at his

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Speaker 1: like as an emotional expense to him.

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Speaker 2: Right, that makes sense?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean I feel emotions are like dreams

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Speaker 4: in a way. You're not totally responsible for them, you know,

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Speaker 4: especially not your your your sort of moral consciousness, you know,

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Speaker 4: and if you if you tap into that, it's like

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Speaker 4: gets you know. I mean, if you just examine your

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Speaker 4: own dreams, there's darkness in there as well as lightness

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Speaker 4: and all the other things. Yeah, And so I find

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Speaker 4: if I can find ways to to bypass the aesthetic

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Speaker 4: consciousness just for a bit, and and breath is the

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Speaker 4: way to do it, you know. And any any awareness practice,

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Speaker 4: of course, focuses on breath. And it's no accident I

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Speaker 4: think that any acting process focuses on breath as well.

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Speaker 4: You know that As a director, you know, one of

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Speaker 4: the things you most commonly yell out across a their

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Speaker 4: theater to an actor is breathe.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you know.

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Speaker 4: And but and of course quite often the actor will go,

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Speaker 4: I am understanding, you know what are you talking? Of course,

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Speaker 4: I'm breathing, I'm alive, but you know that. But there's

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Speaker 4: a code built up in all of that, you know

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Speaker 4: about related to breath, which is what I think directors

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Speaker 4: are actually saying, is b you know and present? Yeah,

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Speaker 4: that's right, and present in both senses of the world.

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Speaker 4: You know, in the time sense of it where soon

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Speaker 4: and this is Buddhism for you. You know, the moment you

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Speaker 4: put your consciousness on breath, you go into the present moment.

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Speaker 4: You're not in the past or the future. And so

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Speaker 4: there's that element of presence. So yes, there's the there's

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Speaker 4: the physical element of being in the room and you know,

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Speaker 4: interpersonal with everybody else. And then on top of that,

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Speaker 4: there's also the literal fact that you're in the joining

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Speaker 4: the flow of time in the way that music joins

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Speaker 4: the flow of time, and the way and what tends

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Speaker 4: to happen with actors is that they hold their breath regularly.

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Speaker 4: You know, when you and if you hold your breath,

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Speaker 4: you you jump either into the future or into the past.

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Speaker 4: And then the other actors on stage who are living

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Speaker 4: and breathing and doing their thing get, you know, move

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Speaker 4: on ahead of you and next thing you know, you've got.

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Speaker 4: You know, I studied Chinese back in the day. I

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Speaker 4: didn't succeed in it, but I had a beautiful teacher

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Speaker 4: who who I failed, but who loved me. So we

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Speaker 4: loved each other very much. And each time I'd sit

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Speaker 4: with me and explain to me why I was failing

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Speaker 4: in his class. But he is the phrase once, he said,

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Speaker 4: I and when you're studying Chinese, it's like a man

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Speaker 4: rowing a boat against the stream. For every stroke you miss,

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Speaker 4: it takes four strokes to catch up. And to which

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Speaker 4: I would reply, You're the best teacher of the world.

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Speaker 4: I'm so sorry, I'm failing. Breath, right, That's what happens

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Speaker 4: to actors on stage, which is that they if they

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Speaker 4: hold their breath, it takes them four strokes to catch up,

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Speaker 4: and then then they're already behind, et cetera, and all

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Speaker 4: those sorts of things. And and just the simple act

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Speaker 4: of breathing for an actor makes you interesting instantly, you know,

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Speaker 4: And it's quite amazing and so and and and the

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Speaker 4: moment you breathe, the moment you attached thought to breath,

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Speaker 4: suddenly what you do is is connected as well. And

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Speaker 4: I'm very fascinated by the work of doctor Dan Siegel,

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Speaker 4: you know, yeah, yeah, who who talks quite a about this.

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Speaker 2: Is to try in brain.

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Speaker 3: Yeah well yeah, that's right. Yeah.

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Speaker 4: And the way he describes it often that sense of

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Speaker 4: connecting your consciousness to breath is that when you when

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Speaker 4: you do that, you're connecting three components of your brain together.

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Speaker 4: Because it's hard for us to connect our conscious our

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Speaker 4: aesthetic consciousness, our prefrontal cortex to change say, your blood rate,

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Speaker 4: but Tibtan Buddhist can, right, yeah, or to change your temperature,

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Speaker 4: or to regulate your endocrime system, all those sorts of things.

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Speaker 4: But you can do it with breath. Just by putting

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Speaker 4: your consciousness on breath, you're actually you're the ten million

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Speaker 4: year old part of your brain, the brand new one

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Speaker 4: which has mutations inside it that are only eighty thousand

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Speaker 4: year old.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: So that's the that's the most complex thing in the

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Speaker 4: known universe. The human brain is speaking to the limbic system,

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Speaker 4: you know, the emotional state brain, and then to the

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Speaker 4: brain stem, which is I guess you know the state.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he'll be that game we play.

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Speaker 4: That's right, the predator prey exercise that we do, which

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Speaker 4: which is all about tapping into those mechanisms. So there's

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Speaker 4: there's three components that you have three because we evolved

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Speaker 4: that way. It's not like we threw away the reptile

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Speaker 4: brain and we threw away them ammalian brain and just

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Speaker 4: and we're just this thinking, you know, temporal lobe. We're

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Speaker 4: all of those things and so acting. That's the way

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Speaker 4: I like to approach acting and story theory, and the

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Speaker 4: whole thing is to integrate all of those processes together

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Speaker 4: so they communicate with one another.

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Speaker 2: Yes, And you.

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Speaker 1: Just said my next favorite story theory, all right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: so we I'm so lucky.

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Speaker 2: I've heard it a couple of times with you. So

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Speaker 2: I was like, am I gonna ask ask him to

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Speaker 2: do it?

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Speaker 1: But when you tell that story that, I'm like, I'm

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Speaker 1: listening to Harry Potter.

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Speaker 3: You know. I was.

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Speaker 2: I was just I was just got to be excited

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Speaker 2: and kind of well, it's.

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Speaker 3: My favorite thing. I guess.

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Speaker 4: On the weekend though, I was visiting John Smaller, wonderful

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Speaker 4: theater director based in Melbour now lit out and Newstead

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Speaker 4: and her daughter Aggie is a massive, massive Harry Potter fan. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: and I sat with her and said, you do know

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Speaker 4: it's Star Wars, don't you? And she went, there's no

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Speaker 4: way on earth that absolutely isn't. And then I walked

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Speaker 4: her through that the sort of the basic principles of it.

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Speaker 3: Do you want me to do it?

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Speaker 2: Please?

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Speaker 1: Because my boyfriend I left that class and I was like,

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Speaker 1: I know you love Harry Potter, but I'm about to.

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Speaker 2: Change your world.

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Speaker 1: And he was like, yeah, right, please for the people listening,

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Speaker 1: you're in for a treat, go for it.

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Speaker 4: Well, first of all, like to say that this isn't

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Speaker 4: my this isn't necessarily my insight. It's very strongly driven

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Speaker 4: a course by Joseph Campbell and other story theorists like

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Speaker 4: Vogler Eric Bogler. But okay, here's a little thing i'd

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Speaker 4: like you to think of. Think of a film as

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Speaker 4: I say it. And when I do this with students,

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Speaker 4: I say, please don't call it out, but just to

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Speaker 4: give you a taste of just how psychologically integrated I

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Speaker 4: guess story is. Okay, here we go. There's an orphan,

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Speaker 4: it's a boy. That's the way society is structured at

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Speaker 4: the moment. Alas we're getting better around it. Okay, I don't.

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Speaker 4: I won't, won't digress. There's there's a young orphan. He

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Speaker 4: lives in a boring place, and it's a place where

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Speaker 4: he has to do lots of boring chores, and people

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Speaker 4: don't really see his value and and and in fact,

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Speaker 4: he lives with an auntie and uncle who don't really

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Speaker 4: understand who he is and don't and and he's got

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Speaker 4: this strange inkling that maybe maybe he belongs to some

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Speaker 4: other place, a more interesting place, but but he doesn't

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Speaker 4: really know what that is. And it sort of lurks

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Speaker 4: with him a little bit. But mostly he just feels

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Speaker 4: left out. And he doesn't have good sleeping arrangements either,

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Speaker 4: and he just, I don't know. It feels like he

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Speaker 4: some lingering odes that he belongs somewhere else, out of nowhere.

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Speaker 4: A guy with a beard just appears, who explains to

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Speaker 4: this young orphan that in actual fact, he doesn't come

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Speaker 4: from this boring place at all. He comes from a

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Speaker 4: much more interesting place. It's the place where his parents

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Speaker 4: come from. And in actual fact, he's been taken to

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Speaker 4: this boring place. He's been hidden in the boring place

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Speaker 4: in fact, because that's where he belongs. But that's where

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Speaker 4: he's safest, and the reason they needed to hide him

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Speaker 4: is that his parents, who are very very good at

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Speaker 4: at certain particular skills that are very important in the

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Speaker 4: special world, his parents were either killed or put under

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Speaker 4: great threat by another force, A dark force, a dangerous force,

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Speaker 4: a force so dangerous and dark that most people are

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Speaker 4: terrified even to say the name of it. This force

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Speaker 4: usually is very dark and has a big, long cape,

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Speaker 4: just like the person that arrives very usually has a

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Speaker 4: very long beard. Can probably hear that there are other

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Speaker 4: films popping into your head just as I'm saying all

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Speaker 4: of this stuff. But of course there's our young orphan says,

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Speaker 4: but that can't be me. I'm just a boring old

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Speaker 4: farm boys slash suburban kids slash whatever it is. This

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Speaker 4: kid can't possibly be right. I've had a slight inkling

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Speaker 4: that I belong to a special place, but not really.

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Speaker 4: And then at this point, the bearded person usually says

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Speaker 4: something along the lines of, well, I've got to tell

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Speaker 4: you something. This place that your parents come from is

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Speaker 4: under great peril. Not only is the interesting place where

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Speaker 4: your parents come from under great peril, but also this

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Speaker 4: place that you're in is also under great peril. And

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Speaker 4: what's more, because we don't have your parents anymore, and

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Speaker 4: the terrible thing that wears the long cape is growing

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Speaker 4: in power. If we don't have somebody to fight against it,

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Speaker 4: then everything might be lost. The entire universe might fall

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Speaker 4: to this terrible, dark force, at which point the young

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Speaker 4: orphan still says that I don't think that's me, and

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Speaker 4: he gets introduced to a special skill that his parents

403
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Speaker 4: had that also he has as well, and he thinks,

404
00:21:04,640 --> 00:21:06,719
Speaker 4: how can that possibly be me? He doesn't know how

405
00:21:06,760 --> 00:21:09,320
Speaker 4: to wheel this instrument very well. It's usually in a

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00:21:09,359 --> 00:21:14,600
Speaker 4: stick like shape, this particular object, and then sometimes it's

407
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Speaker 4: in a ring like shape, but usually it's in a

408
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Speaker 4: stick like shape. And the I'm doing this as quickly

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Speaker 4: as I can. But then the bearded person takes this

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Speaker 4: persona takes our young a young hero to a place

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Speaker 4: where there's a mixture between the boring world and the

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Speaker 4: interesting world. And in this place where there's a mixture

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Speaker 4: of it, that you can see people crossing over a threshold,

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Speaker 4: I guess, like moving beyond the two from the boring

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Speaker 4: world into the interesting world or into the special world

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Speaker 4: that you might call it. And then there's usually an

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Speaker 4: event takes place where where our young hero has to

418
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Speaker 4: make a leap of faith and cross over from the

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Speaker 4: place where everything was boring and save to the place

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Speaker 4: where everything is dangerous and interesting. That usually takes place

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Speaker 4: where in a way where it's usually in a rush,

422
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Speaker 4: and it's usually with great force, and you have to

423
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Speaker 4: close your eyes and just jump in and next thing

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Speaker 4: you know, you're in this brand new world. And in

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Speaker 4: this brand new world, there's there's a mixture of all

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Speaker 4: sorts of creatures, but most of most of who are

427
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Speaker 4: strange and interesting.

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Speaker 3: Uh.

429
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Speaker 4: The shop fronts especially, it's kind of a market, bizarre

430
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Speaker 4: kind of feel place. And inside this you start to

431
00:22:27,480 --> 00:22:30,960
Speaker 4: notice that there are tiny there are tiny little versions

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Speaker 4: of the Baddie in a way, versions that look a

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Speaker 4: bit like what you imagine the Baddie to look like,

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Speaker 4: but they're only sort of weaker, smaller juvenile versions of it.

435
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Speaker 4: But there's also juvenile versions or versions of the people

436
00:22:44,520 --> 00:22:46,920
Speaker 4: are the same age as our young hero, who have

437
00:22:47,119 --> 00:22:53,000
Speaker 4: very specific qualities. There's there's nearly always a very intelligent,

438
00:22:53,200 --> 00:22:56,159
Speaker 4: highly skilled girl who you think is going to be

439
00:22:56,280 --> 00:22:58,840
Speaker 4: the love interest, but turns out it can't possibly be

440
00:22:58,960 --> 00:23:02,320
Speaker 4: that she's she's usually much more skilled than their young

441
00:23:02,400 --> 00:23:05,840
Speaker 4: hero is in pretty much every other department, is especially

442
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:10,679
Speaker 4: using the special instrument. There's also a maverick friend who

443
00:23:11,240 --> 00:23:13,879
Speaker 4: who's really scruffy and seems to sort of, you know,

444
00:23:14,119 --> 00:23:16,359
Speaker 4: just make really bad decisions all the time, and yet

445
00:23:16,400 --> 00:23:19,639
Speaker 4: somehow lands on his feet every single time. This maverick

446
00:23:19,720 --> 00:23:25,080
Speaker 4: friend very usually has an intelligent pet. There's all sorts

447
00:23:25,080 --> 00:23:26,440
Speaker 4: of characters like this.

448
00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:27,040
Speaker 3: They're there.

449
00:23:27,200 --> 00:23:30,560
Speaker 4: There are odd ball twins who appear sort of maybe

450
00:23:30,560 --> 00:23:32,600
Speaker 4: for you know, here and there for about sort of

451
00:23:32,600 --> 00:23:34,960
Speaker 4: six percent of the story who just come in and

452
00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:37,600
Speaker 4: enlighten the mood a little bit, and they they're they're

453
00:23:37,760 --> 00:23:41,160
Speaker 4: they're usually related in some way or or or aligned

454
00:23:41,160 --> 00:23:43,440
Speaker 4: in some way to our hero, et cetera, et cetera.

455
00:23:43,480 --> 00:23:48,040
Speaker 4: There's a point and where where our young hero needs

456
00:23:48,080 --> 00:23:50,520
Speaker 4: to learn how to use this special instrument, this stick

457
00:23:50,720 --> 00:23:55,320
Speaker 4: like instrument. Where where what they and then it's not

458
00:23:55,400 --> 00:23:57,159
Speaker 4: very good at it at first. In fact, he's terrible

459
00:23:57,240 --> 00:24:00,080
Speaker 4: at it, and even the Maverick friends better at it

460
00:24:00,200 --> 00:24:03,840
Speaker 4: than he is, and certainly the intelligent, sexually unavailable woman

461
00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:09,879
Speaker 4: is it's quite extra extraorly how it all goes okay

462
00:24:10,840 --> 00:24:15,080
Speaker 4: and there's a point where where, while while he's struggling

463
00:24:15,080 --> 00:24:17,920
Speaker 4: with friends and enemies in this particular stage of it,

464
00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:20,320
Speaker 4: that that he loses faith and he thinks that everyone

465
00:24:20,480 --> 00:24:23,000
Speaker 4: was wrong. I'm not the person who has the same

466
00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:26,719
Speaker 4: abilities as my missing parents slash dead parents, slash whatever parents,

467
00:24:27,280 --> 00:24:29,480
Speaker 4: And I think it's up to somebody else to take

468
00:24:29,560 --> 00:24:31,880
Speaker 4: up the reins and use this instrument better than I can.

469
00:24:32,640 --> 00:24:34,280
Speaker 4: And so he falls into what they call the belly

470
00:24:34,320 --> 00:24:35,879
Speaker 4: of the whale, where he thinks this, I can't do

471
00:24:35,960 --> 00:24:40,680
Speaker 4: this anymore. It's impossible. And yet he's he's dragged out

472
00:24:40,680 --> 00:24:43,000
Speaker 4: of that. Oh, by the way, Usually around this stage

473
00:24:43,040 --> 00:24:46,679
Speaker 4: the mentor has disappeared for a large chunk of the story.

474
00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:51,160
Speaker 4: This mentor reappears and then hands over that ability and says, no,

475
00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:53,800
Speaker 4: you remember I told you you have this special ability

476
00:24:53,840 --> 00:24:56,120
Speaker 4: in your and your parents had this special ability too,

477
00:24:57,440 --> 00:25:00,240
Speaker 4: at which point our young heroes pulls his socks up

478
00:25:00,640 --> 00:25:04,560
Speaker 4: and decides to enter the fray one last time. And

479
00:25:04,760 --> 00:25:08,520
Speaker 4: usually in this particular event it's a very public event.

480
00:25:09,359 --> 00:25:14,080
Speaker 4: There's where the small versions of the baddie and the

481
00:25:14,119 --> 00:25:16,359
Speaker 4: small versions of the goody who are learning to use

482
00:25:16,400 --> 00:25:19,600
Speaker 4: their particular skills they're usually flying, and they're usually trying

483
00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:22,880
Speaker 4: to get a small object into another very very small target.

484
00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:27,040
Speaker 4: Everyone's watching, and of course the goodies and the baddies

485
00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:29,760
Speaker 4: fight in a great struggle, and it looks like the

486
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:32,119
Speaker 4: baddies are going to win. Of course that's because they cheat.

487
00:25:32,800 --> 00:25:35,520
Speaker 4: But the goodies have one thing behind them, which is

488
00:25:35,560 --> 00:25:38,639
Speaker 4: they all work together and look out for one another.

489
00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:41,360
Speaker 4: But they slowly get paired off until eventually there's one

490
00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:44,359
Speaker 4: Goody and one baddie And at this point in time

491
00:25:44,440 --> 00:25:47,040
Speaker 4: it's all down to our particular young, young hero.

492
00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:48,480
Speaker 3: And usually this.

493
00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:51,600
Speaker 4: Is the point where the bearded person appears again and says,

494
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:55,280
Speaker 4: just have faith in yourself. If you have faith in yourself,

495
00:25:55,359 --> 00:25:58,960
Speaker 4: that's the key to using this special object, the special

496
00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:01,440
Speaker 4: ability that you're parents had, that you didn't have, that

497
00:26:01,520 --> 00:26:06,040
Speaker 4: you've been born to inherit, et cetera. At which point you,

498
00:26:06,240 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 4: quite often our hero will close his eyes, give into that,

499
00:26:11,520 --> 00:26:15,200
Speaker 4: have faith in himself, and get the small target in

500
00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:18,640
Speaker 4: small the small object into the very small target. Everyone cheers.

501
00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:22,359
Speaker 4: We always knew he could do it. Of course, for

502
00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:24,160
Speaker 4: the first time in his life he thinks, oh, maybe

503
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:27,080
Speaker 4: I am the one who has those abilities, and maybe

504
00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:29,440
Speaker 4: my dad's were unfounded. All I had to do is

505
00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:31,720
Speaker 4: learn all these skills and go through all of this process.

506
00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:34,760
Speaker 4: And there's a point usually after that where they crossed

507
00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:38,679
Speaker 4: the threshold back into or oh yeah, they go back

508
00:26:38,720 --> 00:26:41,919
Speaker 4: to a place where there's a threshold going from that

509
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:45,040
Speaker 4: ordinary world, back from the special world, sorry, back into

510
00:26:45,080 --> 00:26:49,760
Speaker 4: the interesting world again, and everyone stands and acknowledges. By

511
00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:52,840
Speaker 4: this stage the intelligent pet has been combed, everyone's have

512
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:55,200
Speaker 4: changed their clothes, and they get given medals or whatever,

513
00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:56,000
Speaker 4: and everyone says.

514
00:26:55,840 --> 00:26:57,080
Speaker 3: We always knew you had it in you.

515
00:26:57,440 --> 00:27:00,800
Speaker 4: And then he ends up back the end of term

516
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:02,960
Speaker 4: or at the end of the particular battle or whatever

517
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:07,960
Speaker 4: it is, and is is a person who now belongs

518
00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:10,480
Speaker 4: to two worlds, not just the ordinary world but also

519
00:27:10,520 --> 00:27:14,119
Speaker 4: the special, difficult world. You might call that person, as

520
00:27:14,160 --> 00:27:16,480
Speaker 4: they say in film theory, a master of two worlds.

521
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:21,800
Speaker 4: And that's the cycle. So those of you who were thinking,

522
00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:24,960
Speaker 4: of course, I was peppering different details in all of that.

523
00:27:25,160 --> 00:27:27,480
Speaker 4: But those of you who are thinking that, it's thinking

524
00:27:27,520 --> 00:27:31,479
Speaker 4: Harry Potter. It's also Star Wars beat the beat character

525
00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:35,040
Speaker 4: for character. And I remember when I watched the when

526
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:38,240
Speaker 4: I went and watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the.

527
00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:38,719
Speaker 3: Film of it.

528
00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:41,960
Speaker 4: I watched it with my dad and I was studying

529
00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:44,080
Speaker 4: story theory at the time. I watched the whole thing

530
00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:48,320
Speaker 4: and went Star Wars and said it to my dad

531
00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:50,879
Speaker 4: and he went, not, it's not sorry, he's not an

532
00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:54,520
Speaker 4: English And then I rang up my lecturer and I said,

533
00:27:54,840 --> 00:27:55,600
Speaker 4: you seen Harry Potter?

534
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:58,080
Speaker 3: Went yeah, Star Wars. But then I looked.

535
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:01,080
Speaker 4: I looked in I looked on the internet when I

536
00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:03,600
Speaker 4: was on the internet, but I looked on it to

537
00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 4: see if I could find any reviews that went this

538
00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:10,879
Speaker 4: is Star Wars. And they didn't start appearing for about

539
00:28:10,880 --> 00:28:12,879
Speaker 4: a year a year and a half, which tells you

540
00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:16,400
Speaker 4: something very interesting about the human psyche, which is that

541
00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:20,399
Speaker 4: these things are invisible to us. And the reason why

542
00:28:20,520 --> 00:28:24,480
Speaker 4: these are two of the most you know, successful on

543
00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:28,520
Speaker 4: movies of all time that every human on earth is

544
00:28:28,560 --> 00:28:29,000
Speaker 4: aware of.

545
00:28:29,119 --> 00:28:30,320
Speaker 3: I mean, you know JK.

546
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:35,240
Speaker 4: Rowlings is richer than the Queen, and you know George

547
00:28:35,320 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 4: Lucas does pretty well himself too, and also Shakespeare, because

548
00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:41,360
Speaker 4: this is this is the story of Hamlet and as

549
00:28:41,360 --> 00:28:45,880
Speaker 4: the story of the Lion Kings. Yes, but the question

550
00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:49,200
Speaker 4: is why you know why, Why what is this substrate

551
00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:51,160
Speaker 4: that says And that's not the only one there, there

552
00:28:51,160 --> 00:28:53,000
Speaker 4: are many others, but this is the core one that

553
00:28:53,080 --> 00:28:57,760
Speaker 4: dominates film theory stage in theater. It's a slightly different mechanism,

554
00:28:58,480 --> 00:29:03,200
Speaker 4: but what it does is it replicates human human psychology

555
00:29:04,280 --> 00:29:08,440
Speaker 4: on a on a on its absolute simplest level. And

556
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:10,880
Speaker 4: that's why that particular story structure, and it's not not

557
00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:13,600
Speaker 4: the only one, it's one of many, but why that

558
00:29:13,640 --> 00:29:17,520
Speaker 4: particular story structure is the one that that is the

559
00:29:17,520 --> 00:29:21,240
Speaker 4: most invisible and also the most powerful because on any

560
00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:24,080
Speaker 4: on any given levels, like for every breath in that

561
00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:27,240
Speaker 4: I have, I go through a mini hero's journey. So

562
00:29:27,400 --> 00:29:29,680
Speaker 4: right now I'm in a podcast with you, and i'm

563
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:32,200
Speaker 4: you know, and of course I there's part of me.

564
00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 4: So I woke up this morning in my ordinary world

565
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:36,360
Speaker 4: and I thought to myself, oh, well, you know, I'm

566
00:29:36,400 --> 00:29:38,560
Speaker 4: quite happy here. I feel a little bit like I'd

567
00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:41,000
Speaker 4: like to be more a more interesting, more you know,

568
00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:44,800
Speaker 4: successful person, but I'm quite happy in bed too, you know.

569
00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:47,600
Speaker 4: And then Jess, who works here at sixteenth Street, you know,

570
00:29:49,120 --> 00:29:50,800
Speaker 4: you go me a ring, said, don't forget you got

571
00:29:50,800 --> 00:29:53,360
Speaker 4: your podcast with Lola and I was like, yeah, and

572
00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:57,360
Speaker 4: so she's my bearded man, sorry Jess, but she's my mentor.

573
00:29:58,160 --> 00:30:01,040
Speaker 4: And and so then I think to myself, but not me.

574
00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 4: I'm just a you know, I'm just a small scale

575
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:06,920
Speaker 4: theater director who lives in Melbourne. What have I got

576
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:08,120
Speaker 4: to say for a podcast?

577
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:08,440
Speaker 3: You know?

578
00:30:08,760 --> 00:30:12,320
Speaker 4: And then and that's when the mentor, in some symbolic

579
00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:15,160
Speaker 4: form says, no, no, you haven't a special ability. And

580
00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:16,960
Speaker 4: all you have to do is have faith in yourself.

581
00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:18,720
Speaker 4: And what you need to do is actually cross over

582
00:30:18,840 --> 00:30:21,719
Speaker 4: from that threshold, from the boring place, from the ordinary

583
00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:26,440
Speaker 4: place where you're safe, where nothing happens hakunamatata, into the

584
00:30:26,560 --> 00:30:31,120
Speaker 4: interesting place. And so I step into the interesting place.

585
00:30:31,160 --> 00:30:35,280
Speaker 4: And now right now I'm actually maybe in the clock dial.

586
00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:37,800
Speaker 4: I'm probably just before the belly of the whale right

587
00:30:37,840 --> 00:30:41,080
Speaker 4: now where I've sat down. You know, there are all

588
00:30:41,120 --> 00:30:45,240
Speaker 4: of these components that talk about are inside me, really,

589
00:30:45,800 --> 00:30:48,640
Speaker 4: and so for example, I lose my train of thought.

590
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:51,280
Speaker 4: I might think, oh, no, I shouldn't have agreed to

591
00:30:51,280 --> 00:30:54,040
Speaker 4: do in this podcast because I actually I'm just I'm

592
00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:57,000
Speaker 4: just a poor farm boy from tattooing, or I'm just

593
00:30:57,040 --> 00:30:59,600
Speaker 4: a little you know, hobbit who should stay at home

594
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:03,800
Speaker 4: drinking ale or et cetera. Or I'm just a a

595
00:31:03,840 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 4: suburban London kid. I'm not really a magic or you know, wizard,

596
00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:11,560
Speaker 4: et cetera. And you think that, of course, because it's true.

597
00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:11,960
Speaker 3: You don't.

598
00:31:12,120 --> 00:31:14,040
Speaker 4: You haven't learned all of those skills, and you haven't

599
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:19,720
Speaker 4: had you haven't properly had taken the leap of having

600
00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:22,600
Speaker 4: faith in myself, right, and so but I need to

601
00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:24,040
Speaker 4: not believe it because that's.

602
00:31:23,920 --> 00:31:25,640
Speaker 3: What makes me fight totally.

603
00:31:25,680 --> 00:31:28,480
Speaker 4: And here I am so probably right now giving this

604
00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:29,880
Speaker 4: talking to you now, And what I'm trying to do

605
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:32,160
Speaker 4: is to get the small object into the very small target,

606
00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 4: you know. And if I do it right, then psychologically

607
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:38,040
Speaker 4: for me, I'll cross back into the ordinary world after

608
00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:40,840
Speaker 4: this podcast end and think, actually, you know, I'm a

609
00:31:40,880 --> 00:31:44,400
Speaker 4: podcast guy, right, which is brand new to me. But

610
00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:46,640
Speaker 4: but and so you can see that that's that's the

611
00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:50,520
Speaker 4: way the human mind gets us out of bed doing

612
00:31:50,560 --> 00:31:53,200
Speaker 4: the things we don't want to do and and and

613
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:56,040
Speaker 4: learning from them and becoming better at them and et cetera.

614
00:31:56,480 --> 00:31:59,480
Speaker 4: And that's that's the construct of the hero that exists

615
00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:02,040
Speaker 4: in my stories. And Joseph Campbell calls out the hero

616
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:04,120
Speaker 4: with a thousand faces I love.

617
00:32:04,360 --> 00:32:04,560
Speaker 3: Yeah.

618
00:32:05,280 --> 00:32:06,720
Speaker 1: Do you know on the flip side of that, I'm

619
00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 1: having my own heroes gene where I was like, oh,

620
00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:11,880
Speaker 1: but like I'm a bit nervous to interview here, and

621
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:13,880
Speaker 1: now I'm at the point where I'm like, we got this,

622
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:15,800
Speaker 1: we got this, and it's that it is its own

623
00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:19,160
Speaker 1: hero's journey. There is one thing that you said in class,

624
00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:21,880
Speaker 1: and you said that in story theory it is addressing

625
00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:24,680
Speaker 1: out ice age concerns and got back to that like

626
00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:28,040
Speaker 1: primal kind of like what, yeah.

627
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:28,240
Speaker 3: That's right.

628
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:32,880
Speaker 4: So there's a wonderful animation that quite often gets shown

629
00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:40,160
Speaker 4: to people in story theory. It's called the Hydes Simil experiment. Yeah,

630
00:32:40,320 --> 00:32:44,480
Speaker 4: which was actually created by psychologists to explore I think

631
00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:47,360
Speaker 4: the principle is called the attribution of causality, which is

632
00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:50,440
Speaker 4: they show a bunch of different objects moving around space,

633
00:32:51,400 --> 00:32:55,520
Speaker 4: and what the human brain does is attribute causality to that,

634
00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:59,160
Speaker 4: which is there's there's reason and the consequence and inside

635
00:32:59,200 --> 00:33:03,640
Speaker 4: this somehow and and of course if you show it

636
00:33:03,440 --> 00:33:06,160
Speaker 4: to a computer, the computer just sees objects moving around

637
00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:08,959
Speaker 4: the space. But if human brain, when it looks at it,

638
00:33:09,160 --> 00:33:12,560
Speaker 4: create a story and every time you show it to somebody,

639
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:16,800
Speaker 4: that's exactly what happens. But there's a range of experience

640
00:33:16,840 --> 00:33:18,280
Speaker 4: from the people who look at it, which is the

641
00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:21,160
Speaker 4: really extraordinary thing. Some people watch it and say, oh,

642
00:33:21,320 --> 00:33:24,680
Speaker 4: that's definitely domestic violence. Other people will watch it and

643
00:33:24,720 --> 00:33:27,360
Speaker 4: say that's bullying, or other people will say that's that's

644
00:33:27,360 --> 00:33:31,640
Speaker 4: a class, you know, that's a that I've had, that's

645
00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:34,520
Speaker 4: that's global politics.

646
00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:36,040
Speaker 3: I've had people say look.

647
00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:37,680
Speaker 4: At it and say or I've had people look at

648
00:33:37,680 --> 00:33:40,560
Speaker 4: it and say, that's the story of my people, you know,

649
00:33:41,440 --> 00:33:43,760
Speaker 4: And it's quite extraordinary. It's just objects moving.

650
00:33:44,360 --> 00:33:46,880
Speaker 2: For people listening. It's like a line, isn't it Like

651
00:33:46,880 --> 00:33:47,880
Speaker 2: a little triangle, a.

652
00:33:47,880 --> 00:33:50,720
Speaker 4: Little triangle and a circle and a big triangle and

653
00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:54,480
Speaker 4: a box and that's pretty much it, you know. And yes,

654
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:57,360
Speaker 4: I mean when it was created you can see there

655
00:33:57,440 --> 00:33:59,960
Speaker 4: is a story structure built into it. But the fact

656
00:34:00,120 --> 00:34:03,440
Speaker 4: that everybody sees that and immediately attributes that causality is

657
00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:06,080
Speaker 4: the really interesting thing. So it means that the huge

658
00:34:06,240 --> 00:34:10,239
Speaker 4: that brains are geared to do that, and that's the

659
00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:12,560
Speaker 4: primary thing, that the primary that's the way we can

660
00:34:12,560 --> 00:34:17,200
Speaker 4: struct meaning and what always comes out of that is story,

661
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:23,000
Speaker 4: you know, which which is the extraordinary thing. And so

662
00:34:23,160 --> 00:34:26,960
Speaker 4: when I'm working with player rights and actors, I find

663
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:30,520
Speaker 4: that it's really productive to invite them to go into

664
00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:37,040
Speaker 4: the inherited implicit structures that are inside us. Because once you,

665
00:34:37,120 --> 00:34:40,120
Speaker 4: once you get in contact with those, eighty percent of

666
00:34:40,160 --> 00:34:43,040
Speaker 4: the work's done. But quite often player rights and actors

667
00:34:43,520 --> 00:34:46,080
Speaker 4: try to do one hundred percent of the work with

668
00:34:46,160 --> 00:34:50,360
Speaker 4: their with their alert, aesthetic consciousness, with the with the brain,

669
00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:52,560
Speaker 4: with the part of the brain that's able to think

670
00:34:52,560 --> 00:34:56,480
Speaker 4: about thinking. And anyone who's been on a date, you know,

671
00:34:56,480 --> 00:34:59,359
Speaker 4: knows that you know, anyone who's been on a date

672
00:34:59,480 --> 00:35:01,920
Speaker 4: knows that that the brain, that the part of your

673
00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:05,040
Speaker 4: brain that's good, that's self aware and very good about

674
00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:08,359
Speaker 4: thinking about thinking, which of course is what kicks in

675
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:10,359
Speaker 4: when you go on your first date. Your brain, part

676
00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:14,279
Speaker 4: of your brain says, don't be you. I'll be you

677
00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:17,359
Speaker 4: because I don't trust that you can be you well

678
00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:21,120
Speaker 4: enough in this particular circumstance. And so you hand over

679
00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:23,640
Speaker 4: to your conscious mind. The next thing you know, you

680
00:35:23,719 --> 00:35:25,920
Speaker 4: fall out of the taxi. You don't kind of sit

681
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:27,000
Speaker 4: on a chair properly.

682
00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:27,760
Speaker 2: It's sweaty.

683
00:35:27,960 --> 00:35:33,200
Speaker 4: Yeah, your breath is all out of out, out of regulation,

684
00:35:33,320 --> 00:35:35,360
Speaker 4: and so you can't even tell if somebody, if the

685
00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:38,640
Speaker 4: person that you're talking to has finished speaking or not.

686
00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:39,879
Speaker 3: And so well that stuff happens.

687
00:35:40,040 --> 00:35:42,440
Speaker 4: No, you go sorry, not after you, No you go no, no,

688
00:35:43,120 --> 00:35:45,920
Speaker 4: I'm talking over you, et cetera. Like you know, you

689
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:48,959
Speaker 4: get sweaty palms, all those sorts of things, and that's

690
00:35:49,080 --> 00:35:52,920
Speaker 4: that's like, it's it's like the part of your conscious

691
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:55,520
Speaker 4: brain trying to do all the things that your your

692
00:35:55,600 --> 00:35:58,080
Speaker 4: unconscious brain, your implicit system.

693
00:35:57,920 --> 00:35:59,439
Speaker 3: Is a genius that doing.

694
00:35:59,520 --> 00:36:04,080
Speaker 4: You're like, your implicit consciousness does the most astonishing things

695
00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:07,000
Speaker 4: that it regulates your body temperature and you know, it

696
00:36:07,120 --> 00:36:10,439
Speaker 4: changes your blood sugar levels like the most astonished.

697
00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:12,360
Speaker 3: It's amazing what it does.

698
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:16,480
Speaker 4: And somehow the executive brain thinks that can do it,

699
00:36:16,800 --> 00:36:21,320
Speaker 4: and when it kicks in, so you end up falling

700
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:23,279
Speaker 4: all over yourself. And this is this, I think is

701
00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:25,440
Speaker 4: the reason why actors don't like working with kids and

702
00:36:25,480 --> 00:36:30,279
Speaker 4: animals is because, yeah, is that it's it's not that

703
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:32,960
Speaker 4: they're erratic, it's not that they're on control of it's

704
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:36,640
Speaker 4: not even that they sort of that they're anarchic. Even

705
00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 4: it's it's that they're much better at being them than

706
00:36:40,120 --> 00:36:43,680
Speaker 4: we are because they haven't got to that stage where

707
00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:47,880
Speaker 4: they're thinking about thinking. And so a large part of

708
00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:49,640
Speaker 4: the work that I do with actors and player rights

709
00:36:49,680 --> 00:36:51,600
Speaker 4: is to get them beyond that, you know, so they

710
00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:54,080
Speaker 4: get back to that genius stage, which all of us have,

711
00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:57,400
Speaker 4: because all of us are geniuses at being alive totally.

712
00:36:57,440 --> 00:36:57,640
Speaker 3: Yeah.

713
00:36:58,200 --> 00:37:01,320
Speaker 4: And and this is not to say that the executive

714
00:37:01,360 --> 00:37:04,440
Speaker 4: state is not welcome. It's just that it's not great

715
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:08,799
Speaker 4: at everything, and it's certainly not good at helping you

716
00:37:08,880 --> 00:37:12,200
Speaker 4: breathe and keep your balance, you know. And so actors

717
00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 4: who go on stage dominated by the executive state, they

718
00:37:15,200 --> 00:37:16,120
Speaker 4: did it quite often.

719
00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:18,359
Speaker 3: Their hands missed, their pockets said.

720
00:37:18,960 --> 00:37:21,880
Speaker 2: They'll step forward and they'll be like a lagging.

721
00:37:21,320 --> 00:37:22,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's right.

722
00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:24,520
Speaker 4: They'll put their arm out and then they won't know

723
00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:25,360
Speaker 4: how to return it.

724
00:37:25,440 --> 00:37:28,160
Speaker 2: Yeah. You know what did you call that? The floating head?

725
00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:29,040
Speaker 3: Yeah?

726
00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:31,200
Speaker 4: Well yeah, the returning leg is the one where you

727
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:33,440
Speaker 4: walk on stage and then somehow you just have to

728
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:36,600
Speaker 4: drag your foot to join the other foot, yeah, or

729
00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:41,520
Speaker 4: the or the unretrievable arm. These things that hasen, and

730
00:37:41,560 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 4: that happens also when you're when you're nervous and incum

731
00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 4: socially nervous with other people. And that's also it's exactly

732
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:49,640
Speaker 4: the same mechanism, and that's your executive state trying to

733
00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:52,239
Speaker 4: take over from the things you're actually really good at

734
00:37:52,280 --> 00:37:53,480
Speaker 4: without thinking about it.

735
00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:56,080
Speaker 1: Even in school when we do the action circle, so

736
00:37:56,120 --> 00:37:58,399
Speaker 1: we all stand in a circle and play actions at one.

737
00:37:58,320 --> 00:37:59,320
Speaker 2: Another in class.

738
00:37:59,640 --> 00:38:01,919
Speaker 1: The longer I leave it, the more my palms wear

739
00:38:02,200 --> 00:38:05,120
Speaker 1: or I can feel my knees lock my butt titans.

740
00:38:04,880 --> 00:38:08,520
Speaker 4: Yeah and yeah, and your brains, that's right, your brain

741
00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:10,799
Speaker 4: gets in the way. And also well, and also the

742
00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:14,839
Speaker 4: brainstem realizes something's up, you know. Yeah, yeah, and so

743
00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:17,879
Speaker 4: it gets ready to escape from the lion or from

744
00:38:17,960 --> 00:38:20,520
Speaker 4: whatever great threat it was that we managed to it,

745
00:38:20,640 --> 00:38:23,600
Speaker 4: you know, that we evolve to. It's a very useful thing.

746
00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:25,560
Speaker 4: All of these things that these responses that we have,

747
00:38:25,880 --> 00:38:30,360
Speaker 4: of course meant that our ancestors passed on the genes,

748
00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:32,480
Speaker 4: So it's not like they're bad. It's just that we

749
00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:35,360
Speaker 4: need to work out a way to be fluid and

750
00:38:35,680 --> 00:38:38,400
Speaker 4: sort of integrated with our behavior, you know. And so

751
00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:42,160
Speaker 4: a psychologist quite often to talk about it in terms

752
00:38:42,160 --> 00:38:44,680
Speaker 4: of top down and bottom up. It's thinking, you know,

753
00:38:46,400 --> 00:38:49,720
Speaker 4: sort of bottom up is where the body response takes

754
00:38:49,760 --> 00:38:52,960
Speaker 4: over your consciousness, and then top down is where is

755
00:38:53,000 --> 00:38:55,600
Speaker 4: where your aesthetic consciousness takes over the body. And you know,

756
00:38:55,640 --> 00:38:58,120
Speaker 4: quite often there's that sort of mythology about people being

757
00:38:58,239 --> 00:39:01,919
Speaker 4: head actors or body actors, you know, and.

758
00:39:01,080 --> 00:39:02,000
Speaker 3: And I think.

759
00:39:03,400 --> 00:39:05,360
Speaker 4: Body actors quite often think that, you know, I have

760
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:07,840
Speaker 4: sort of looked down on head actors and vice versa,

761
00:39:08,120 --> 00:39:10,560
Speaker 4: and where an actual fact, what you want is to

762
00:39:10,640 --> 00:39:12,320
Speaker 4: open the channels for that highway.

763
00:39:12,520 --> 00:39:16,080
Speaker 3: So it's so it's so you're not coming to denither.

764
00:39:16,200 --> 00:39:16,600
Speaker 3: That's right.

765
00:39:17,040 --> 00:39:19,799
Speaker 4: So the vagus nerve and the you know, which is

766
00:39:19,840 --> 00:39:22,480
Speaker 4: this astonishing nerve spread's all throughout.

767
00:39:22,120 --> 00:39:23,560
Speaker 2: The body system.

768
00:39:23,719 --> 00:39:26,840
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, and and embodied consciousness and all of

769
00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:30,480
Speaker 4: those things, you know, which which neurobiology is catching up with.

770
00:39:30,600 --> 00:39:33,120
Speaker 4: The acting theory is being across for a couple of

771
00:39:33,160 --> 00:39:35,520
Speaker 4: thousand years. In a way, it's just that because it's

772
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:37,359
Speaker 4: an art form, it's a little bit different. But very

773
00:39:37,400 --> 00:39:40,960
Speaker 4: regularly I find this when I you know, because you

774
00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:44,400
Speaker 4: can see that I'm fascinated by by the neuroscience and

775
00:39:44,440 --> 00:39:47,680
Speaker 4: the psychology of it. My dad's a geologist, so like

776
00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:50,759
Speaker 4: I think, you know, I always have to justify my

777
00:39:50,920 --> 00:39:54,040
Speaker 4: artistic stuff. We put it into a language that that

778
00:39:54,200 --> 00:39:58,000
Speaker 4: he sort of validates. But but I find very regularly

779
00:39:58,000 --> 00:39:59,920
Speaker 4: when I when I mentioned these things too, especially the

780
00:40:00,040 --> 00:40:04,960
Speaker 4: pro actors and to you know, highly successful playwrights and screenwriters,

781
00:40:05,320 --> 00:40:07,720
Speaker 4: they kind of nod the head and go, yeah, of course.

782
00:40:07,760 --> 00:40:07,960
Speaker 3: You know.

783
00:40:08,080 --> 00:40:10,720
Speaker 4: It's like, ah, yeah, that a lot of this stuff

784
00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:13,680
Speaker 4: is stuff that artists already know. And that's the wonderful

785
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:15,919
Speaker 4: thing I think about dramatic art is that because it's

786
00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:20,239
Speaker 4: dramatic art, is it's as old as fire. You know, well,

787
00:40:20,320 --> 00:40:22,839
Speaker 4: at least it's certainly as old as the human brain.

788
00:40:22,880 --> 00:40:24,400
Speaker 4: So we can say it's one hundred and eighty thousand

789
00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:27,040
Speaker 4: years old, definitely, but you could also argue that it's

790
00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:30,920
Speaker 4: older than that because we evolved the ability to play.

791
00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:31,680
Speaker 3: Yes, and.

792
00:40:33,719 --> 00:40:36,480
Speaker 4: You know, you can play with any mammal mostly, I mean,

793
00:40:36,520 --> 00:40:38,799
Speaker 4: guinea pigs are a bit hard because it's mostly just

794
00:40:38,880 --> 00:40:41,960
Speaker 4: fair state that they're in. But the vast majority of

795
00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:45,200
Speaker 4: mammals you can have some relationship totally, and that relationship

796
00:40:45,280 --> 00:40:48,240
Speaker 4: exists through the process of play. And play, I guess

797
00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:52,560
Speaker 4: is the first mutation, well, one of the great mutations

798
00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:56,960
Speaker 4: that gave us the ability to experiment with unknown futures.

799
00:40:57,120 --> 00:41:00,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, well this is the imagination thing.

800
00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:03,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, and so you know you've all.

801
00:41:03,360 --> 00:41:05,640
Speaker 3: Noah Harari, you know who wrote.

802
00:41:05,440 --> 00:41:08,839
Speaker 4: Sapiens, talks a lot about this, about there being an

803
00:41:08,880 --> 00:41:12,000
Speaker 4: adaptation that happened in the brain eighty thousand years ago,

804
00:41:12,040 --> 00:41:15,080
Speaker 4: where that particular skill which had been we've been evolving

805
00:41:15,239 --> 00:41:19,640
Speaker 4: through play, which which is you know what I mean,

806
00:41:19,680 --> 00:41:21,319
Speaker 4: place kind of unconscious in a way.

807
00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:23,239
Speaker 3: You can do it. You can play with a magpie.

808
00:41:23,560 --> 00:41:26,759
Speaker 4: Yeah, or it's like certainly the best way to get

809
00:41:26,760 --> 00:41:30,000
Speaker 4: to know a dog or a small child. Yeah, it's

810
00:41:30,040 --> 00:41:34,319
Speaker 4: not to ask them questions about you know, where their

811
00:41:34,360 --> 00:41:36,680
Speaker 4: family are from or what they like and like that.

812
00:41:37,560 --> 00:41:40,560
Speaker 4: It's play, right, you pick up a stick and it's

813
00:41:40,560 --> 00:41:41,360
Speaker 4: a snake or whatever.

814
00:41:42,040 --> 00:41:44,600
Speaker 1: On YouTube, people that go swimming and nick minute, there's

815
00:41:44,640 --> 00:41:47,799
Speaker 1: like a beautiful walk away all around, Like, yeah, it's

816
00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:53,520
Speaker 1: so fascinating. But the imagination thing was about I could

817
00:41:53,560 --> 00:41:54,239
Speaker 1: have been.

818
00:41:54,040 --> 00:41:56,960
Speaker 3: Jumping into Yeah.

819
00:41:57,040 --> 00:42:01,560
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so the mutation I guess that that no,

820
00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:05,439
Speaker 4: you've all Harari, No, sorry, you've all Noah Harari talks

821
00:42:05,440 --> 00:42:11,640
Speaker 4: about in that is that our highly evolved new neocortex,

822
00:42:11,719 --> 00:42:15,680
Speaker 4: the new brain taps into that, into that that limbic

823
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:19,200
Speaker 4: system ability to engage in play. And then what we

824
00:42:19,239 --> 00:42:24,920
Speaker 4: can do is actually imaginatively construct entire possible realities which

825
00:42:25,080 --> 00:42:28,359
Speaker 4: we then step into. And you can see that that's

826
00:42:28,360 --> 00:42:32,399
Speaker 4: an that's an astonishing evolutionary advantage, because right up until then,

827
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:36,759
Speaker 4: the other hominids that that we shared the earth with

828
00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:40,800
Speaker 4: late Neanderthals and Homorectus and Denis over and all of

829
00:42:40,800 --> 00:42:43,560
Speaker 4: those different ones that may or may not have had

830
00:42:43,560 --> 00:42:46,680
Speaker 4: that ability. All we know is that they're not here anymore,

831
00:42:46,719 --> 00:42:51,120
Speaker 4: and we are that what we evolved was an ability

832
00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:55,960
Speaker 4: to really project ourselves into imaginative futures that haven't happened,

833
00:42:56,520 --> 00:43:01,680
Speaker 4: and and imagine what it's like actually on a behavioral level,

834
00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:06,200
Speaker 4: stepping inside that and doing those those behaviors. And so

835
00:43:06,360 --> 00:43:11,839
Speaker 4: it's it's it's suddenly it's not costly to to think, oh, well,

836
00:43:11,920 --> 00:43:13,799
Speaker 4: I wonder, I wonder what it would be like if

837
00:43:13,800 --> 00:43:16,880
Speaker 4: we got all of the bison into that particular corner

838
00:43:16,960 --> 00:43:19,200
Speaker 4: of the of the you know, of the forest, and

839
00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:21,480
Speaker 4: then funneled them through and push them all over the cliff,

840
00:43:21,560 --> 00:43:24,480
Speaker 4: you know, and we could actually you could actually sit

841
00:43:24,520 --> 00:43:27,480
Speaker 4: around a fire and chuck that idea to another another

842
00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:30,520
Speaker 4: friend who would say, hmm yeah, who would then also

843
00:43:30,600 --> 00:43:34,160
Speaker 4: project imaginatively into that future and come up with the

844
00:43:34,200 --> 00:43:36,440
Speaker 4: problems that might exist in that And so you do

845
00:43:36,520 --> 00:43:39,880
Speaker 4: it without dying. You just sat around the fire. And

846
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:44,520
Speaker 4: I think that's you can see how that mechanism evolves

847
00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:51,799
Speaker 4: into into performance, because performance is basically rendering that ability

848
00:43:52,200 --> 00:43:57,480
Speaker 4: into the physical world, into rendering, rendering imaginative constructs into behavior.

849
00:43:58,280 --> 00:44:01,279
Speaker 4: And that's why actioning is so important because you can

850
00:44:01,520 --> 00:44:04,759
Speaker 4: control actions. You can just decide what behaviors you're going

851
00:44:04,800 --> 00:44:06,560
Speaker 4: to do, and then next thing, you know, as you

852
00:44:06,600 --> 00:44:11,279
Speaker 4: do those behaviors, your implicit consciousness follows, suit follows through

853
00:44:11,360 --> 00:44:13,520
Speaker 4: and actually you start to get all of the all

854
00:44:13,560 --> 00:44:16,680
Speaker 4: of the reportage that you inherited throughout your body. The

855
00:44:16,719 --> 00:44:19,120
Speaker 4: biochemical is the logical reportage.

856
00:44:19,480 --> 00:44:21,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

857
00:44:21,120 --> 00:44:23,160
Speaker 1: So for people who seeing with actions, the way we

858
00:44:23,360 --> 00:44:25,359
Speaker 1: learn it and practice it is like you're play an

859
00:44:25,360 --> 00:44:29,520
Speaker 1: action onto another actor, they will be affected and then

860
00:44:29,560 --> 00:44:32,160
Speaker 1: they will react, and that's letting it all land in

861
00:44:32,200 --> 00:44:34,719
Speaker 1: the body, right, and then having it like playing some

862
00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:35,560
Speaker 1: kind of action back.

863
00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:37,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.

864
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:40,360
Speaker 4: Yeah, one of the sort of challenges that the novice

865
00:44:40,400 --> 00:44:42,880
Speaker 4: actors have, I think is that they think it's all

866
00:44:42,920 --> 00:44:46,560
Speaker 4: about affect. They think it's about how they feel, you know,

867
00:44:46,800 --> 00:44:50,240
Speaker 4: and and and it's the it's the the great tragedy

868
00:44:50,280 --> 00:44:53,520
Speaker 4: of of of I mean, I have a great affection

869
00:44:53,640 --> 00:44:56,839
Speaker 4: for for amateur actors, but there's a tragedy that they

870
00:44:56,960 --> 00:44:59,600
Speaker 4: get trapped in, which is they think feelings it, you know,

871
00:44:59,640 --> 00:45:01,200
Speaker 4: so the come out and they'll do to me an

872
00:45:01,200 --> 00:45:04,400
Speaker 4: not to be in affect, which is just the experience

873
00:45:04,760 --> 00:45:10,680
Speaker 4: of the thoughts, you know. But as every good actor

874
00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:18,040
Speaker 4: acting sort of school acting training system understands that, you

875
00:45:18,080 --> 00:45:20,800
Speaker 4: know what you're here in any acting school is no

876
00:45:20,800 --> 00:45:22,960
Speaker 4: no living thing does or says anything except to get

877
00:45:22,960 --> 00:45:25,560
Speaker 4: something they can't immediately have, which is behavior.

878
00:45:25,640 --> 00:45:25,799
Speaker 3: Right.

879
00:45:25,880 --> 00:45:26,080
Speaker 2: Yeah.

880
00:45:27,120 --> 00:45:30,279
Speaker 4: Organisms don't behave unless there's something in it for them,

881
00:45:30,640 --> 00:45:34,080
Speaker 4: yeah right. And that means, yeah, that your behavior is

882
00:45:34,600 --> 00:45:39,240
Speaker 4: there to change the situation. So so Frans Foine Nagel

883
00:45:39,400 --> 00:45:42,840
Speaker 4: the philosopher, said that everything we do, but everything we

884
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:47,520
Speaker 4: do belongs to a future we're about to create, right yeah,

885
00:45:48,239 --> 00:45:52,760
Speaker 4: And that that goes for creatures without aesthetic consciousness as well.

886
00:45:52,800 --> 00:45:56,160
Speaker 4: But we have both, so we we we actually can

887
00:45:56,160 --> 00:45:58,520
Speaker 4: throw ourselves into imagine that the futures and make them

888
00:45:58,719 --> 00:46:01,680
Speaker 4: actually happen. The way you do that is by behaving.

889
00:46:02,880 --> 00:46:06,640
Speaker 4: Otherwise it just sticks inside your mind and who knows what,

890
00:46:06,680 --> 00:46:09,560
Speaker 4: who knows what you're thinking, you're feeling, you know, And

891
00:46:09,600 --> 00:46:12,000
Speaker 4: that's what That's what Aristotle noticed, you know, when he

892
00:46:12,080 --> 00:46:14,839
Speaker 4: was watching the great the successful plays during the first

893
00:46:14,840 --> 00:46:17,279
Speaker 4: of all of Dionysus. He was a botanist, you know,

894
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:19,560
Speaker 4: so he was looking at it from a scientific perspective.

895
00:46:19,920 --> 00:46:22,160
Speaker 4: He's not a critic. And when you look at the

896
00:46:22,160 --> 00:46:24,480
Speaker 4: way he writes about tragedy. We don't have his writings

897
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:27,400
Speaker 4: on comedy alas, but we do have his writings on tragedy,

898
00:46:27,719 --> 00:46:29,840
Speaker 4: and you can see he's coming at it from a

899
00:46:29,880 --> 00:46:33,040
Speaker 4: scientific perspective, which is which things work and which things don't.

900
00:46:33,280 --> 00:46:34,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, And what he.

901
00:46:34,120 --> 00:46:37,320
Speaker 4: Comes down to is that, just like that Harry Potter

902
00:46:37,640 --> 00:46:39,680
Speaker 4: Star Wars story I told you about, like this is

903
00:46:39,719 --> 00:46:43,239
Speaker 4: nothing new, but Aristotle was the one who spotted it,

904
00:46:43,280 --> 00:46:46,920
Speaker 4: who said that that plot and action is the meaning

905
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:52,120
Speaker 4: in story, as opposed to the sort of the text.

906
00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:55,920
Speaker 4: It's the subtext where it's in the subtext, and it's

907
00:46:55,960 --> 00:46:59,320
Speaker 4: in the behavior where all of the information exists, and

908
00:46:59,560 --> 00:47:03,440
Speaker 4: and what I tried to share with the students here

909
00:47:03,480 --> 00:47:06,200
Speaker 4: at sixteenth Street is that once you go into that,

910
00:47:06,239 --> 00:47:08,760
Speaker 4: all of the metabolic responses come back for free.

911
00:47:09,120 --> 00:47:11,920
Speaker 2: Yes you said that last week this week, right, yeah.

912
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:12,320
Speaker 3: Yeah.

913
00:47:12,360 --> 00:47:15,080
Speaker 4: So there are some mantras that I regularly say. One

914
00:47:15,080 --> 00:47:18,800
Speaker 4: of them is, good actors affect other people. Bad actors

915
00:47:18,960 --> 00:47:22,560
Speaker 4: merely affect themselves, which is I'm just saying that affecting.

916
00:47:22,239 --> 00:47:24,560
Speaker 3: Yourself is bad. It's not. It's just that it needs

917
00:47:24,600 --> 00:47:27,759
Speaker 3: to be a trigger for behavior totally. Yeah.

918
00:47:27,880 --> 00:47:29,880
Speaker 4: Yes, And so all the other things are very welcome.

919
00:47:30,560 --> 00:47:34,239
Speaker 4: And I find that that emotions exist on both on

920
00:47:34,440 --> 00:47:36,919
Speaker 4: both ends of the sort of timescale where they quite

921
00:47:36,920 --> 00:47:39,600
Speaker 4: often act as the trigger for behavior and they quite

922
00:47:39,640 --> 00:47:43,520
Speaker 4: often act as the consequence of behavior. Yeah, but behavior

923
00:47:43,640 --> 00:47:45,120
Speaker 4: is the thing you can get in the middle of

924
00:47:45,160 --> 00:47:46,680
Speaker 4: and drive and control with your will.

925
00:47:47,320 --> 00:47:47,920
Speaker 2: So cool.

926
00:47:48,600 --> 00:47:50,880
Speaker 1: There was something I've made notes through all my classes

927
00:47:50,880 --> 00:47:52,520
Speaker 1: with you, and I'm like, podcast.

928
00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:52,319
Speaker 2: I've.

929
00:47:54,000 --> 00:47:57,120
Speaker 1: Every good actor has access to something that's deep inside

930
00:47:57,160 --> 00:48:00,560
Speaker 1: every human and I'm I think it's still coming to

931
00:48:00,560 --> 00:48:02,719
Speaker 1: that behavioral thing. But also does it come back to

932
00:48:02,760 --> 00:48:05,239
Speaker 1: the kids and the dogs that are kind of like

933
00:48:05,360 --> 00:48:08,560
Speaker 1: in this very real state where we kind of get

934
00:48:08,600 --> 00:48:10,319
Speaker 1: a bit caught up in our psychology.

935
00:48:11,360 --> 00:48:13,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's.

936
00:48:13,320 --> 00:48:14,880
Speaker 2: Like tapping into something very innate.

937
00:48:15,040 --> 00:48:20,080
Speaker 4: It feels like, yeah, that's right, it's typing into something ancient.

938
00:48:20,840 --> 00:48:25,840
Speaker 4: And we do that exercise, where are my actors to

939
00:48:26,280 --> 00:48:30,399
Speaker 4: action a script and then to actually just separate from

940
00:48:30,400 --> 00:48:33,440
Speaker 4: the script, actually just write what they think that a

941
00:48:33,560 --> 00:48:35,880
Speaker 4: line would be that would do that action the best.

942
00:48:36,239 --> 00:48:38,920
Speaker 4: You know, So it might be to dazzle, to astonish,

943
00:48:39,080 --> 00:48:43,080
Speaker 4: to sober, which you've got to say from a chunk

944
00:48:43,120 --> 00:48:47,000
Speaker 4: of Shakespeare's text. And then I'll ask the actors to

945
00:48:48,080 --> 00:48:50,600
Speaker 4: just say the thing that wouldazzle the most, and who

946
00:48:50,640 --> 00:48:52,960
Speaker 4: knows what, who knows what that is, but it might be,

947
00:48:53,080 --> 00:48:59,400
Speaker 4: you know, I'm the son of God, and then to

948
00:48:59,560 --> 00:49:01,840
Speaker 4: sober might be you know, but we really need to

949
00:49:01,840 --> 00:49:04,040
Speaker 4: pay attention. And so then you'd actually get up in

950
00:49:04,080 --> 00:49:05,839
Speaker 4: front of everyone and say I am the son of God.

951
00:49:05,840 --> 00:49:07,920
Speaker 4: But you really need to pay attention and perform all

952
00:49:07,960 --> 00:49:10,080
Speaker 4: of these actions without the text. So what you're actually

953
00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:13,319
Speaker 4: doing is just the raw version of the raw subtext.

954
00:49:13,719 --> 00:49:16,160
Speaker 4: And my feeling is that when you do that version,

955
00:49:17,080 --> 00:49:18,680
Speaker 4: it's the sort of thing that a dog or a

956
00:49:19,239 --> 00:49:21,240
Speaker 4: or a smart twelve year old can totally.

957
00:49:21,680 --> 00:49:24,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can understand totally and if.

958
00:49:24,040 --> 00:49:28,680
Speaker 4: You can so that you have both versions running simultaneously,

959
00:49:29,560 --> 00:49:31,839
Speaker 4: which is that you want you want a seven year

960
00:49:31,840 --> 00:49:34,160
Speaker 4: old to watch your show and get it, and you

961
00:49:34,200 --> 00:49:36,759
Speaker 4: also want a university professor to watch your show and

962
00:49:36,800 --> 00:49:38,520
Speaker 4: get it, and for them to get it for the

963
00:49:38,560 --> 00:49:41,040
Speaker 4: same reasons, just at different levels of.

964
00:49:42,480 --> 00:49:44,359
Speaker 3: Resolution, I guess, you know.

965
00:49:44,520 --> 00:49:47,439
Speaker 4: And so of course it's like it's like, that's what

966
00:49:47,520 --> 00:49:50,120
Speaker 4: it's like with your relationship with a dog in the family.

967
00:49:50,200 --> 00:49:54,120
Speaker 4: You know, you have you have a true family relationship,

968
00:49:54,120 --> 00:49:56,560
Speaker 4: and a dog is part of your family, but your

969
00:49:56,600 --> 00:49:58,920
Speaker 4: relationship with your dog is a little lower rays than

970
00:49:58,960 --> 00:50:01,600
Speaker 4: it is with your and your old daughter, or it

971
00:50:01,640 --> 00:50:05,399
Speaker 4: is with your thirty five year old partner, or with

972
00:50:05,480 --> 00:50:09,120
Speaker 4: your mother who's known you forever. You know, like, if

973
00:50:09,160 --> 00:50:10,520
Speaker 4: you want to tell a lie to your mom, you've

974
00:50:10,520 --> 00:50:13,399
Speaker 4: got to have your acting game on right, because she's

975
00:50:13,400 --> 00:50:16,600
Speaker 4: got a high res version of you. Yeah, but at

976
00:50:16,640 --> 00:50:19,319
Speaker 4: the same time, she's your mom, and all of those

977
00:50:19,320 --> 00:50:22,920
Speaker 4: ancient mechanisms are still at play, and so it's about

978
00:50:23,040 --> 00:50:27,279
Speaker 4: keeping keeping them harmonic with one another and rather than

979
00:50:27,320 --> 00:50:31,480
Speaker 4: creating unsympathetic muscle relationships between elements of your consciousness.

980
00:50:31,560 --> 00:50:32,640
Speaker 3: I guess, do.

981
00:50:32,600 --> 00:50:35,080
Speaker 2: You know we've already been going for fifty minutes. Really,

982
00:50:35,200 --> 00:50:37,520
Speaker 2: I love that, so but I'm like, oh my god,

983
00:50:37,520 --> 00:50:39,040
Speaker 2: there's so many more things I want to ask, so

984
00:50:39,080 --> 00:50:39,560
Speaker 2: I have to.

985
00:50:39,800 --> 00:50:44,800
Speaker 1: I can't end the podcast without asking you. Assistant directed

986
00:50:44,840 --> 00:50:49,320
Speaker 1: to the wonderful Kate Blandship. Correct, Yes, yeah, in a nutshell?

987
00:50:49,400 --> 00:50:52,560
Speaker 2: Can you share what that was like? Is it scary?

988
00:50:53,800 --> 00:50:58,759
Speaker 4: Well, interestingly, it's it was the only it was the

989
00:50:58,800 --> 00:51:02,439
Speaker 4: second time Kate that actually directed a play, and so,

990
00:51:04,120 --> 00:51:05,480
Speaker 4: of course she's a genius actor.

991
00:51:05,960 --> 00:51:07,600
Speaker 2: Sydney Theater Company, Yes, And it.

992
00:51:07,560 --> 00:51:10,120
Speaker 4: Was when Andrew and Kate had taken over Sydney Theater Company.

993
00:51:10,160 --> 00:51:13,040
Speaker 4: And so this was sort of because so Kate was

994
00:51:13,080 --> 00:51:15,719
Speaker 4: in a, you know, in the unenviable position of Dave

995
00:51:15,920 --> 00:51:21,240
Speaker 4: Booing as a director also as a globally famous trashures

996
00:51:21,239 --> 00:51:26,720
Speaker 4: on yeah person, and so I was invited to assist

997
00:51:26,760 --> 00:51:32,319
Speaker 4: and direct on that. Really just so it was a

998
00:51:32,320 --> 00:51:35,799
Speaker 4: slightly unusual situation in the sense that that Kate was

999
00:51:35,800 --> 00:51:38,520
Speaker 4: was new to that particular art form and I was

1000
00:51:38,560 --> 00:51:41,800
Speaker 4: still learning that particular art form. But we worked on

1001
00:51:41,880 --> 00:51:45,960
Speaker 4: Blackbird which was one of the most astonishingly well written

1002
00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:50,640
Speaker 4: plays of the past fifty years. And so in lots

1003
00:51:50,640 --> 00:51:53,080
Speaker 4: of ways, I would say that the dramaturgy of that

1004
00:51:53,160 --> 00:51:55,680
Speaker 4: play was the thing that taught us both. But it

1005
00:51:55,719 --> 00:51:59,200
Speaker 4: was amazing watching her, And I mean, it's astonishing being

1006
00:51:59,200 --> 00:52:02,160
Speaker 4: in the room with somebody with that level of ability

1007
00:52:02,520 --> 00:52:06,120
Speaker 4: because the vast majority of her of her interpretive work

1008
00:52:06,160 --> 00:52:07,800
Speaker 4: that she would do, so it just you know, you

1009
00:52:07,840 --> 00:52:11,120
Speaker 4: would sit and watch her. She she would experience the

1010
00:52:11,160 --> 00:52:15,560
Speaker 4: text in the present moment on a on a metabolic level,

1011
00:52:16,040 --> 00:52:18,400
Speaker 4: and then you could see her interpret that and then

1012
00:52:18,480 --> 00:52:20,440
Speaker 4: talk to the actors that you know, sort of with

1013
00:52:21,120 --> 00:52:24,600
Speaker 4: language about what it was and for the more actors

1014
00:52:24,680 --> 00:52:28,400
Speaker 4: go okay, to find my way in, you know. So

1015
00:52:28,400 --> 00:52:30,359
Speaker 4: so it was it was a it was a real

1016
00:52:30,400 --> 00:52:34,839
Speaker 4: experience of watching, of watching you know, one of the

1017
00:52:34,840 --> 00:52:40,520
Speaker 4: best actors ever. I guess tap in to tap into

1018
00:52:40,560 --> 00:52:42,520
Speaker 4: one of the one of the greatest pieces of writing

1019
00:52:42,600 --> 00:52:43,880
Speaker 4: of the past fifty years.

1020
00:52:44,600 --> 00:52:45,160
Speaker 3: But it was.

1021
00:52:46,800 --> 00:52:49,239
Speaker 4: To say what what I would bring away with from it,

1022
00:52:49,320 --> 00:52:51,440
Speaker 4: I think was just I wish I was born with

1023
00:52:51,480 --> 00:52:52,719
Speaker 4: that astonishing kid.

1024
00:52:54,880 --> 00:52:56,719
Speaker 1: Was it scary at all being in the presence of

1025
00:52:56,760 --> 00:52:58,920
Speaker 1: someone that was like she's my status.

1026
00:52:59,000 --> 00:53:02,160
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, look, experience of being in the company

1027
00:53:02,160 --> 00:53:08,560
Speaker 4: of genius, that's all you know, is is that there

1028
00:53:09,040 --> 00:53:14,279
Speaker 4: there's a terrific generosity from those people, you know, and

1029
00:53:14,320 --> 00:53:16,560
Speaker 4: that's that's that's might have been my experience across the board.

1030
00:53:16,560 --> 00:53:18,799
Speaker 4: I think, you know, Max Effer Clark, is that experience too,

1031
00:53:18,840 --> 00:53:21,200
Speaker 4: where you bring so much of your own terror to

1032
00:53:21,280 --> 00:53:24,560
Speaker 4: those things, don't you, and your neurosis and all those things,

1033
00:53:24,640 --> 00:53:29,239
Speaker 4: and and and of course you because there you've you've

1034
00:53:29,239 --> 00:53:32,840
Speaker 4: only seen the successful version of them to you, you know,

1035
00:53:33,040 --> 00:53:38,239
Speaker 4: you assemble a version of them that is completely distorted,

1036
00:53:38,320 --> 00:53:40,960
Speaker 4: you know, And and so you spend your whole life,

1037
00:53:41,080 --> 00:53:43,680
Speaker 4: the whole time with them going you're just a person,

1038
00:53:44,000 --> 00:53:48,040
Speaker 4: but also with astonishing gift. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, it

1039
00:53:48,080 --> 00:53:52,880
Speaker 4: was it was a it was an amazing honor and

1040
00:53:52,880 --> 00:53:58,279
Speaker 4: and a strange place to be interesting being an assistant director,

1041
00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:00,200
Speaker 4: because assistant directors sit there, you know, and we we

1042
00:54:00,280 --> 00:54:01,920
Speaker 4: write our little notes and watch things and all that

1043
00:54:01,960 --> 00:54:04,440
Speaker 4: sort of thing. And then I'd sit and give and

1044
00:54:05,200 --> 00:54:09,040
Speaker 4: humbly profer, you know, my perspective on things. And in

1045
00:54:09,400 --> 00:54:12,200
Speaker 4: a way it was useful for her, hope that because

1046
00:54:12,680 --> 00:54:16,239
Speaker 4: I come from a dramaturgy background and a story background,

1047
00:54:16,280 --> 00:54:19,600
Speaker 4: and so so I was offering I guess my perspective

1048
00:54:19,640 --> 00:54:22,360
Speaker 4: on the play from from that you know level, you know,

1049
00:54:22,560 --> 00:54:25,680
Speaker 4: or maybe talking about interesting semantic constructs or whatever, you know.

1050
00:54:27,480 --> 00:54:30,319
Speaker 4: But it was interesting that with somebody with that, that

1051
00:54:30,560 --> 00:54:33,840
Speaker 4: incredible skill that she has, you knew if she disagreed

1052
00:54:33,880 --> 00:54:37,560
Speaker 4: with a note, should should just be reading? You know,

1053
00:54:37,600 --> 00:54:41,400
Speaker 4: she'd said, thank you, terrifically gracious, wonderful person. You'd handle

1054
00:54:41,440 --> 00:54:43,719
Speaker 4: the notes terrified, and she'd go through them and nod

1055
00:54:43,800 --> 00:54:45,000
Speaker 4: and all that sort of thing. But you knew if

1056
00:54:45,000 --> 00:54:47,080
Speaker 4: she'd disagree with the note, because you'd be in the

1057
00:54:47,120 --> 00:54:48,680
Speaker 4: room thinking why.

1058
00:54:49,480 --> 00:54:50,719
Speaker 3: Why do I want to die?

1059
00:54:51,040 --> 00:54:51,600
Speaker 2: Yeah?

1060
00:54:52,800 --> 00:54:56,080
Speaker 4: Oh, and then it would then it would move, it

1061
00:54:56,080 --> 00:54:58,160
Speaker 4: would it would switch, you know, in an instant. You

1062
00:54:58,160 --> 00:55:00,480
Speaker 4: know something that Aristotle talked about with has where he

1063
00:55:00,560 --> 00:55:02,960
Speaker 4: said that there's a point when the when the emotions

1064
00:55:02,960 --> 00:55:06,520
Speaker 4: are high, when they're so so available and so big,

1065
00:55:07,200 --> 00:55:10,480
Speaker 4: And that's that's I guess that's the experience of being

1066
00:55:10,800 --> 00:55:13,759
Speaker 4: being in the company of somebody who is emotionally gymnastic,

1067
00:55:13,880 --> 00:55:19,320
Speaker 4: who has just an incredible ability to attach her her

1068
00:55:19,920 --> 00:55:24,800
Speaker 4: her imaginative and her intellectual inspiration to the ancient forces

1069
00:55:24,840 --> 00:55:27,040
Speaker 4: inside her. There's a reason why she gets cast as

1070
00:55:27,080 --> 00:55:33,759
Speaker 4: something like glad real. You know that that's exactly that mechanism. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1071
00:55:33,840 --> 00:55:37,640
Speaker 4: So that's the experience of being in the room with her,

1072
00:55:37,719 --> 00:55:40,680
Speaker 4: is that is that you can feel her change the

1073
00:55:40,719 --> 00:55:45,200
Speaker 4: electrons in the room somehow, you know. And I'd love

1074
00:55:45,239 --> 00:55:47,000
Speaker 4: to say i'd be I know how to teach that,

1075
00:55:47,080 --> 00:55:50,040
Speaker 4: but I don't. You know, there are some things which

1076
00:55:50,080 --> 00:55:54,640
Speaker 4: are just beyond and that's the experience of seeing her work.

1077
00:55:54,680 --> 00:55:57,719
Speaker 1: I think, well, not to switch channels too quickly, but

1078
00:55:57,920 --> 00:56:00,799
Speaker 1: I get one more question with you, like go time,

1079
00:56:00,880 --> 00:56:03,360
Speaker 1: but back to story theory.

1080
00:56:03,360 --> 00:56:04,840
Speaker 2: Thank you for sharing. By the way, I was like,

1081
00:56:04,960 --> 00:56:06,680
Speaker 2: I've got it. After that, I've got to ask all

1082
00:56:06,680 --> 00:56:07,160
Speaker 2: these questions.

1083
00:56:07,200 --> 00:56:11,000
Speaker 1: But the interesting thing about story through, and I didn't

1084
00:56:11,040 --> 00:56:13,520
Speaker 1: realize it until I experienced it with you, was when

1085
00:56:13,560 --> 00:56:16,600
Speaker 1: we played Predator and Prey, which is basically where you're

1086
00:56:16,600 --> 00:56:17,760
Speaker 1: either prey or predator.

1087
00:56:18,160 --> 00:56:20,960
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're either the one who's being got or the

1088
00:56:20,960 --> 00:56:24,600
Speaker 4: one who's doing the getting. And that humans are interesting

1089
00:56:24,640 --> 00:56:27,960
Speaker 4: creatures because we evolved with both networks. In US, we

1090
00:56:28,920 --> 00:56:32,480
Speaker 4: started out as terrified little furry road and you know,

1091
00:56:32,640 --> 00:56:35,520
Speaker 4: and hiding and its shrews hiding in the thing, but

1092
00:56:35,960 --> 00:56:38,600
Speaker 4: that we became predators, so it means.

1093
00:56:38,440 --> 00:56:42,680
Speaker 1: That we are both totally and the I remember you

1094
00:56:42,719 --> 00:56:45,319
Speaker 1: said to us, if you get killed, feel it and

1095
00:56:45,320 --> 00:56:48,279
Speaker 1: then go and wash, and we I remember sitting I

1096
00:56:48,320 --> 00:56:50,840
Speaker 1: was out early both times, and I remember sitting going,

1097
00:56:51,200 --> 00:56:55,680
Speaker 1: why am I so intrigued by this? And you then said,

1098
00:56:55,680 --> 00:56:57,040
Speaker 1: this is like watching survivor?

1099
00:56:57,480 --> 00:56:57,680
Speaker 3: Right?

1100
00:56:58,000 --> 00:57:01,600
Speaker 1: Why these survivor type shows are so successful? Is it

1101
00:57:01,640 --> 00:57:04,120
Speaker 1: because it is tapping into that like kill.

1102
00:57:03,920 --> 00:57:04,560
Speaker 2: Or be killed?

1103
00:57:05,239 --> 00:57:05,640
Speaker 3: That's right?

1104
00:57:05,880 --> 00:57:08,120
Speaker 4: And when it's it's so built into us that it's

1105
00:57:08,120 --> 00:57:09,320
Speaker 4: not conscious at all.

1106
00:57:09,520 --> 00:57:09,759
Speaker 3: You know.

1107
00:57:10,800 --> 00:57:14,040
Speaker 4: And what what what being interested in? You know, the

1108
00:57:14,120 --> 00:57:17,200
Speaker 4: drive that makes you go and watch Harry Potter the play,

1109
00:57:17,400 --> 00:57:19,880
Speaker 4: or makes you go and watch David Williamson, whatever you know,

1110
00:57:20,360 --> 00:57:24,440
Speaker 4: is exactly the same drive to stay alive. So it's

1111
00:57:24,600 --> 00:57:28,080
Speaker 4: it's the survival mechanism. And plays and dreams are rehearsals

1112
00:57:28,080 --> 00:57:31,120
Speaker 4: for catastrophe in lots of ways, you know. And so

1113
00:57:31,240 --> 00:57:33,920
Speaker 4: of course we're drawn to that because we evolved to

1114
00:57:33,960 --> 00:57:37,240
Speaker 4: be interested in other organisms who have learned how to

1115
00:57:37,280 --> 00:57:39,720
Speaker 4: do the terrible difficult thing and come out the other

1116
00:57:39,880 --> 00:57:43,200
Speaker 4: end and come out the other end with with some

1117
00:57:43,200 --> 00:57:46,200
Speaker 4: some extra thing, you know. And so in film theory

1118
00:57:46,200 --> 00:57:48,680
Speaker 4: they call it the elixa, you know, or the treasure,

1119
00:57:48,760 --> 00:57:51,080
Speaker 4: you know, the thing that you bring back from your

1120
00:57:51,080 --> 00:57:55,200
Speaker 4: horrible experiences. And and that's and that's what story is.

1121
00:57:55,280 --> 00:58:00,080
Speaker 4: Story is actually the mechanism of life itself rendered in

1122
00:58:00,080 --> 00:58:03,480
Speaker 4: to conscious behavior, you know, which, And all you've got

1123
00:58:03,480 --> 00:58:05,560
Speaker 4: to do is have a look at the have a

1124
00:58:05,600 --> 00:58:09,920
Speaker 4: look at the top twenty books when you go to

1125
00:58:10,120 --> 00:58:13,440
Speaker 4: the airport the book stand there, because the top twenty

1126
00:58:13,480 --> 00:58:18,520
Speaker 4: books are all ice age concerns, like which is, you know,

1127
00:58:18,640 --> 00:58:21,400
Speaker 4: how do I romance, which is how do I have

1128
00:58:21,560 --> 00:58:25,880
Speaker 4: how do I keep appropriate and maintain a relationship with

1129
00:58:25,920 --> 00:58:29,520
Speaker 4: a mate? True crime, which is all about how do

1130
00:58:29,560 --> 00:58:31,600
Speaker 4: we regulate our society and how do we deal with

1131
00:58:31,600 --> 00:58:36,440
Speaker 4: the negative elements in it? Yeah, you know, war obviously,

1132
00:58:37,720 --> 00:58:41,120
Speaker 4: and fantasy? Yeah yeah, yeah, which is how do I

1133
00:58:41,360 --> 00:58:46,120
Speaker 4: engage with all of these? You know, fantasy is it's

1134
00:58:47,080 --> 00:58:49,240
Speaker 4: it's another hour's worth of conversation. But you know, it

1135
00:58:49,280 --> 00:58:53,880
Speaker 4: is interesting, of course that every culture has a dragon myth,

1136
00:58:54,880 --> 00:58:59,640
Speaker 4: and the dragon usually protects a treasure that's inside inside

1137
00:58:59,680 --> 00:59:04,000
Speaker 4: a manton. And quite often that dragon is obsessed with virgins,

1138
00:59:04,440 --> 00:59:07,920
Speaker 4: virgin humans, why what you know, et cetera. But you

1139
00:59:07,920 --> 00:59:10,400
Speaker 4: know that every culture has a flood myth, every culture,

1140
00:59:10,400 --> 00:59:13,520
Speaker 4: and of course there's lots of theories about all of that,

1141
00:59:13,720 --> 00:59:17,560
Speaker 4: from the literal right through to the Jungian sort of

1142
00:59:17,640 --> 00:59:21,440
Speaker 4: you know, which is that it's our consciousness dealing with

1143
00:59:22,200 --> 00:59:26,920
Speaker 4: those primary urges and turning them into story constructs that

1144
00:59:26,960 --> 00:59:30,120
Speaker 4: we can apprehend and deal with and engage with, you know.

1145
00:59:30,200 --> 00:59:36,120
Speaker 4: And and and what drama, dramatic art is both stage

1146
00:59:36,160 --> 00:59:40,360
Speaker 4: and screen, is the embodiment, the literal embodiment of all

1147
00:59:40,400 --> 00:59:43,360
Speaker 4: of those mechanisms that are happening inside us. And so

1148
00:59:43,400 --> 00:59:45,760
Speaker 4: if we tap into that, of course we're going to

1149
00:59:45,760 --> 00:59:48,040
Speaker 4: be interested in it, because we evolve to be interested

1150
00:59:48,080 --> 00:59:49,720
Speaker 4: in things that pertain to our survival.

1151
00:59:50,080 --> 00:59:53,320
Speaker 2: Ah. So if people know more about the story through

1152
00:59:53,360 --> 00:59:54,320
Speaker 2: is that Joseph Campbell.

1153
00:59:54,520 --> 00:59:57,480
Speaker 4: Joseph Campbell is a really great place to start.

1154
00:59:57,560 --> 01:00:01,000
Speaker 1: I mean, when you say you studied it, I was like,

1155
01:00:01,040 --> 01:00:05,520
Speaker 1: where can I study? Like it's so fascinating because I

1156
01:00:05,560 --> 01:00:08,040
Speaker 1: remember when you were doing story theory in class. I

1157
01:00:08,080 --> 01:00:09,880
Speaker 1: was seeing next door mat and I and I tapped him.

1158
01:00:09,880 --> 01:00:12,440
Speaker 1: I said, buckle in, like you're about and he looked

1159
01:00:12,440 --> 01:00:13,800
Speaker 1: at me and he said, did you know that was

1160
01:00:13,840 --> 01:00:16,000
Speaker 1: about to happen? I was like, mate, it's the best thing.

1161
01:00:16,360 --> 01:00:17,080
Speaker 2: And everyone was.

1162
01:00:17,040 --> 01:00:20,480
Speaker 1: Talking about it afterwards, and then we were all going.

1163
01:00:20,320 --> 01:00:21,840
Speaker 2: All, Lord of the Rings, is that too?

1164
01:00:22,120 --> 01:00:25,600
Speaker 1: And you know it's I think everyone can relate to

1165
01:00:25,680 --> 01:00:30,000
Speaker 1: story theory, and because we all consume story, you know, yeah,

1166
01:00:30,560 --> 01:00:32,800
Speaker 1: it's it's just so fascinating.

1167
01:00:32,840 --> 01:00:35,520
Speaker 2: Thank you for sharing so much of it, my wonderful mom.

1168
01:00:35,920 --> 01:00:38,240
Speaker 4: I just mention one thing, which is because a lot

1169
01:00:38,240 --> 01:00:40,440
Speaker 4: of that stuff that I've been talking about very quickly,

1170
01:00:40,960 --> 01:00:45,120
Speaker 4: you're fine, it's based on the way film works, and

1171
01:00:45,760 --> 01:00:48,040
Speaker 4: there are other mechanisms as well. This is just one

1172
01:00:48,160 --> 01:00:53,360
Speaker 4: of many. But but stage works a little bit differently.

1173
01:00:53,400 --> 01:00:56,360
Speaker 4: And so I've narrowed that one down into five points

1174
01:00:57,280 --> 01:01:00,480
Speaker 4: which which you can which also works perfectly for actors

1175
01:01:00,480 --> 01:01:05,320
Speaker 4: as well. You've got time because if a story has

1176
01:01:05,320 --> 01:01:07,880
Speaker 4: these five components in it, and for a playwright to

1177
01:01:07,920 --> 01:01:10,080
Speaker 4: know this, or a screenwriter and for an actor to

1178
01:01:10,120 --> 01:01:13,560
Speaker 4: know this, then then if you can identify this, then

1179
01:01:13,560 --> 01:01:17,000
Speaker 4: you're in story, which is these components, which is the

1180
01:01:17,000 --> 01:01:20,080
Speaker 4: map of biological existence. As far as I can tell,

1181
01:01:20,840 --> 01:01:24,880
Speaker 4: a character exists in an environment, they do they something

1182
01:01:24,960 --> 01:01:29,560
Speaker 4: is making them uncomfortable. They do something to alleviate that discomfort,

1183
01:01:31,600 --> 01:01:33,800
Speaker 4: and they do many things to try to alleviate the discomfort.

1184
01:01:33,880 --> 01:01:37,120
Speaker 4: They either succeed or fail or both, but as a

1185
01:01:37,160 --> 01:01:41,520
Speaker 4: result they're changed in some way. If your story has

1186
01:01:41,560 --> 01:01:45,280
Speaker 4: those components, it is dramatic and it is interesting on

1187
01:01:45,360 --> 01:01:48,320
Speaker 4: that simple base, because we evolve to be interested in

1188
01:01:48,400 --> 01:01:51,360
Speaker 4: things that have that and a little sort of tiny

1189
01:01:51,360 --> 01:01:55,480
Speaker 4: little taste of that to finish off with, there are

1190
01:01:55,520 --> 01:01:58,680
Speaker 4: certain story constructs that only have the four of those points.

1191
01:01:58,760 --> 01:02:01,480
Speaker 4: Character exists, environments, something's makeing them uncomfortable, they do something

1192
01:02:01,520 --> 01:02:06,000
Speaker 4: to alleviate that. Succeed or fail are both objective and yeah, yeah,

1193
01:02:06,040 --> 01:02:08,640
Speaker 4: you can see how that fits with Stanislavsky's thinking and

1194
01:02:08,680 --> 01:02:10,720
Speaker 4: with what the group theater did in the States with

1195
01:02:10,760 --> 01:02:14,840
Speaker 4: all of that. Yeah, exactly, because Stanislavsky, just like Shakespeare said,

1196
01:02:15,000 --> 01:02:16,800
Speaker 4: what we need to do is hold a mirror up

1197
01:02:16,840 --> 01:02:21,080
Speaker 4: to nature. Yeah. Now, there are some story structures that

1198
01:02:21,120 --> 01:02:26,120
Speaker 4: don't have that. So sitcoms and cartoons quite often don't

1199
01:02:26,160 --> 01:02:28,400
Speaker 4: have the fifth element, which is but as a result

1200
01:02:28,400 --> 01:02:32,320
Speaker 4: they're changed in some way, And soaps are like that,

1201
01:02:32,720 --> 01:02:35,720
Speaker 4: and something in us something on a deep sort of

1202
01:02:36,080 --> 01:02:39,520
Speaker 4: DNA level knows that. So and so we sort of

1203
01:02:39,560 --> 01:02:42,720
Speaker 4: don't value those stories as strongly the ones that don't have.

1204
01:02:42,840 --> 01:02:45,320
Speaker 4: As a result, they're changed in some way because in

1205
01:02:45,360 --> 01:02:47,920
Speaker 4: a soapi you can't, you know, because somebody's got to

1206
01:02:47,920 --> 01:02:50,360
Speaker 4: open the shop again in the next episode, and you know,

1207
01:02:50,680 --> 01:02:52,720
Speaker 4: and you need to have those stable characters to hold

1208
01:02:52,720 --> 01:02:55,040
Speaker 4: the whole thing together. And so an actor who's in

1209
01:02:55,080 --> 01:02:57,200
Speaker 4: a soapy will get we'll say things like, oh, yeah,

1210
01:02:57,240 --> 01:02:59,720
Speaker 4: you know, it's great, you know, hopefy, I'll put it

1211
01:02:59,720 --> 01:03:00,919
Speaker 4: to pod it on the house or whatever.

1212
01:03:01,040 --> 01:03:04,600
Speaker 3: They don't go, yeah, I'm playing Jason, you know, in

1213
01:03:04,640 --> 01:03:05,080
Speaker 3: the way that.

1214
01:03:05,040 --> 01:03:07,640
Speaker 4: They would about about a character that has deep mythic

1215
01:03:07,680 --> 01:03:08,320
Speaker 4: structure in.

1216
01:03:08,280 --> 01:03:10,160
Speaker 1: It, which is also like what you just touched with

1217
01:03:10,160 --> 01:03:12,040
Speaker 1: those five points, that's kind of the hero's journey, like

1218
01:03:12,080 --> 01:03:13,040
Speaker 1: you're in that's right.

1219
01:03:13,120 --> 01:03:15,840
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, But it's it's a little less limiting and

1220
01:03:16,640 --> 01:03:19,600
Speaker 4: and and it's it's a little more social. And that's

1221
01:03:19,640 --> 01:03:21,760
Speaker 4: the difference between film and theater. If you go and

1222
01:03:21,880 --> 01:03:24,040
Speaker 4: if you go and watch a film and the cinema

1223
01:03:24,080 --> 01:03:28,000
Speaker 4: is empty, part of you goes, oh goodness, I film that.

1224
01:03:28,720 --> 01:03:31,600
Speaker 4: And that's because you experience film privately, even if you're

1225
01:03:31,600 --> 01:03:34,320
Speaker 4: there on a date, you know, and film like steals

1226
01:03:34,360 --> 01:03:35,880
Speaker 4: a whole bunch of things. With theater, you know, there's

1227
01:03:35,880 --> 01:03:39,040
Speaker 4: a four year, there's a red car, but fundamentally it's

1228
01:03:39,080 --> 01:03:40,160
Speaker 4: a private experience.

1229
01:03:40,200 --> 01:03:41,880
Speaker 3: And anyone, like if you know anyone.

1230
01:03:41,680 --> 01:03:44,840
Speaker 4: Who's really into like a Game of Thrones or or

1231
01:03:44,880 --> 01:03:46,840
Speaker 4: somebody who's really at a dog day afternoon, it's like

1232
01:03:46,880 --> 01:03:49,520
Speaker 4: it's theirs, you know, and that and that's because they

1233
01:03:49,640 --> 01:03:54,040
Speaker 4: experience that wheel that I talked about, that psychological journey

1234
01:03:54,080 --> 01:03:57,800
Speaker 4: privately with the film connected. Yeah, but if you go

1235
01:03:58,000 --> 01:04:00,960
Speaker 4: if you go into a theater or ballet or opera,

1236
01:04:00,960 --> 01:04:04,040
Speaker 4: any of those ones, and the auditorium is empty, some

1237
01:04:04,280 --> 01:04:09,440
Speaker 4: part of these sinks. And that's because you know inherently

1238
01:04:09,640 --> 01:04:11,800
Speaker 4: in those art forms that what you actually need to

1239
01:04:11,840 --> 01:04:16,840
Speaker 4: do is engage in a collective consciousness or a neural network,

1240
01:04:16,880 --> 01:04:20,720
Speaker 4: you know, like and and sort of networked consciousness, which

1241
01:04:20,760 --> 01:04:24,040
Speaker 4: is the next thing we're looking in. We're going, we're

1242
01:04:24,120 --> 01:04:28,240
Speaker 4: hurtling towards in the wonderful world of digital theater and

1243
01:04:28,840 --> 01:04:31,800
Speaker 4: opera and ballet have been doing for two thousand years now,

1244
01:04:32,600 --> 01:04:36,160
Speaker 4: and dance, you know, like that that the clues to

1245
01:04:36,280 --> 01:04:42,360
Speaker 4: how we navigate collective consciousness while also allowing individual individuality

1246
01:04:44,200 --> 01:04:47,800
Speaker 4: are there already in our culture and it's and and.

1247
01:04:48,040 --> 01:04:48,800
Speaker 3: You know, I.

1248
01:04:50,360 --> 01:04:53,640
Speaker 4: Recommend that, you know, I would be very excited if

1249
01:04:53,800 --> 01:04:58,840
Speaker 4: if the sort of the leaders in technology start start

1250
01:04:58,840 --> 01:05:01,560
Speaker 4: looking coming to knocking on our door, you know, knocking

1251
01:05:01,560 --> 01:05:05,000
Speaker 4: on dramatous doors and actors doors and drama dramatic writers' doors,

1252
01:05:05,160 --> 01:05:09,360
Speaker 4: because we already have some existing net ways of dealing

1253
01:05:09,360 --> 01:05:11,720
Speaker 4: with that particular new world.

1254
01:05:11,880 --> 01:05:13,040
Speaker 3: Totally we're faced with.

1255
01:05:13,200 --> 01:05:14,760
Speaker 1: And one thing that as I was, as you were

1256
01:05:14,760 --> 01:05:16,440
Speaker 1: talking about, when you go to the movies and you

1257
01:05:16,480 --> 01:05:19,800
Speaker 1: feel I remember you said in class, strangely satisfied. It

1258
01:05:19,840 --> 01:05:23,240
Speaker 1: does tap into this like all these story theory stuff

1259
01:05:23,240 --> 01:05:26,000
Speaker 1: you're talking about. Yeah, and I'm going back to film here,

1260
01:05:26,120 --> 01:05:29,520
Speaker 1: but it is this evokes something within you. Yeah, you

1261
01:05:29,560 --> 01:05:32,520
Speaker 1: can totally no matter what the move like genera something

1262
01:05:32,520 --> 01:05:33,680
Speaker 1: generally something pre.

1263
01:05:33,680 --> 01:05:37,600
Speaker 4: Conscious, yes, yeah, yeah, something something you can feel it

1264
01:05:37,640 --> 01:05:39,360
Speaker 4: in the back of your spine somehow.

1265
01:05:39,560 --> 01:05:39,800
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1266
01:05:40,000 --> 01:05:42,120
Speaker 1: And then like you were saying, though, with theater and

1267
01:05:42,200 --> 01:05:45,360
Speaker 1: anything that involves an audience, there's a sense of a

1268
01:05:45,560 --> 01:05:47,600
Speaker 1: community and we're all in this together.

1269
01:05:47,680 --> 01:05:49,000
Speaker 3: It feels that's it because.

1270
01:05:48,880 --> 01:05:54,640
Speaker 4: Because the other great evolutionary advantage that we developed is

1271
01:05:54,680 --> 01:05:56,560
Speaker 4: that we're the most social creatures on Earth.

1272
01:05:56,600 --> 01:05:58,280
Speaker 3: We have the most complex.

1273
01:05:58,320 --> 01:06:00,920
Speaker 4: Well yeah, yeah, that well that that was up until

1274
01:06:01,920 --> 01:06:06,760
Speaker 4: the mutation, So humans evolved to being around it. They think,

1275
01:06:06,800 --> 01:06:09,200
Speaker 4: you know, between one hundred and fifty and three hundred

1276
01:06:09,200 --> 01:06:11,600
Speaker 4: and fifty people, which is incidentally the perfect size for

1277
01:06:11,640 --> 01:06:16,160
Speaker 4: a theater because your consciousness can integrate together all that

1278
01:06:16,160 --> 01:06:17,959
Speaker 4: sort of thing, And people who are on Facebook still

1279
01:06:18,000 --> 01:06:21,360
Speaker 4: have probably one hundred and fifty to four hundred meaningful friends,

1280
01:06:21,360 --> 01:06:23,640
Speaker 4: and all the rest don't really exist in their consciousness

1281
01:06:23,680 --> 01:06:23,960
Speaker 4: at all.

1282
01:06:24,080 --> 01:06:26,000
Speaker 3: That's the tribe, right, that's the size.

1283
01:06:26,080 --> 01:06:30,360
Speaker 4: And then once we had the mutation, that kicked in,

1284
01:06:30,440 --> 01:06:34,320
Speaker 4: which was our ability to create fictions like human rights,

1285
01:06:34,480 --> 01:06:39,000
Speaker 4: like nationhood, like money, like law, all of those. And

1286
01:06:39,040 --> 01:06:41,760
Speaker 4: that's what Harari talks about so much. Once we're able

1287
01:06:41,800 --> 01:06:44,280
Speaker 4: to create those fictions, we could actually live in much

1288
01:06:44,360 --> 01:06:49,960
Speaker 4: larger societies because the fictions hold us together. And so

1289
01:06:50,720 --> 01:06:55,240
Speaker 4: once again, our ability to imagine impossible things like money,

1290
01:06:55,520 --> 01:06:59,479
Speaker 4: like human rights, which we think of as being so

1291
01:06:59,480 --> 01:07:03,720
Speaker 4: solid and but they're actually just fictions, are exactly the

1292
01:07:03,800 --> 01:07:07,120
Speaker 4: things that make us able to hold civilization together and

1293
01:07:07,160 --> 01:07:09,920
Speaker 4: not go to war as much as we might. Right,

1294
01:07:10,520 --> 01:07:14,280
Speaker 4: Chimpanzees can't do that. They go to groups of fifty

1295
01:07:14,320 --> 01:07:16,120
Speaker 4: and then after that they split up into.

1296
01:07:15,920 --> 01:07:18,200
Speaker 3: Groups that go into war, you know, etc.

1297
01:07:18,600 --> 01:07:23,240
Speaker 4: But humans, Yeah, so our ability, our ability to create

1298
01:07:23,280 --> 01:07:28,120
Speaker 4: fictions and modify our behavior to integrate those fictions into

1299
01:07:28,160 --> 01:07:32,320
Speaker 4: our existence and our reality, is the number one evolutionary

1300
01:07:32,320 --> 01:07:37,040
Speaker 4: advantage that we have. And so that's why drama is

1301
01:07:37,400 --> 01:07:41,080
Speaker 4: for me, the number one mechanism because we're engaging in

1302
01:07:41,160 --> 01:07:44,280
Speaker 4: something that we've been doing since before we were humans,

1303
01:07:44,960 --> 01:07:48,480
Speaker 4: play and just doing it on more and more sophisticated levels.

1304
01:07:48,720 --> 01:07:52,880
Speaker 4: And what we know about drama is that it helps

1305
01:07:52,960 --> 01:07:57,120
Speaker 4: us engage with the horrific unknown and start to create

1306
01:07:57,680 --> 01:08:03,040
Speaker 4: pathways through it so we can proliferate and and you

1307
01:08:03,040 --> 01:08:08,040
Speaker 4: know and not yeah, not just survive, but actually.

1308
01:08:07,800 --> 01:08:09,200
Speaker 3: Thrive as a species.

1309
01:08:09,800 --> 01:08:13,800
Speaker 4: And drama is always there, just gently behind all of

1310
01:08:13,840 --> 01:08:19,160
Speaker 4: the fear and all the terror, jumping into prospective futures

1311
01:08:19,280 --> 01:08:22,960
Speaker 4: and then rendering it into possible behaviors that might save us.

1312
01:08:23,800 --> 01:08:26,200
Speaker 4: You know, That's why we love it. That's why we

1313
01:08:26,200 --> 01:08:29,800
Speaker 4: love Hamlet, that's why you know, et cetera. Because all

1314
01:08:29,800 --> 01:08:32,360
Speaker 4: of those heroes are people that have gone through the mystery,

1315
01:08:32,400 --> 01:08:35,840
Speaker 4: the horrible mystery, and come out somehow changed in some way.

1316
01:08:36,080 --> 01:08:38,000
Speaker 3: Point five of the story System.

1317
01:08:39,000 --> 01:08:43,000
Speaker 2: Thank you do this all day. Thanks so much.

1318
01:08:43,360 --> 01:08:46,360
Speaker 1: It's been such a treat to have you on this podcast,

1319
01:08:46,560 --> 01:08:50,040
Speaker 1: and people listening there in Melbourne they can see you

1320
01:08:50,080 --> 01:08:52,479
Speaker 1: do some amazing directing at the Melbourn Data Companies.

1321
01:08:52,640 --> 01:08:52,960
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1322
01:08:53,080 --> 01:08:55,000
Speaker 4: So I have the good fortune of working with Johanna

1323
01:08:55,040 --> 01:08:57,400
Speaker 4: Murray Smith, who's arguably one of the best writers we've

1324
01:08:57,400 --> 01:08:58,120
Speaker 4: got in the country.

1325
01:08:58,439 --> 01:08:59,599
Speaker 3: So you know, I've got to pull.

1326
01:08:59,479 --> 01:09:04,200
Speaker 4: Myselcks, but I'm terrific excited. Yeah, and brand new play

1327
01:09:05,360 --> 01:09:11,960
Speaker 4: Yeah Yeah, Berlin. Two young people, you know, under thirty,

1328
01:09:12,000 --> 01:09:14,559
Speaker 4: both of them, and it's a five hundred seat theater.

1329
01:09:14,600 --> 01:09:19,120
Speaker 4: I think so. And as with Joanna's all of Joanna's work,

1330
01:09:19,560 --> 01:09:22,639
Speaker 4: she's a perfect example of what I was talking about

1331
01:09:22,680 --> 01:09:26,719
Speaker 4: in the sense that she finds the naughtiest, trickiest subjects,

1332
01:09:26,720 --> 01:09:29,840
Speaker 4: things that we're scared to deal with, and forces them,

1333
01:09:30,280 --> 01:09:32,840
Speaker 4: forces people in a room together the nut it all out.

1334
01:09:33,040 --> 01:09:37,040
Speaker 4: And on this particular occasion, she's got two young people

1335
01:09:37,080 --> 01:09:41,839
Speaker 4: who've gone and fallen in love and there is something

1336
01:09:42,240 --> 01:09:45,800
Speaker 4: in the way, something huge in the way something to

1337
01:09:45,840 --> 01:09:47,439
Speaker 4: do with Berlin, but if.

1338
01:09:47,360 --> 01:09:49,439
Speaker 3: You want to know more, come and see it. Thank you,

1339
01:09:49,760 --> 01:09:51,719
Speaker 3: we're very excited to get started with Joe.

1340
01:09:51,520 --> 01:09:54,240
Speaker 2: On that and thank you so much. You are wonderful.

1341
01:09:54,760 --> 01:09:57,800
Speaker 3: You really are real honor and a pleasure. Thank you,

1342
01:09:58,400 --> 01:09:58,960
Speaker 3: big love.

1343
01:10:01,360 --> 01:10:07,000
Speaker 1: That's a wrap on another episode of Fearlessly Failing. As always,

1344
01:10:07,160 --> 01:10:10,520
Speaker 1: thank you to our guests, and let's continue the conversation

1345
01:10:10,680 --> 01:10:16,479
Speaker 1: on Instagram. I'm at Yamo Lollaberry. This potty my word

1346
01:10:16,479 --> 01:10:21,240
Speaker 1: for podcast is available on all streaming platforms. I'd love

1347
01:10:21,280 --> 01:10:24,320
Speaker 1: it if you could subscribe, rate and comment and of

1348
01:10:24,400 --> 01:10:25,960
Speaker 1: course spread the love.