**Podcast Episode 1: “The Actor’s Warm-Up Routines For Success”
**Introduction (Host):**
Hello this is Erika, your host and welcome back to The Spark! Podcast. Today’s episode is Season 1: Episode 7 titled “The Actor’s Warm-Up Routines For Success.”
It is Tuesday, March 12th and today we will explore the fascinating world of acting warm-ups exercises! In this first segment, we'll delve into the importance of warming up before diving into a performance and share some effective warm-up rituals. Let’s dive right in!
** The Importance of Acting Warm-ups (Host):**
Before stepping onto the stage or in front of the camera, actors need to prepare both mentally and physically. Acting warm-ups not only help actors get into character but also enhance focus, presence, and emotional readiness. Just like athletes, actors benefit from a pre-performance routine to ensure they're at their best when the curtain rises.
Here are 7 acting warm ups you can do at anytime and anywhere by yourself or with a friend, partner, and/or a fellow actor:
1. Physical Warm-up: Start with gentle stretches to loosen up your body and release tension. Focus on areas like the neck, shoulders, back, and legs to promote flexibility and ease of movement.
2. Breathing Exercises: Deep breathing exercises help actors connect with their breath and improve breath control. Practice diaphragmatic breathing by inhaling deeply through your nose, allowing your abdomen to expand, then exhaling slowly through your mouth.
3. Vocal Warm-up: Vocal warm-ups are essential for actors to project their voice effectively and maintain vocal health. Perform exercises like lip trills, sirens, tongue twisters, and vocal scales to warm up your vocal cords and improve articulation, also known as diction.
4. Emotional Check-in: Take a moment to check in with your emotions and connect with the characters you’ll be portraying. Explore different emotional states and allow yourself to fully experience and express them.
5. Mirror Work: Stand in front of a mirror and engage in mirror work to enhance physical and emotional awareness. Experiment with facial expressions, body language, and gestures to convey different emotions and character traits.
6. Character Exploration: Spend time getting into character by exploring their physicality, voice, and psychology. Experiment with different postures, accents, and mannerisms to fully embody the character’s essence.
7. Sense Memory Exercises: Engage your senses by recalling vivid sensory memories and incorporating them into your performance. Tap into the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures associated with your character’s environment to create a more immersive experience.
Here are the 3 warmups you could do with more than one person:
8. Improv Games: Incorporate improv games into your warm-up routine to stimulate creativity, spontaneity, and ensemble cohesion. Games like “Yes, And,” “One-Word Story,” and “Zip Zap Zop” encourage quick thinking and active listening.
9. Energy Circle: Form a circle with fellow actors and participate in an energy circle to build ensemble energy and focus. Pass a “pulse” around the circle, using physical touch or eye contact to transfer energy and establish a collective sense of presence.
10. Group Warm-up Ritual: Establish a group warm-up ritual that fosters a sense of unity and support among cast members. This could involve a group chant, physical gesture, or motivational phrase to center and energize the ensemble before rehearsals or performances.
Incorporating these acting warm-ups into your routine can help you prepare mentally, physically, and emotionally for rehearsals and performances, allowing you to deliver your best work on stage and screen.
**Segment 2: Essential Warm-up Techniques (Host):**
Now, let's explore some common acting warm-up exercises used by actors around the world. From physical exercises like stretching and body scans to vocal warm-ups and breathing exercises, these rituals help actors loosen up, connect with their bodies, and access their emotions. Remember, the goal is to be fully present and available for the journey ahead.
We do not have enough time to do all of these warmups today, but I will lead 5 warmups that could be fun and help to yOu to unleash your acting potential.
Acting Warmup 1 – Physical Warmups
Every actor needs to move their bodies to increase circulation and have enough energy and strength to perform at their very best. I recommend doing physical warmups before vocal exercise
I recommend at least 5 minutes a day or more never exceeding 30 minutes of moderately intense exercise. I recommend starting slow and then building intensity with warmup at the start and a cool down at the end.
For example if you are doing a 5 minute warmup, you might start with gentle nod of your head up and down and side to side. Next, you will roll your head one way at a slow steady pace and reverse it. Nexts you will circle your shoulder front and backwards 5 times each.. Then, circle your arms forward and backward 5 times each. Then stretch the ribs and arms and body by raising your hands above your head toward the sky, clasp your hands and lean for five seconds in right breathing and the. Switch onto your left for five seconds. Then come back to center. Remember to breathe. Next, with your hands in the sky reach your hands and gradually and slowly rag doll down until your hands touch the floor or your knees bending at the waist with knees slightly bent. Then reverse and rag doll up one vertebrae at a time and shake every part of your body out until it feels loose and relaxed. Breathing with the movement will help you feel energised and alert yet relaxed.
Acting Warmup 2 – Vocal Warm-Up - Tongue Twisters
Tongue twisters are part of vocal warmups will help you improve your pronunciation and diction skills and they are fun and useful! I will say each of the 6 tongue twister exercises three times. Once you can say it, try to pick up the pace while still having good diction. If you trip over your words, slow down and try again. Accuracy is key and don’t forget to have fun!
Exercise 1 - Red leather, yellow leather. (3x)
Exercise 2 - Unique New York (3x)
Exercise 3 - To sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock in a pestilential prison, with a lifelong lock. Awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp shock from a cheap and choppy chopper on a big black block. (3x)
Exercise 4 – A little bit of better butter makes the bitter batter better. (3x)
Exercise 5 – (you probably have heard this one) Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peppers. (3x)
Exercise 6 – A proper Copper Coffee Pot. (3x)
Acting Warmup 3 – Vocal Warmup – Projection
Projection is so important for an actor, but it is important not to hurt your voice by abusing or overusing your vocal chords by yelling or screaming without proper breath support and technique. To be clear projection is not yelling or screaming, it is supported amplified sound, which is much deeper and resonant. Breathing from the diaphragm (aka the intercostal muscles) is important because we need it to project our voice.
Exercise 1 – The ‘Ha’ Exercise
Let’s start by taking a full, deep steady breath into our belly and make sure your chest is not moving too much because our breath needs to focus more on our belly muscles not our chest because that creates unnecessary tension. On the exhale, force all of the air out gradually as you say ha. The bigger the breath the louder you can be. I would start slightly louder, then a little bit louder until you are at capacity without any pain. Please note, if there is any pain, please stop this exercise and meet with a well-trained voice or acting teacher (with vocal training) who can help you safely practice this exercise without injury.
Exercise 2 – Resonance Exercise
Resonance helps with projection as it determines how well your voice projects and carries. You know your voice is resonant when your lips and/or other areas of your face have a buzzing sensation, some find it slightly ticklish. I want to make it clear most qualified singing teachers and ENT doctors would recommend being resonant in your lips and cheeks and head, but not your nose. A good way to test if you are too nasally is to plug your nose and speak any few words and then speak the words again without your nose pinched, you should sound the same. If you sound nasally when your nose is plugged, adjust your placement of your voice until it is placed more in your lips and/or cheeks. A healthy voice has a mix of your chest and head (light and dark). The “ng” and “mm” and “n” sounds are great sounds to use in your warmups to improve your vocal resonance.
Start by placing the tip of your tongue behind your bottom front teeth
Hum an “mmm” sound starting from the lowest to the highest you can comfortably sing while keeping your mouth closed connecting all the notes and then reverse from the top to the bottom.
Focus on keeping the sound consistent and stable.
I will demonstrate: mmm… (up) mmm… (down)
After, ng (up) ng (down)
Next, you can vibrate your lips with a trill doing the same thing up and down the scale. Lip trills are a gentle way to warm up the voice and diaphragm without putting unnecessary strain on the voice.
Buzzed lips (up) buzzed lips (down)
I’m also going to remind you hydration and a good rest is essential for a healthy voice to be it’s personal best and last a lifetime.
When doing these vocal warmups, I recommend you do not practice them more than 30 minutes.
Start with 5 minutes and go from there as your skill and stamina build up. Remember to take breaks and rest your voice is your have any vocal fatigue, pain, or hoarseness.
Acting Warmup 4 – Solo & Group Improv Games
There are six rules to improvisation. 1. Always say “yes and” 2. After the and, add new information but never too much (lay a sentence brick, your scene partner plays a sentence brick) 3. Don’t block 4. Avoid questions 5. establish the location and relationship 6. Have a point of view
Exercise 1 – The Random Noun Game
Take two random nouns and smash them together. They cannot exist. For example dog and clock would become dogclock and you will be playing make believe asking yourself if this is true, what else is true? In this world where there are dogclocks what else is true? You have to take a new clock to the vet to get it fixed. Whenever your hear the alarm, that means it is time to go to the vet. There are digital and analogue dogclocks. All dogclocks talk in barks every hour on the hour. All dogclocks hate cat clocks because they are copy cats. You get the idea.
Exercise 2 – Fresh choice
This game can be played as a duo, but it also is great for solo playing. Make a bold statement like I love ice cream! Say fresh choice. I love alligators. Say fresh choice. Try to not pause more than three seconds, trust your instincts and remove your filter. Try to go up to five- ten fresh choices before you switch to a new statement.
Exercise 3 – The Question Game
Haha, I know we are not supposed to ask questions but there are cases like in this game where it is 100% okay.
Ask yourself question and then answer that question with another question. Keep going without pausing more than five seconds. No repeated questions or Statements. So challenging, but really fun once you get the hang of it.
This game is even more fun with other people. Practice this question game with friend to challenge them and yourself.
Exercise 4 – Character Guantlet
This is monologue exercise. Make up a 15 second monologue as a character and then keep switching to a new character with a different monologue you made up each time. This is a great way to get inspire for the kinds of characters you want to play. It is super fun and you can even do it while you are driving. Timing does not have to be perfect while on the road, you gotta be safe.
Exercise 5 – The 3-line exercise
Create a short three line scene with yourself as two different characters. Then do the same scene with a new set of characters. After several rounds of that, create a new scene with new characters. This exercise is most ideal with others as it can be more fun, but just as effective solo. Incorporate pauses and play up the way you say your lines. Emphasize certain words or don’t and see where that takes you.
I hope of these improv exercises got you interested in trying a few. If you don’t like these, there are so many other ones. Feel free to email me for more ideas.
Acting Warmup 5 – Mirror Exercise
Observe yourself in the mirror and notice how you feel and how your face looks. Notice how different emotions look on your face and explore the ins and outs of different aspects of your personality and characters that you would to explore. Play different kinds of music and see how they make you feel. Say various phrase with a certain emotional point of view and see what that looks like. Do your facial expressions match your internal emotions? Or are they incongruent? Why is this? Explore and use it as research and valuable information for your acting and trying on different characters traits. If you feel stumped google “character traits list and print out a copy” so you can go through the list and try different character traits on. It is supposed to be fun and cathartic. Even better, write down any observations or traits that appealed to you and what thoughts and feelings came up for you. Keeping a log of these exercises can track your progress in your acting process.
**Transition (Host):**
That concludes our episode on acting warm-ups. Stay tuned for our next episode, where we'll explore acting techniques like Meisner and other exercises to enhance your performance and vocal strength!