JADE: Hi, everyone.
I'm Jade, and this is my great friend Benjamin.
And he has two channels.
So I want you to go and subscribe to them now or after you watch this video.
What are we going to do today?
BENJAMIN: Well, this, Jade, is a voice exercise from the Method School of Acting.
So actors like Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, would all have practised their technique during
their training.
And the idea of it is to develop a voice that is more grounded in the body rather than being,
sort of a head voice where I'm mainly resonating in the forehead and the nose.
It's quite weird, the exercise.
It's not something you want to do in public, really.
So best to do it at home.
JADE: Uhoh!
BENJAMIN: It's not one of those, like, animal exercises because yeah.
Method acting can be quite bonkers at times.
So this is how we do it.
You need to be sat on a chair, okay?
It needs to be a chair.
It can't be a sofa or a settee.
It needs to be a chair.
Sat down, we've got our feet on the ground and our arms just hanging by the side.
And we're going to make circles with our heads, okay?
And we're going to make circles with our shoulders.
It's good to have a bit of space.
Really move those shoulders around.
We're going to make circles with our waists, around, and circles with our legs.
Okay?
These are all the main, sort of, energy centers in the body.
And we're going to make these movements while letting out a sort of "ah" sound.
So we're going to go "ah".
JADE: Ah.
BENJAMIN: That's great, Jade.
Lean back in your chair.
JADE: Okay.
BENJAMIN: That's great.
We'll carry on.
It's best to do it with your eyes shut.
I'm going to keep mine open so I can see what you're doing at home.
Ah.
JADE: Ah.
BENJAMIN: Ha.
JADE: Ha.
BENJAMIN: So I make this "ha" sound whenever I want to, kind of, release, when I can't
carry on making my "ah" sound.
JADE: Can you take more than one breath?
BENJAMIN: Oh, yeah.
You just carry on.
JADE: When you do "ha", you don't have to� you can do "ah" many times before�
BENJAMIN: Yeah.
JADE: Okay.
BENJAMIN: Ah.
JADE: Ah.
BENJAMIN: Ha.
JADE: Ha.
(...) BENJAMIN: Keep going.
She's keeping going.
So as you're doing this, really kind of make the movements you want to make.
Really make yourself feel really comfortable and in your body.
That's what we want here.
We'll go a little bit more.
Ah.
JADE: Ah.
BENJAMIN: Ha.
JADE: Ha.
(...) BENJAMIN: Great.
So it's good to do this exercise for about a quarter of an hour, something like that,
so you're really, really working each of the body areas, really making yourself feel comfortable
and present in your body and your voice.
We've got one more little bit of, kind of, warming up.
So you can feel sort of deeply relaxed after this exercise.
We're going to do one more thing now to kind of make sure that you're nice and awake and
focused as well.
Jade is getting ready here.
Standing up, this is an exercise to just really sort of make you feel fully awake and ready
for situations.
So we're going to be patting our legs.
We're going to start� we're going to pat up making a sound.
Ah.
JADE: Ah.
BENJAMIN: Go on the other leg.
Ah.
JADE: Ah.
BENJAMIN: And now, both legs.
Ah.
JADE: Ah.
BENJAMIN: And grounding down there.
So let's just play the piano in front of us.
Let's play the piano up here.
Play it down here.
Let's play it to the side.
To the other side.
And behind us upside down.
Great.
We're going to make some faces now.
Let's make some really strange faces at Benjamin and Jade.
You're really, sort of, warming up your face muscles.
We're going to blow through our lips.
Great.
So she is actually doing a siren there.
She's change the pitch of her voice.
That's really good.
Great.
And now, what I want you to do is to brush your teeth with your tongue.
So every tooth, try to brush it with your tongue.
So you're warming up your, sort of, tongue muscles.
The inside and the outside.
Great.
Well, I don't know about you, Jade, but I'm feeling ready for business.
JADE: I'm feeling like a bouncing ball or something now.
BENJAMIN: Yeah.
JADE: And do you do this every day?
BENJAMIN: If I were in a theatre show, yes.
I would be doing it every day or, sort of, before rehearsals, yeah.
JADE: And is it this that keeps your energy up, basically?
Being able to�give more.
BENJAMIN: It can be tiring, especially if you're doing, sort of, two shows a day.
So yeah.
And you need to have energy as a performer.
You need to be on stage, and people need to sort of see that you've got good energy.
JADE: Wow!
Special knowledge for us today.
What I want you to do now is go check out Benjamin's channels and obviously subscribe
while you're there.
BENJAMIN: Thank you so much for watching.
I hope that you've had fun.