 Hello, Steve Schneed here, acting instructor. I'm located at Southlake High School in Seattle, Washington. Now today, I'm going to talk about the physical and physicality and a little bit about character, assuming a role. And being observant, the important thing is to be observant about your instrument, what it's doing. A lot of times when I would start a character, I would first, of course, I learn about the character. And then I would develop the walk, because the walk to me embodied the feel of the character. So if I had to walk like this, or say I'm going to walk on my toes, or if I'm old, I'm a real old, if I'm walking like this. But you see how my feet are doing something different? They're slapping. And let's see. The reason I have to tell this story, this is the quick story, students bear with me. I was in a play, this was in college. And I'd walk across the stage, and I'd always do like that. And it's harder to do with my tennis shoes. If I had heels on back in the day, you'd have these little metal taps on your shoes, and I had a cool sound. You walk, and you have that little cool sound going. But I adopted that walk. And it was just how I walked all the time. The director finally said to me one day, Steve, would you please stop walking across the stage, straightening your feet. And I mean, he was frustrated. He had been listening to it, and he couldn't under. And it shocked me, because my director, he liked me. He gave me good parts. And it made me think, wow, for the first time, I actually paid attention to my feet and what I did with them whenever I did a character. So I say that to you to stress the importance of paying attention to what your body is doing. So now in class, we do an improv game. And we do it to develop the thinking about your facial expression. So for instance, I'll give them a card. And on the card, it will say, hungry. So then they have to come in and show hunger. And the rest of the students have to guess what they're doing. So I'm going to give you a couple examples and see if you can guess what I'm doing. Let's see. OK. Can you guess what I was doing? That's kind of easy. Maybe. Maybe not. OK. Here's another one. And you do these yourselves, right? You can do these yourself. But I'm just giving you an example. Oh. OK. Those are a couple examples. So think of your own words. Happy, sad, pain, anger, right? Use these words. And you can videotape yourselves and show them to people and see if they can guess what it is. And again, look at yourselves in the mirror. OK. So let's do a couple more walks. Now another way to think about it is if I'm a professional, and I think I'll walk toward you, if I'm a professional, I'm a lawyer, say, how might I carry myself? If I'm a lawyer, I might carry myself. Let me do it sideways, too, as you can see. I'm a lawyer. You guys think about my shoulders, right? How is my head? What is my head doing? What's my neck doing? OK. So let's say I'm a construction worker, right? I got to carry heavy stuff. And I use my hands, right? So how might I walk a little different, right? How's that? Subtle. Want to be subtle, too. Does that look like a construction worker? What did I do? I just widened my stance a little bit, rocked back and forth a little bit, heads down, shoulders. What are my shoulders doing? It's one of the things I really liked about acting is that walk really makes a difference, that physicality. So explore that. Give yourself a word. Give yourself a persona, a profession, and then assume the way they walk. And I'm going to ask you to do this. Don't look at a movie about a lawyer and then decide how to walk. Don't do that initially. You've already got all that information stored up. You already have an image for yourself. And what you'll find is you take in a lot of data. You say a doctor. How does a doctor come in? Also, pace is really important. Let's say, how is a doctor? I think of a doctor. Because the other thing is, everyone's going to think they're going to interpret a profession or a type a little differently. And that's all that matters. There's an interpretation for everything. It's different based on who you are. But they're all valid. So let's say a doctor. I had imagined a doctor. And pace, a doctor might be. To me, doctors are always in a hurry. They come in the room. They come to see you. Hey, Mr. Snead, how are you doing? OK, all right. Check your vitals. You're good. All right, we'll see you. Doctors are actually always busy. I notice that they're moving quickly. But pace is an important one, too. Because pace just keeps things moving. Intention, right? What's intention? How about if I look like this? What do I look like? Do I look like I'm going to do something important? Like a friend of mine, I went to New York. He said, now, when you're in New York, walk like you got somewhere to go. Don't walk like you're looking around like, you know. No, don't do that in New York. You better walk like you got somewhere to go. So that's a different walk, right? Like you got somewhere to go. I am busy. I am important, right? I am an important individual here. Somewhere to be, OK? OK, so you know why they call them plays, right? You go to see something in the theater. It's called a play, because it involves play. So the important message today is play. Get your body used to playing. Have fun. All right, Steve Snead acting. Again, I'm at South Lake High School in Seattle, Washington. All right, thanks.