I've often wonderered about how people use their hands when communicating verbally. It's mostly involuntary I suspect. Ingrained like accent, speech patterns,favorite pause fillers. Magicians on the other hand are quite purposeful in how they use their hands. Drawing the eye in one direction with the motion of their two hands while their third hand is putting a rabbit in the hat. At least I think that's how they do it.
It's a scary thing to see a driver talking on a cellphone, speeding along 45+, one hand holding the phone, the other hand gesturing, underlining salient points, no hands visible on the wheel. Maybe they're magicians.
I was once hired to videotape a woman who trained corporate suits on public speaking. She was big on the hands and what they should do with them while speaking. It was her theory that the hands working in concert, like a conductor, were a distraction from the thoughts they were trying to convey verbally. One hand gesturing at a time was best practice in her book. The dormant hand was best left hanging at their side being seen but not heard. It seemed a tall order to break someone of something so instinctual. Like trying to eliminate the " ahhs" and "umms" and "you knows" from a conversation. It was complete folly to think anyone would learn this from the tape I was shooting.
I do believe she has a point about the hands being a distraction or causing the listener to misinterpret what your trying to say. I was once on a roadtrip from Orlando to Tampa. It was in '95 and the Orlando Magic were in the playoffs. I had stopped at a Cracker Barrel to grab dinner about halfway through the trip. While waiting to order dinner I was playing with one of those triangle peg games. The object of the game is to eliminate pegs by jumping one peg over the other. When the waitress brought our drinks I asked if she thought anyone in the kitchen might know the Magic score. She responded "There's no magic score you just try to remove as many pegs as you can." I thanked her and made my dinner order.
Of course with little effort I found this is the subject of serious research. By lots of bigger brained people than myself. Korlei Mensah wrote a whole term paper on it with research and observation of test groups and citations. She cited someone named Weitz who said: "Gesturing is nothing more than movements of expression." I also found a study out of the University of Chicago where they found directed or instructed gesturing helped third and fourth graders solve math problems. I immediately thought of counting on my fingers but the study quickly pointed out it wasn't that kind of gesturing but more of a grouping of the equation by making a "v" under the first two numbers. Then my attention span waned and I came back to write.
Certainly hand gestures can help the listener visualize concepts like shape or direction or even emotion. A clenched fist or extended middle finger speaks volumes as does a wave or a peace symbol. Once while I was paired up for golf with three Japanese citizens verbal communication was impossible. Lots of smiling and nodding. I don't remember exactly where in the round I started but I found myself giving the "happy thumbs-up" gesture after they would make a shot. It was a genuine good-will gesture on my part but I started to notice their reaction was more perplexed than a smile and nod. I realized I had even given them a few "double thumbs-ups" and I thought; "What if that is the equivalent of a middle finger?" If so I had been insulting them for a good part of the round. I decided to keep my hands to myself the rest of the round.
All in all I prefer people who animate their conversations with their hands. When I shoot interviews I would rather include the persons whole self in the shot. The best is if you can catch someone in the act of doing something with their hands. Washing dishes, potting plants, carving cigar-store indian statues. If they can converse while continuing to work that makes a far more interesting and revealing interview. Forget the eyes being a window to the soul I think it's the hands.
It's a scary thing to see a driver talking on a cellphone, speeding along 45+, one hand holding the phone, the other hand gesturing, underlining salient points, no hands visible on the wheel. Maybe they're magicians.
I was once hired to videotape a woman who trained corporate suits on public speaking. She was big on the hands and what they should do with them while speaking. It was her theory that the hands working in concert, like a conductor, were a distraction from the thoughts they were trying to convey verbally. One hand gesturing at a time was best practice in her book. The dormant hand was best left hanging at their side being seen but not heard. It seemed a tall order to break someone of something so instinctual. Like trying to eliminate the " ahhs" and "umms" and "you knows" from a conversation. It was complete folly to think anyone would learn this from the tape I was shooting.
I do believe she has a point about the hands being a distraction or causing the listener to misinterpret what your trying to say. I was once on a roadtrip from Orlando to Tampa. It was in '95 and the Orlando Magic were in the playoffs. I had stopped at a Cracker Barrel to grab dinner about halfway through the trip. While waiting to order dinner I was playing with one of those triangle peg games. The object of the game is to eliminate pegs by jumping one peg over the other. When the waitress brought our drinks I asked if she thought anyone in the kitchen might know the Magic score. She responded "There's no magic score you just try to remove as many pegs as you can." I thanked her and made my dinner order.
Of course with little effort I found this is the subject of serious research. By lots of bigger brained people than myself. Korlei Mensah wrote a whole term paper on it with research and observation of test groups and citations. She cited someone named Weitz who said: "Gesturing is nothing more than movements of expression." I also found a study out of the University of Chicago where they found directed or instructed gesturing helped third and fourth graders solve math problems. I immediately thought of counting on my fingers but the study quickly pointed out it wasn't that kind of gesturing but more of a grouping of the equation by making a "v" under the first two numbers. Then my attention span waned and I came back to write.
Certainly hand gestures can help the listener visualize concepts like shape or direction or even emotion. A clenched fist or extended middle finger speaks volumes as does a wave or a peace symbol. Once while I was paired up for golf with three Japanese citizens verbal communication was impossible. Lots of smiling and nodding. I don't remember exactly where in the round I started but I found myself giving the "happy thumbs-up" gesture after they would make a shot. It was a genuine good-will gesture on my part but I started to notice their reaction was more perplexed than a smile and nod. I realized I had even given them a few "double thumbs-ups" and I thought; "What if that is the equivalent of a middle finger?" If so I had been insulting them for a good part of the round. I decided to keep my hands to myself the rest of the round.
All in all I prefer people who animate their conversations with their hands. When I shoot interviews I would rather include the persons whole self in the shot. The best is if you can catch someone in the act of doing something with their hands. Washing dishes, potting plants, carving cigar-store indian statues. If they can converse while continuing to work that makes a far more interesting and revealing interview. Forget the eyes being a window to the soul I think it's the hands.
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