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(upbeat music)

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-: Okay, hello, Steve Sneed here,

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acting instructor,

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I'm located at South Lake High School

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in Seattle, Washington.

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Now, today I'm gonna talk about

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the physical and physicality

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and a little bit about character, right?

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Assuming a role and being observant.

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The important thing is

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to be observant about your instrument,

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what it's doing.

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A lot of times when I would start a character,

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I would, I would first of course,

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I learn about the character

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and then I would develop the walk,

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because the walk to me embodied, you know,

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the feel of the character, right?

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So, you know, if I had to walk like this or say,

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you know, walk on my toes, or if I'm old, right?

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That played all day

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and I was kind of walking like,

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like, I'm real old, right?

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If I'm walking like this,

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because you see how my feet

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are doing something different, right?

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They're slapping.

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And let's see,

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the reason I have to tell this story,

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this is a quick story, students, bear with me.

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I was in a play, this was in college,

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and I was, I'd walk across the stage

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and I always do like that.

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And it's harder to do with my tennis shoes.

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If I had heels on, you know,

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back in the day,

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you'd have these little metal taps

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on your shoes and have a cool sound.

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You walk and you have that cool sound going,

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you know, but I adopted that walk.

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It was how I walked all the time.

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The director finally said to me one day,

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"Steve, would you please stop walking across

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the stage, scraping your feet."

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And, I mean, he was, he was frustrated.

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He had been listening, and he couldn't understand...

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and it shocked me because, you know,

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my director, he liked me, he gave me good parts.

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And, it made me think,

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wow, for the first time,

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I actually paid attention to my feet,

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and what I did with him,

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whenever I did a character.

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So, I say that to you, to stress

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the importance of paying attention

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to what your body is doing.

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So, now in class, we do an improv game.

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And we do it to develop

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the thinking about your facial expressions.

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So for instance,

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I'll give them a card

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and on the card, it will say, "hungry".

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So then they have to come in and show hunger.

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And the rest of the students

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have to guess what they're doing.

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So I'm gonna give you a couple examples,

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and see if you can guess what I'm doing.

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All right?

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Let's see.

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Okay, I got one.

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(grunts)

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Okay.

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Can you guess what I was doing?

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That's kind of easy.

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Maybe, maybe not.

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Okay, here's another one.

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And you do these yourselves, right?

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You can do these yourself,

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but I'm just giving you an example.

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Oh, okay.

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Those are a couple examples.

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So think of your own words.

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Happy, sad, pain, anger, right?

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Use these words.

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And then and you can videotape yourselves,

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and show them to people

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and see if they can give you,

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if they can guess what it is,

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and again, look at yourselves in the mirror.

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Okay, so let's do a couple more walks.

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Now another way to think about it is,

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if I'm a professional,

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and I think I'll walk towards you,

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if I'm a professional, I'm a lawyer say,

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how might I carry myself, right?

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If I'm a lawyer, I might carry myself, right?

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Like that.

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Let me do it, let me do it sideways too

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so you can see, I'm a lawyer.

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I gotta think about my shoulders, right?

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How is my head?

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What is my head doing?

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What's my neck doing?

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Okay, so let's say

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I'm a construction worker, right?

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I gotta carry heavy stuff.

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And I use my hands, right?

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So how might I walk a little different, right?

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How's that?

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Subtle, you wanna be subtle too.

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How is that,

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does that look like a construction worker?

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What did I do?

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I just widened my stance a little bit.

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Rock back and forth a little bit,

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heads down, shoulders,

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what are my shoulders doing.

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It's one of the things

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I really liked about acting,

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is that walk really makes a difference,

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that physicality.

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So explore that.

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Give yourself a word,

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give yourself a persona, a profession,

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and then assume the way they walk.

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And I'm gonna ask you to do this.

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Don't look at a movie,

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about a lawyer and then decide how to walk.

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Don't do that initially.

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You've already got

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all that information stored up,

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you already have an image for yourself.

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And what you'll find is

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you take in a lot of data, you know.

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You say a doctor, how does the doctor come in?

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Also, pace is really important.

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They say, how does the doctor...

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I think of a doctor,

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'cause the other thing is,

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everyone's gonna think, they're gonna

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interpret a profession or a type,

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a little differently.

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And that's all that matters.

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There's an interpretation for everything.

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It's different, based on who you are, right?

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But they're all valid.

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So, let's say a doctor,

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I'd imagine a doctor and pace.

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A doctor might be, that to me,

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doctors are always in a hurry, right?

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They come in the room, they come to see you

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"Hey, Mr. Sneed, how are you doing?

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Okay, all right.

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Checked your vitals,

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you're good, all right, we'll see you."

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Doctors, doctors are actually always busy.

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I noticed that they're moving quickly.

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But pace is an important one too.

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'Cause pace just keeps things moving, you know?

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Intention, right, What's the intention?

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How about if I, if I look like this,

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what do I look like?

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You know, do I look like I'm gonna do

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something important?

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You know, like a friend of mine,

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I went to New York he said, "Now,

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"when you're in New York,

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"walk like you got somewhere to go.

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"Don't walk like you're looking around

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"like, you know.

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"No, don't do that in New York.

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"You better walk like you got somewhere to go."

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So that's a different walk, right?

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Like, I got somewhere to go.

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I am busy, I am important, right?

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I am an important individual here.

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I have somewhere to be, okay?

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Okay, so you know why

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they call them plays, right?

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You go to see something

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in the theater, it's called the play.

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'Cause it involves play.

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So the important message today is playing.

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Get your body used to playing, have fun.

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Alright, Steve Sneed, acting.

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Again, I'm at South Lake High School,

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in Seattle, Washington.

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All right, thanks.

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(upbeat music)