 My name is Steve Snead, and I'm an acting teacher. I'm located at South Lake High School. Shout out for South Lake. OK, so today I'm going to 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 want to 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. A lot of times 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. 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 going to start with that today. I don't start with that. I'm going to start with that. And what I do is I teach young people. If they can't juggle, I teach them how to juggle. And this is the way that I do that. Now, I use scarves because scarves are easy. And these are kind of easy to find. You can buy them on your favorite online purchasing store of some kind. And scars 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 and you have one in the left hand. And the other thing about juggling 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. It 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. Snead. 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 all right, here we go. But here, keep them tight, keep them close to your body. That makes it easier. And what you'll notice is, let's see. OK, 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. So now this one is for enunciation. And the 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, that K at the end, or just before the end, cake, that completes the word. And 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, OK? So we use this exercise. I call it baby Bible boo. 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, OK? And I like to do it with some rhythm in there, OK? So I'm going to 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 B, B, by, bow, boo. 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. OK, so K, K, K, K, K, K, K, K, K, K, K, K, K, D, D, D, D, DA, DO, DU, VI, VA, VI, VA, VO, VO. OK, let's stop there for a moment. Students. Now, I'm going to 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'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. OK, we'll do it a little faster, but not too much faster. You're just learning. That's OK, all right. All right, ready? T, T, T, T, T, T, 2, D, DA, B, DA. So it just continues on. You can continue doing more of that. Say the letters, repeat the baby by bo-boo sequence. All right, so next is breathing. And 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. It's 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 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, it 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, shoulders up at the same time. Breathe in, shoulders up, the tension goes in the shoulder, and then let it out, one more, just do one more. Breathe in, and shoulders up, ah, okay. Let it 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, pushing. It's pushing the words out. It's different from when I'm just talking normal, if I'm 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, and 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, 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 Snead, acting teacher. My school is Southlake High School in Seattle, Washington. Thank you so much.