09 Dec Favourite Exercises
Yorgos Lanthimos’ film The Favourite is getting great buzz. Lanthimos wanted immediacy and authentic vulnerability from actors Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone and Olivia Colman. He achieved this outcome with three weeks of rehearsal, having the actors do seemingly goofy exercises like jumping from floor tile to tile, or tying themselves in knots while delivering their lines. In response, the three performers have publicly praised Lanthimos for driving them to be more instinctual and bringing their reflexes to the surface.
Audiences shut down when a presentation sounds canned or phoned in. This is a speaker’s worst enemy. Organize and rehearse your presentation, but when spontaneity flags, take a page from the performers’ playbook. We often have clients sing their lines, deliver them as a bad Vegas entertainer, or put the accent on all the wrong syllables. (Note: These are rehearsal techniques ONLY and not the way to deliver your talk.) The purpose is to trick the brain into hearing and producing your content in a fresh way. You will still be embedding your material into memory, but with these techniques, your resulting talk will crackle with energy and immediacy.
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