It’s hard to allow yourself to open your heart to strangers. You think about being dressed as a comic book hero or an animated character or a dinosaur or a robot. It feels goofy to be serious about any of this. It feels better to wink and nod and make jokes about the whole situation.Continue reading “The Character And The Guest”
Tag Archives: Theme Park. Interactive Actors
Aim For The Heart
Hellen Keller said, “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.” Each guest’s heart is the target for the outstanding interactive performer. It isn’t as difficult as it may seem. But, you can’t be superficial. You can’t rely on performance tricksContinue reading “Aim For The Heart”
Seeing Into Someone’s Heart – Non-Verbal Cues
Without thinking about it, everyone does it. People broadcast their level of attention, interest and comfort in non-verbal messages. It’s a peek at what is going on in someone’s heart. To put it into our terms, these messages are the very first offer you get from your scene partner. As you work, it is criticalContinue reading “Seeing Into Someone’s Heart – Non-Verbal Cues”
Pivot… Spin… Adapt
In your work as an interactive character, the Yes part of “Yes, and…” means accepting what the guest sends your way. The And is your response. Now, you could And them from a menu of lines or bits you know usually work. Imagine, instead, using their offer to make the connection more real. What ifContinue reading “Pivot… Spin… Adapt”
“Yes, and…”
The Goal – Each guest becomes a unique, contributing partner in the word of our story. Every time a guest interacts with a character, their feeling of being a valued part of this new world grows deeper and fuller. They go on to explore their new environment, inspired, confident and emotionally connected to this imaginaryContinue reading ““Yes, and…””
It’s Personal
The kind of connection we want between a character and a guest is a personal give and take. A two-way interaction. In the example in last blog entry, we got where the guest makes an emotional connection with the dinosaur. That’s one half of our interaction. Imagine, now, the character incorporates the natural human cuesContinue reading “It’s Personal”
A Real World Example
Here’s a non-human character that couldn’t speak and still pulled guests into her world. I worked regularly with a large dinosaur that would appear in the park. We wanted her to feel as real as possible. The tone surrounding her is this is a real event, with a real animal. Any suggestion of performance isContinue reading “A Real World Example”
Recover A Scared Kid
A quick tangent. As I was writing, I traced these interactive character ideas back to the one standing rule, “Do whatever it takes to Recover A Scared Kid”. When a character unintentionally scares a kid, performers usually do one of three things: Fumble around until someone moves the sobbing kid away and the meet andContinue reading “Recover A Scared Kid”
What You Observe – Apply The Why
Let’s review. As humans we have very sophisticated programming to be social – to interact. At the beginning of every interaction you have two choices. Keep your attention on yourself or place your focus on the other person. If you focus on yourself, you become self-conscious and introspective. You miss the cues those other humansContinue reading “What You Observe – Apply The Why”
A Connections Is Made – Use Your Lifetime of Experience
As humans, we are always sending out information about the way we feel and what we are thinking. We are instinctively trained to receive these cues and react – based on that information and what you want to accomplish. Simply giving those cues value and allowing them to affect you creates a genuine connection. SendingContinue reading “A Connections Is Made – Use Your Lifetime of Experience”
Interactive Characters 