Maximum and minimum.

What can be done in the minimum?

The painter, David Hockney in the Louisiana Chanel video, I am a space freak, tells of the time he spent looking at the Grand Canyon before he painted it. He gave maximum time to look and see. He also gave maximum time, effort and money to paint it.

The result is a fully realized piece. A Bigger Grand Canyon.

If you have a day to prepare your audition, what kind of work will you realize.

Independent Canadian features are made in twenty days or less as are Hallmark and Christmas movies. This is minimal.

As an actor is it useful to know whether you’re working under maximum or minimum conditions. Questions that might be bothering you about the quality of your work and your demeanor – glass half empty, glass half full – might be better understood taking time into account.

There’s a culture today of doing things quickly. Performing your job quickly and efficiently is different - like a bricklayer laying bricks with minimum effort, maximum result – and a skill to admire.

But, many other areas of human endeavour require time to: observe, consider, think, reflect, create. Is the method and atmosphere of work producing quality and excellence. That’s the question.

In the past, one-hour TV dramas took fourteen days to shoot. Today, you’ll shoot them in seven. That’s minimum. Commercials shoot a whole day for one minute of screen time. That’s maximum.

Who is dictating the time you have to do your work?