I knew we would elect a black president in the forseeable future years before I ever heard of Barack Obama. Why? Because I’d seen black presidents in movies and TV. Morgan Freeman portrayed the President in Deep Impact back in 1998. Unfortunately he was a very ineffectual president, failing to stop the end of the world. On television Dennis Haysbert played the president starting in 2001 on the series 24. The first step in achieving something, even something once considered impossible, is to show it to us. It is no coincidence that science and technology boomed in the century that early on gave us the motion picture camera. Jules Verne and H.G. Wells contributed greatly to our present world but nothing spurs the creation of the improbable quite like seeing it first.
People “see” things in different ways. As a filmmaker I’ve had meetings where I’ve shown a producer concept art, character designs, storyboards and finished scripts only to have him say in awe after viewing the finished product; “I never could have imagined that.” Really? After reading the script and seeing a scene by scene graphic breakdown in the storyboard you’re surprised at the finished film? That’s because different people see things differently. Take this test: What do you see when you hear the phrase; “Blue Sky?” Do you;
A. See an area of blue with maybe some tree tops sticking up and perhaps a bird flying through?
B. See the words; BLUE SKY.
Or,
C. Don’t “see” anything but hear the sound of the words “Blue Sky”.
Most people don’t think visually but believe they do if selection B is their choice. Some people are honest and will tell you, “I don’t know till I see it”. And others will claim they “see it vividly in their mind” until you show it to them and then they say, “I never could have imagined that”. I don’t know what they were thinking.
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