Clarify Your Intent

While I was in LA I also got to sit on set and watch the filming of one of the top television dramas. I watched them take two hours to film two pages of dialogue involving three actors.

Writers of one hour dramas can be paid six figures for a single script. In the scene, one character was supposed to convey anxiety about an upcoming event, and the other character reassured him that everything would be fine. The actors rehearsed the scene and ran the lines, but they just couldn't say the lines as written. Yet they filmed the scene anyway. Why?

Because the actors clearly conveyed the intent of the scene. After all, the point of acting is to get the actions right. The meaning is in the doing. The actors prepared properly; they knew the intent of the scene.

We've talked about overall objectives. But you achieve your overall objective through your day to day actions. Do you know what you need from each interaction in your day. Are you sure of your intentions before you walk into a meeting at work? If not, get clear. Know what you want to achieve in each meeting, each phone call, each hallway encounter. How can you expect other people to help you get what you want if you don't know?