Welcome to the creative presence, a show that’s dedicated to expanding your creative self expression. And at the same time getting your projects done. And I’m your host, Joshua Townshend.
Today, let’s talk about taking up space. Forget about introvert and extrovert for right now let’s go with just the straight up. How much space? Does your character take up? Or yourself? How much space do you take up? And when I say space, I mean both physical, physical space, How much space does the person hold? In terms of energetic? And then also how much vocal energy or emotional energy do they take up in the room? Can it takes you outside of the idea of like, Oh, I’m an introvert or I’m an extrovert. Let’s just go after how the person comports themselves in day to day reality. Because if you’re telling a transformational story, you want to make that very clear at the beginning of the narrative. And at the end of the narrative, if there’s been a shift or a change, what we’re doing now is we’re making unconscious behavior conscious. See, a lot of people don’t really think about when they walk down a sidewalk, where do they walk down the sidewalk? Are they walking to the left of center? Are they walking at the edge? Are they walking in the middle? What is their set point? Where do they usually take up that space? And that’s really important, because it needs to go beyond circumstantial. It needs to go beyond Oh, well, there was a person with a dog over there. So I wanted to back off or lady with a baby or, or homeless person that I was scared of, or those are all external circumstances that will change I’m talking about when the character or you walk down the sidewalk, and there’s nothing external that would influence your behavior one way or the other, oh, I’m walking in this area, because I’m getting this son, right. That’s another external circumstance. If I’m just walking down the sidewalk, and there’s no external circumstances that’s unduly influencing my behavior, where do I naturally gravitate towards? Do I go to the edge? Or am I in the middle? And when I go to the middle of my taking space in the middle, or not? Or am I going to the edge like tight to the edge or just sort of easy to the edge? There’s a full range of possibilities here. And you’re saying, Joshua, what are you talking about? Why are we being so micro? This is important, because this is about consciously creating your characters unconscious behavior. Now, in order to consciously create the unconscious behavior, you need to be conscious of it. Otherwise, you can’t create it at will. I’m going to give a couple examples, The King’s Speech, that’s a prime example of someone who took up little to no vocal space by the beginning of the narrative. And by the end, he took up all the space, in fact, it rallied his troops and it rallied the whole country, every time you watch one of those celebrity driven talent shows where you have a singer and the singer comes out in the very meek and mild and what are you going to saying, Oh, this and that. And then all of a sudden, the music starts and all this vocal energy comes out. I mean, that’s a huge transformation in that one small moment from being interviewed to actually performing. We see it all the time in different kinds of feature films where they show the the meek mill or mild mannered person at the beginning of the narrative, and by the end of it, they’re taking over the boardroom, both physically and vocally. So if we can change it for ourselves, then we can change it for our characters. If we can work with it from a practical practitioner based perspective, then when we actually do a write about it, or we do perform about it, perform it, we’re able to tap into a greater nuance and a greater truth I’d like you to this week is stay really aware of those opportunities that will come up that will present themselves to look for the times you walk down the sidewalk look for times you’re in elevators, or you’re in a classroom situation.
Notice if you go to the front, the back the sides, the middle, what’s the comfortability level, and maybe there’s atmospheres where there’s a certain atmosphere that you go into or certain space that you go into, were able to take up a lot of space, and then other environments or other atmospheres you tend to shrink. Find out what those are, be bold, you know, a play with your head. judges, if you have a certain kind of a character who’s very bold and aggressive, it’s going to be a very unique moment when he or she curls up into a fetal position. And conversely, if you have someone who’s meek and mild, you might start them off in the fetal position. And then, by the end of the narrative, he’s he or she is, you know, standing superhero kind of stance. And really, as you go through this week, and you go through these exercises, check out here’s a couple of questions. Check out what’s my relationship? To open space? How do I feel when I go into open space? What’s my relationship to walls? How do I feel about being close? or far away from a wall? How do I occupy space? So these are a couple of questions. And of course, when I always want people to go to their personal edges and play with them, you know, so if you have a tendency to be in the middle, go to the edges. If you have to go to the edges, then you know, play your play your edge and go to the middle of the space. And all the time checking in with how it is you How does that feel? What what are the contrasting feelings, what’s coming up. The last thing I want to talk about today is that when you’re doing this kind of work in day to day life, it actually takes up no extra time. Because what we’re really looking for is, is in awareness, we’re looking at growing our awareness and our ability to consciously create. And these opportunities when you’re walking from your car to the market, or you’re walking down the street, or you’re in an elevator, all those moments will happen in your life. Now, can we use them? Can we work with them? Can we challenge ourselves? Can we expand our possibility and our range for ourselves and for our character? So have a wonderful week. Keep it fun, keep it creative, keep it really creative, and I look forward to the next one. Thank you for listening. If you love what you’re listening to please subscribe and then share with fellow creatives. For more, go to www.JoshuaTownshend.com.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
external circumstances, space, sidewalk, person, atmospheres, character, walking, fetal position, narrative, edge, vocal, consciously, behavior, moment, joshua, creative self expression, talk, perform, creative, unconscious, creative writing, creative flow, Know the unknown, conscious creation, story, story in the thing, character is story,
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