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Take a bow
The concept of entertainment, staying for the bows, the work behind "entertainment" at any level.
Whew. This may be a rant. It may also create insight and value to an under appreciated industry. Either way, it is something that is important to me.
Imagine with me. You went to the theater tonight. You're all dressed up and excited for the night! Watching the performance, there is the cast, the light, the sound, the music. An entirely different world and story unfolding before you eyes. Characters from different time frames or different cultures take shape with make-up, costumes, accents ect. Now this is what you came to see! It wraps you up and pulls you into the show. It is FANTASTIC!
Now, it is the end of the performance. The final scene plays and the curtain goes down.
You grab your popcorn and your jacket and get up and leave. Great performance. Time to go.
.
.
.
How many of you just had a "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!" moment?
In theater, that is the exact opposite of what is proper etiquette for attending a performance. What usually happens, is you clap and cheer through then entire presentation of the cast, the director, the band, the sound and lights, the design crew, ect. You stay until everyone has been recognized.
Why?
They spent hours and hours preparing for you so you could have a two hour experience. This is your opportunity to celebrate and acknowledge that.
So let's translate that into another experience. You are at the movie theater. Memorized by what is in front of you. Half of it is a digital creation. Some not even something that a human can act out. Some of it was created in front of a green screen, some of the characters are no longer living. Yet someone spent hours creating that experience for you.
I mean, hello! Avengers anyone? Star Wars? Game of Thrones? Do you realize how much time effort and energy goes into those performances? Yet at the end, when the credits role, we don't take the time to sit through the credits to acknowledge their contribution. We get up and leave. It was fantastic! And we get up and leave! If it was a play, we would stay the whole way through. Somehow names on a screen don't translate the same way them all walking on stage does.
I understand that they are two different mediums. I also understand that they are not quite so different. What would five minutes of acknowledgement mean across the country to the people who manifested the details of each shingle on the roof in Venice for the Spiderman movie? What could staying to celebrate the camera men, the costume designer, the digital artists give to the people who worked so hard to bring you iconic live actions of Beauty and the Beast, of The Lion King, of Harry Potter. :) This is one of the major reasons Marvel created Easter eggs at the end of their movies. So that people stayed to acknowledge the creators.
So imagine if you will, next time you go to a movie, taking those few extra minutes to appreciate the cast and crew as they come on screen (on stage).
Share the idea with your friends you are with to build a theater where people stay for the Bow. <3