What we can learn from Pixar

OK, I've got two little boys, and I've seen "Finding Nemo" a bajillion times.  ["The drop off?  Why don't we fry 'em up now and serve 'em with chips??"]  I've also seen Toy Story, Cars and A Bug's Life a lot.  If you don't have kids let me explain - these are animated movies, like the old Disney classics, but every scene is generated frame by frame by a computer.  The visual result is extremely realistic and compelling.  And they're really good flicks!  Their box office records speak for themselves.  I haven't seen Wall-E yet, but I hear it's the best one yet, and may be nominated for Best Picture!

Stick with me here.  We're going somewhere.

I also must confess that I have science in my background, and at the risk of sounding like a typical Western reductionist, I appreciate the value of the scientific method.  Basically that means you do an experiment twice with almost the same conditions, but just change one thing and see how it affects the outcome.  You know, like Galileo dropping two different sized weights off the leaning tower of Pisa, to prove that gravity doesn't make heavy things drop faster.

Now getting to the point, wouldn't it be interesting to prove something about performance by doing a scientific experiment?  Yes!  And even cooler if the work has already been done for you!  That's where Pixar comes in.

So let's put a question on the table.  Do the actors in a play, and stage performers in general, have to feel the real emotions first, in order to create an emotional response in the audience?  Is there any magical mind-reading going on, or does the audience infer the emotional content of the scene from observing the players?

For the answer, look no further than Buzz Lightyear (pictured above).  All of his facial expressions are created by a computer program.  The computer doesn't feel anything, any more than the canvas under the Mona Lisa has feelings.  But when we watch the characters in a Pixar film interact, it's very real, and we feel very real emotions.  The first few hundred times I saw Marlin (Nemo's Dad) agonizing over the loss of his son, I choked up.  It doesn't matter that there isn't and never was a real Marlin, and the images I'm seeing were generated from ones and zeros in a server farm somewhere.  The impact is real.

All this supports a point I've made many times already on this blog.  As a performer, don't worry about feeling the emotions first.  Be clear about the scene and your objective, step on stage and perform!  You may (or may not) experience the emotions as a reaction to the scene, just like the audience.  But don't waste any time worrying about whether you're feeling the right things.  It's not about you anyway.