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8 Look at the audience or at the camera?

Your attention should be focused throughout the entire performance, and focused enough that you won't even think about where to look.

Acting is a big topic, and it may be necessary to break it down into several sections. You may even see inconsistencies. Please understand that, just like the life it is trying to restore, acting is such a contradictory thing.
Many friends who switch from offline to online have to ask this question, "Should I look at the audience or the camera?"
This question is a false question, because you can see good performances everywhere, and you can see bad performances everywhere. This is why it is difficult for me to explain it clearly in one or two sentences every time someone asks me. Asking the right question is much more difficult than answering the right answer.
I think the real question should be: Where should I focus when I am on stage?

It’s already Section 8, maybe you already have the answer to this question.

Our attention should first be placed on the situation you restore.

Your talk show performance on stage is to recreate the situation when you wrote the article.
When you are acting out a conversation between two people, you won't think about where to look. As long as you focus, your eyes will naturally look at the person you are talking to in your situation.
Your attention should be focused throughout the entire performance. Focused enough, you won't even think about where to look. The situation will lead you to look at every corner of your small but endless world on the stage.
The audience is in these corners, and the camera is naturally in these corners as well.
You asked on the stage, "Did anyone come here by subway?" When you wrote this sentence, the situation in your mind was that you were asking the audience. When you restored it, your attention was naturally directed to the audience.
No one answers, and you sigh, "Wow, young people nowadays can afford cars." Who are you exclaiming at? You should ask yourself. If you are exclaiming at yourself, expressing a sense of self-humiliation and jealousy, you can focus on yourself and even look down at your feet. If you are exclaiming at the world with a little sarcasm, your eyes will naturally look at the camera.
When rehearsing, you can pay attention to your gaze and record it in open mic to see where you are looking. If you pay close attention, you might think: That’s where I was looking.
Once you move, your eyes will go where they should go.

9 Small and Big Situations

Work hard on yourself, the stronger you are, the more audience you will find.

Unlike drama performances, talk shows don’t have a fourth wall. Perhaps you can understand it this way: a talk show is a performance hosted by yourself, with multiple scenarios in your mind.
You are your own host.
"Have you noticed?" "I've been really miserable lately." "What exactly is marriage?" These are the host's words.
We can further break down the situations you imagine when writing your transcript into small situations and big situations.

Small situations are your jokes one after another, and big situations are your hosting.

Please note that this distinction is only for the convenience of understanding. Please forget it when you really start creating and performing (in fact, you cannot remember all the theoretical knowledge when creating, but it may be helpful when modifying your creation).

The core is still that you are demonstrating your own values, and you are using these small situations to repeatedly prove and expand your own values.

I'd like to interject my opinion. The moment when the big and small situations merge, when you and your performance become one on stage, is the moment when the truth of the universe is revealed. It will be particularly fierce and achieve an effect that goes beyond being funny. For example, the design of "kick her crotch" at the end of one of Dave Chappelle's specials will kick you in the heart.
In fact, I often use this trick when I revise manuscripts for you, especially when I am revising the ending of a whole paragraph.
The attention problem in small situations is easy to solve, just get in and act. The problem of how to interact with the audience is a problem of big situations.
I've seen some theories that suggest that in a talk show, the relationship between the performer and the audience is the most important, and that one has to feel the atmosphere and follow it.
I agree, but it's the same as not saying anything. It has no practical value and is even harmful.
The focus is on the relationship with the audience. It is easy to feel overwhelmed on stage. Especially for beginners, you tell me that I must grasp the rhythm of the scene after I go on stage. How can I grasp it? Who am I? Am I qualified to grasp the rhythm of the scene? The consequence is distraction, or even more tragic: when the audience is not laughing, you are helpless and tell dirty jokes and swear. You start to interact frantically, like a drowning person struggling.
We have all had such painful moments, when you can no longer recall the situation constructed by the script, you even forget the words, and you feel like a beggar, and you are willing to kowtow as long as the audience can laugh. Unfortunately, kowtow is useless.

I'll say it again and again: the essence of a talk show performance is to recreate the situation you imagined when you wrote the script.

When you are creating, when you are writing the transcript, you should imagine what you are like on the stage and what kind of situation you are immersed in.
The audience is naturally part of your imagination.
Once you're on stage, act as prepared, make the scene match your imagination, make the audience become the audience you imagined, make them listen to you as the host, and make them ready to follow you into one small situation after another.
Of course you will fail, and the audience will certainly not do exactly what you want. But I still have to say that this is a meaningful failure. After failing like this, you can adjust your imagination and sooner or later you can restore what you have in your mind on the stage.
But if you try to please the audience and kowtow to them, even if they laugh, it is a meaningless success.
Look at the problem from a developmental perspective. This is a lifelong career, a job that is inseparable from everything you do. Meaningful failure is far more valuable than meaningless success.

Please think about this question: what is the purpose of our performance on stage? Is it to serve the audience of that show or that day?
Of course we are responsible for the performance, but this should not be your starting point for going on stage. Instead, you should watch it for a longer time - the goal is always to become a stronger talk show host.
The goal is to hone yourself by making the audience laugh, not to make the audience laugh.
The purpose of constantly doing open mics and performing is to train yourself, not to rock the show.
Eventually you will become an actor who can handle any situation on stage with ease, and you will be a blast on every show. But your starting point should not be to practice this. If you start practicing how to blast on stage, you are unlikely to become a blast on stage actor. Your upper limit is too low. Your upper limit is the audiences that come and go day after day. You will slowly discover that blasting on stage is actually quite easy, and you will reap meaningless success day after day.
This can also explain the discomfort of moving from offline to online. You can develop the ability to serve a hundred people, but can you serve ten million people?

It is not that you look for the audience, but that the audience should look for you. Practice yourself hard, and the stronger you are, the more audience you will find. It is not that the more people you can please, the more audience you will have.
Bombing the scene is a by-product, just as fame and fortune are also by-products.
If you pursue sensation and fame and fortune, you will gain nothing, or worse, you will become a mediocre person or even a bad person.
People are the purpose, not the means. This is not only a moral requirement, but also a very rational conclusion. If you perform to make the audience laugh, you become a means, you become a tool. If you regard yourself as a means, you can only master second-rate means at best. If you regard yourself as the ultimate goal, you will have the opportunity to master first-rate means.
You are your purpose.
The only thing to examine before going to bed every day is: Have you continued to get better? Have you gained something today that you didn't have yesterday? This is Charlie Munger's advice. In fact, I see that many excellent people do this before reading this advice.
Since I have said so many inspirational things, I might as well quote that famous quote: The purpose of life is to become a better self.
A lot of things in chicken soup for the soul are true, but it’s called chicken soup because few people put it into practice.

Once again, this is a logical question, not an aesthetic question. I have no intention of proving aesthetically that pleasing the audience is bad, I am trying to prove logically that pleasing the audience is useless. If you try to please the audience, you will eventually lose the audience.
Of course, aesthetically, I don’t agree with pleasing the audience. At least when I was an audience, I couldn’t laugh if I found an actor trying to please me. The relationship between a talk show host and the audience must be level. You share values, and you gather together the psychological aspects of the audience that you can relate to (Section 5). This is a very touching relationship, and it can’t be begged for.
I got a little excited while writing this, and it seems that I forgot the question I was going to answer. However, I think after reading all of this and understanding the relationship with the audience, you will naturally know where to look, right?
Still don’t know?
Well, here is the simplest and most practical method: straighten your right arm, make a fist, and place it at the focal point of your eyes. Imagine that this fist is three meters away from you, and just stare at it. When you don't know where to look, look at this self-made focal point in the void. Don't think about the audience or the camera, just look at it. Believe me, this way, whether you are on the scene or in the camera, your attention will be focused.

Ankie's Comments:

When performing, you should concentrate on recreating the situation you imagined when writing the script, instead of thinking about whether you should look at the audience or the camera.

It is not that you look for the audience, but that the audience should look for you. Practice yourself hard, and the stronger you are, the more audience you will find. It is not that the more people you can please, the more audience you will have.
Bombing the scene is a by-product, just as fame and fortune are also by-products.