The video’s short. 32 seconds.

The camera is focused on Robert De Niro the whole time. He’s filming a promo. It’s 2006? Maybe 2007?

The video is an outtake: 

“When we created Tribeca,” De Niro says, “we wanted to capture all the emotion, all the energy, and all the power of a movie. See for yourself, Tuesday on FOX.”

His voice is even, steady, low.

“OK,” the director says off-camera. “Can we try one that’s just generally more... energetic?”

De Niro shakes his head. “I’m sorry,” he says. “That’s energetic. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It is?” the director says. There’s tension. 

“Yes, excuse me,” says De Niro. “I’m not selling cars, OK.”

The director seems to think saying a message LOUDER makes it more compelling, so he asked for more energy, for an exclamation mark. But De Niro was only willing to use a period. Because he knows you don’t necessarily need to be loud to engage people.

Most of the time, you need only say something inherently exciting or meaningful or compelling to a specific group of people. Because if your message aligns with its target audience, it doesn’t need to be loud or hype. 

It just needs to be.

Years back, I listened to an interview with master copywriter, Ben Settle:

“How can you avoid sounding too hype in your copy without losing the impact of the promise or benefit?” the interviewer asked. 

“Just either get rid of all the exclamation marks or use them sparingly,” Ben said. “If you’re saying something that someone really needs to hear, it doesn’t really matter how you say it, so much as just saying it.”

I think that’s what De Niro meant when he said, “I’m sorry, that’s energetic…”

I think he knew the energy was in the message itself, not the delivery. 

So if you know your message is inherently valuable or interesting or necessary to an audience, remember: you usually, probably, won’t need an exclamation mark behind it.

No. 

Usually, probably, a period will do.

P.S.

This is De Niro’s “I’m sorry, that’s energetic…” clip:

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