Be A Director And Zoom In

 Be A Director And Zoom In

When the world, the country, politics, or your life become too much and you understandably feel overwhelmed, within this blog is some advice from me to you.


If you are already sick and tired of people telling you how you should handle yourself in these trying times, you can absolutely choose to stop reading now. Please know that this is not me telling you what to do but an offering for you to consider. 


The biggest difference in the medium of TV and Film compared to stage work is that the story on screen is predominantly told through pictures. 

Consider an opening montage of a movie: 

You see shot of the city of San Francisco, then a specific neighborhood with a row of houses, then a tighter shot on the house with the blue door, then a shot of a person laying in bed with morning sunlight spilling in from the curtains, you hear an alarm go off, you see an iPhone on the bedside table, then a hand shutting off an alarm that is labelled “graduation day”. 

We have learned SO much without anyone uttering a word. Right?!


The writer, director and director of photography have captured the visual elements required to tell this specific moment of the story in a really economic way so that they launch us into story and circumstances immediately. 


Zooming in on things helps shift the perspective so that we, the audience get more information to make us understand the circumstances better. 


How does this relate to you in this moment, here in early November 2024? I encourage you to zoom in on yourself. Try to quiet down the noise of the world and social media and ask yourself -  “If I really zoom in on myself and my current condition, what do I need in this moment?”


Let me be clear, ‘need’ is different than ‘want’. 

What many people want for example is to shut everything out and disappear, or doom scroll on social media, or eat lots of unhealthy things or to stay in bed all day. 


Following what you want is okay BUT make sure it’s temporary if you notice that what you ’want’ is not in alignment with what you honestly ‘need’. 


What I know I need is: 

Sleep, 

Water, 

Vegetables, 

Exercise, 

Coffee,

Socialisation, 

Stillness and quiet. 


I’ve been working 12 hour days, 6 days a week putting on a Broadway show for the past three months alongside running my acting studio, associate directing an off-Broadway play and being a husband and parent - In addition to this I have been following everything election related extremely closely and it’s all been very intense. 

There have been MANY times where what I really WANTED to do was eat a tonne of chocolate, drink a bottle of wine and not go to bed because the quiet time at night is precious. However, I know that that is the opposite of what I need. So I tell myself “you’ll get plenty of time for chocolate, wine and late nights soon enough when it's safe and healthy to do so but right now, you need to TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF! Drink some water, leave your phone in a separate room and go to bed”


Taking care of yourself is not always the easiest thing to do - particularly because many of us are so extremely hard on ourselves that it can be difficult to accept that we deserve being cared for! BUT when the country and the world feel so much bigger and broader than anything you can control; you can and must ALWAYS use your zoom switch to bring it back to taking care of yourself. You can DEFINITELY do that. You are smart enough. You are strong enough. You deserve to be well taken care of!


This community of Mark Evans Studio means the world to me and I know it means a lot to so many of you too. I encourage you to rely on each other. Reach out to each other and let your art - your classes, plays, books, movies, museums - be a healing balm for yourselves and each other. 


Zoom in on yourself because you’re the director of your own life. 

Tell the story you want to be told and tell it with care.


Keep up the great work.

We’re gonna be okay. 


Mark 

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