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HOW
TO GAIN KNOWLEDGE:
ZERO TO ONE: AN INFINITE CHANGE™
by Anup Sugunan
I
was speaking with a good friend who is a physician and is thinking
of going into private practice. He has no wife, kids, or mortgage
so he can take risks. He was still worried, but I told him that
he's going from zero
to one in terms of knowledge.
He
has zero knowledge regarding private practice and for him to
go to "one" which is a low level of skill, but the
most crucial step is vital. Mathematically, when you go from
the number zero to the number one, it is an infinite change.
When you go from one to two, it's only a hundred percent change.
Pause and think about that for a second – do the 5th grade
math in your head. Then it continually decreases as illustrated
by the law of diminishing returns. I'm only talking about going
from zero to one.
I
came upon this theory when I was teaching guitar. I get a lot
of
enjoyment from teaching people who have never picked up a guitar
to
play a few basic chords and subsequently pretty much any pop
song on
the radio. Whereas my fellow guitar teacher friend whose students
were already very good players he progressed up to `excellent'
players. Not only did I feel that I open the door for them,
but I
built a door and opened it. That felt so much more gratifying
to me.
Not that one is greater than the other. There are merits for
both,
actually business wise, we'd compliment each other very well.
As
actors and filmmakers it is vital that we take this zero to
one
approach. I see so many Bollywood stars who fake playing the
guitar
and it's so hideous to see such lack of skill and dedication
to your
craft. I'm not talking about brand new actors, but rather veterans
who've been in dozens and dozens of movies playing a guitar
or some
similar instrument. If he were to spend literally spend 20 minutes
to
acquire the knowledge then a few hours of practice, to cement
that
skill, it would be so much more convincing.
A
really good example in terms of this is in the movie Shine
with Geoffrey Rush playing the piano. It totally changed
the shot-list for the director
because he didn't need a hand-double. He could shoot it wide
and Rush
would be dead-on synced up. He might've hit some bad notes,
but those
won't show up in the perfectly prerecorded audio track. Another
excellent display of dedication is by the Karate Kid himself,
Ralph
Macchio, in Crossroads (no, not the one with Britney
Spears). He had
to learn to mimic Steve Vai's actual playing – one of
the most, if not
the most technically gifted rock guitarist ever. These are extreme
examples musical acting proficiency, probably at a level 10
of
`acting' musically. However, I'm talking about going to level
one or a
couple of rungs above it.
An
example of this would be Keanu Reeves and company in The
Matrix.
He spent about six months learning martial arts. To the average
viewer
it was convincing, however, to a trained martial artist it represented
a low skill level.
Filmmakers:
As writers and directors an example of not knowing what
you're writing about is watching an early James Bond movie for
a
horrendous display of martial arts. As a director you're letting
these
thing pass and not redoing it. For cinematographers to shoot
it at the
right angle or choosing stock, lighting, etc. For producers
to get the proper equipment/personnel: stunt coordinator, pads,
wires etc.
Learn
as many different skills, music, drawing, dancing, martial arts,
acrobatics, learning language, accents, etc and it will put
you in a
smaller pool of acting applicants and in higher demand. Furthermore
and more importantly, once you get the job it will be a more
solid
piece of work. Making an infinite change seems impossible
mathematically, but in the real world is only a few moments
of your
time – an excellent return on investment.
Anup
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