(upbeat music)
-: Hello, my name is Steve Sneed,
and I'm an acting teacher.
I'm located at South Lake High School,
shout out for South Lake (laughs).
Okay so, today I'm gonna do some
of the things I do in class.
The first thing I will present to you,
is called the warm up.
Now, the warm up for the actor
is very important for so many reasons.
First of all, our tool is our body.
So, you must take good care of your body.
And one of the ways you do that, is you exercise.
You watch what you put in your body.
How do you feed yourself?
What do you ingest into your body?
So, you wanna make sure you take care
of your body, that's important.
Think about actors that you see in movies
and not just action flicks.
But any sort of film or a lot of times, you know,
what you see is just a portion of the work.
It's taken hours and that's fatiguing,
it's tiring to stand and do something for a long period
of time over and over and over,
it takes a physical endurance.
So, the warm up helps you to relax, right?
And the way that I like to do it,
is I like to do a juggling warm up.
So, I start with that,
I'm gonna start with that today.
I don't start with that,
I'm gonna start with that (laughs)
And what I do is, I teach young people,
if they can't juggle, I teach 'em how to juggle.
And this is the way that I do that.
I use scarves because scarves are easy,
and these are kinda easy to find.
You can buy 'em on your favorite online purchasing store
of some kind, right?
And scarves are light, they're easy to catch.
Now you can use fruit, you can use tennis balls,
you can just try with anything in your house.
Now, the way that you start,
is you take two in the right hand, right?
And you have one in the left hand.
And the other thing about juggling and as an actor,
it's important to be able
to learn different skills quickly, too.
And that's why I like juggling,
it's physical, its moves the body,
and it's something to learn
if you don't know how to do it.
And you'll surprise yourself.
You say, "Wow, I didn't think I could do it."
Students come in all the time,
"I can't do that Mr. Sneed."
And what do you know, by the end of the day,
they know how to juggle.
I learned like that,
a guy told me, "I can teach you
"how to juggle in five minutes," and he actually did.
So alright, here we go.
Just a little warm up here,
keep 'em tight, keep 'em close to your body,
that makes it easier.
And what you'll notice is,
let's see, okay.
So, that's the juggle.
Now, the rest of the warm up for an actor,
is vocal and some physical also.
So, three rules for the actor, be heard, be understood,
and don't bump into the furniture.
In other words don't be clumsy, alright?
So, now this one is for enunciation,
and enunciation is the clarity of the word.
Now, vowels, what's a vowel?
A, E, I, O, U, correct, that's a vowel.
We all know what vowels are,
or at least we know now, A, E, I, O and U.
What's a consonant?
All the rest of the letters.
The consonant completes the word.
The consonant is what makes the word clear.
So, if I say the word cake, cake, right?
That K at the end, or just before the end,
cake, that completes the word.
When you're on stage,
in a big place with 2,500 people in the audience,
it's going to be difficult for them to understand you
if you leave out those consonants at the end of the words.
Okay, so we use this exercise,
I call it Ba, Be, Bi, Bo, Bu.
We use this, to work on our muscles in our mouth,
and then our lips and our tongue
and to get them used to being able
to enunciate all sorts of words.
That's essentially the deal, okay.
So, now and I like to do it with some
rhythm in there, okay.
So, I'm gonna say a consonant,
you put the consonant in front of the vowel,
and then you repeat.
Now, I'll give you an example.
I'll say B, and you say Ba, Be, Bi, Bo, Bu.
And you really express it with your mouth,
use your mouth and pay attention to what you're doing.
Understand what your mouth is doing.
You know what I mean by that?
Think about that.
Really observe your mouth and observing
is not just watching, it's listening,
it's feeling, it's using all the senses.
Okay so, K, Ka, Ke, Ki, Ko, Ku (claps)
D (claps) Da, De, Di, Do, Du (claps)
V (claps) Va, Ve, Vi, Vo, Vu (claps)
Y (claps) Ya, Ye, Yi, Yo, Yu (claps)
S (claps) Sa, Se, Si, So, Su (claps)
H (claps) Ha, He, Hi, Ho, Hu (claps)
L (claps) La, Le, Li, Lo, Lu.
Okay, let's stop there for a moment, students.
Now I'm gonna continue,
but I want you to pay attention to the rhythm,
do it in rhythm, rhythm is very important.
Well, I'm a percussionist
so, it's important to me.
But it's also important as an actor on stage,
timing, you know, you've heard of comedic timing.
So, I like to do this in rhythm
and if you're doing it with a group of people,
everyone has to be in sync.
That's what teaches ensemble: how to work
with a cast of actors too.
Okay, we'll do it a little faster,
but not too much faster,
you're just learning, that's okay.
Alright, (laughs) alright, ready?
T, Ta, Te, Ti, To, Tu (claps)
D (claps) Da, De, Di, Do, Du
V (claps) Va, Ve, Vi, Vo, Vu
F (claps) Fa, Fe, Fi, Fo, Fu
T (claps) Ta, Te, Ti, To, Tu.
Z (claps) Za, Ze, Zi, Zo, Zu
W (claps) Wa, We, Wi, Wo, Wu
G (claps) Ga, Ge, Gi, Go, Gu
J (claps) Ja, Je, Ji, Jo, Ju
Ah, alright.
So, it just continues on,
you can continue doing more of that,
say the letters repeat
the Ba, Be, Bi, Bo, Bu sequence, alright?
So, next is breathing.
In breathing, is how you support volume, right?
Breathing, the way in which you take in air,
and express the words,
how you push them out, is all about air and breathing.
Okay, so I'm gonna demonstrate,
now, and this is also a relaxation thing.
So, you breathe in, breathe in,
shoulders up, and then let it out,
ahhh, like that.
And let it out with a good tone,
you know, not just a holler.
Hollering is not what you wanna do,
there's a difference between hollering and projecting.
Projecting comes from here, you push it out,
takes work, work those stomach muscles.
That core has to work.
Okay so, let's breathe in and let it out again.
Breathe in, and then let it out, ahhh,
shoulders up at the same time.
Breathe in, shoulders up,
the tension goes in the shoulder
and then let it out, ahhh.
One more, let's do one more.
Breathe in, and shoulders up,
let it out, ahhh, okay.
Man, just loosen up a little bit.
Okay, last exercise warm up.
This is about the stomach as well.
And this is a pushing, pushing the sound out.
I'll demonstrate, breathe in.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
See how my stomach is pushing, pushing the words out,
different from when I'm just talking normal,
if I'm, you know, in the living room
and I'm talking hey, you know,
stomach doesn't have to work like that.
But if I'm on stage,
and I have to project I want people
to hear me even if you have a mic.
Even if you have a mic,
you still want to be able to push, project.
Okay, let's do that exercise again.
Breathe in and push it out,
ahhh ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Hear that tone,
I'm pushing, not hollering,
I'm pushing for a good tone, okay?
Now, that's your warm up.
Now you're ready to go on stage.
Now you're ready to present in front of the class,
in front of the whole school,
whatever it is, right?
Now you're ready to go.
Your body is awake and alive and ready.
Steve Sneed, acting teacher.
My school is South Lake High School
in Seattle, Washington (laughs).
Thank you so much.
(upbeat music)