The Weight of Words

      Many years ago, I had the chance to "direct" Jack Lemmon in a narration for the Monterey Arts Festival. The thought of me directing him was laughable. I did have to get him to do a retake or two when there was some mouth noise or some other anomaly. It was never for the performance. I knew at the outset that I would be working with an Academy Award winning actor with an unbelievable resumé and I had no delusions that I would be doing much direction.

           Believe it or not, that's how it works in motion pictures. You get the basic gist from a director, hit your marks and just say the words. That's the way it seems, but for a good actor those words have meaning. Every. Single Word. In a good script, words in a sentence have color, a characteristic and a purpose. If they don't, they shouldn't be there. Words have weight. Coming from an authority, such as a supervisor, they can have a larger impact than someone in a lesser position. We are conditioned to react differently, depending on the source.

In general usage, the perception of words by a listener can change with inflection. In some ways, like the world of the four dimensions we live in, words have "length" in their pronunciation, "width" in the heaviness of emphasis, "height" in the pitch and they vary in speed to mimic "time" in linguistics.

           Listening to Jack Lemmon read those words, he showed me that all the words mattered and something that we should be more attuned: words are musical. There's a rhythm. There is a kind of notation to reading a script.

           Just as music does, words have power. Incredible power. With a kind word offered for no reason, we each have the power to make a positive impact on someone's day. We have power, through words, to make people feel good. And that makes us feel good, too.

           People often get tripped up on a very weighty word: ego. The separation between their social media selves and everyone else becomes a mental cocoon in a world where we use voiceless texts that can be taken differently, depending on how a reader perceives them. A smiley face at the end of sentence is a way to soften a comment. We also use incessant shorthand. IDK. OMG. WTF.

The printed word, whether in texts, emails or the posts people make on social sites is always open to interpretation. Texting and emails have also made it easier to lie because, hey, it's just words. Body language and facial characteristics are an important part of the weight of words, lost in the emotional void of alphabet soup. Face-to-face discussions also tend to keep things more conversational instead of descending into verbal war. Being in the presence of someone you're talking with will also give you a more accurate reading to determine the truth and meaning... of their words.

           Social media, it is said, affects the brain like a drug. One report said it is as harmful as alcohol and drugs for millennials. Whether it's hyperbole or amplifying a problem, for a large cross-section of the population it can stimulate an odd kind of addiction. Some egos are so hungry, they want to see what someone wrote about them or if someone liked one of their posts. The dependence of that validation takes away the kind of verbal discourse humans need. The true weight of words communicated in a manner that gives depth and clarity requires a voice. 

Jeff Davis is a voice talent, artist and writer in Hollywood, California. www.jeffdavis.com