SpeakerNet News Teleseminars
Use Professional Acting Skills
for Oscar-Level Presentations
Guest Expert:
Barbara Niven
(About Barbara)
How to order the recording:
Additional resources for this seminar:
- When you purchase the recording, you will be given a link to download Barbara’s handout
The Program:
Speaking is a performance. No news here. However, few speakers fully integrate key acting skills and perspective into their presentations. Actors know the importance of setting the stage, using vocal nuances, creating characters through body language and facial expressions, and eliciting the desired emotions in their audience. By using simple acting skills you will dramatically increase your effectiveness and make yourself memorable.
Barbara Niven, a professional film and television actor for nearly three decades, shares acting techniques that speakers can immediately apply to their speeches. Barbara straddles both worlds, as she gives professional speeches in between her busy filming engagements.
You will learn how to:
- Understand your “role” and the “character” you want to project
- Identify the emotions you want to evoke in your audience and how best to accomplish this
- Scrutinize the podium as a director would, and avoid common pitfalls
- Get your mind, voice and body in the right frame off stage
- Begin with a dramatic bang to start the “show”
- Portray characters in your stories to make them memorable
- Use improv to be in the moment and connect with your audience
More about our guest expert:
Barbara Niven is definitely living her dreams! She’s one of Hollywood’s busiest actresses, and is also a motivational speaker and coach.
She didn’t start an acting career until she was almost thirty years old, putting her own dreams on hold while she became a wife and mother in Portland, Oregon. One day she received something in the mail from her upcoming high school reunion that asked, “Have you achieved what you thought you would in your life so far?” She says it hit her like a ton of bricks that she was only living everybody else’s idea of who she should be. She decided she didn’t want to wind up wondering what if at the end of her life, so despite hearing that it was impossible, she talked her way into a news internship at Portland’s NBC affiliate and sold her first story to network. Then she discovered her real passion, acting, and has been making a living at it, against all odds, for over twenty years. She served for three years on the national board of directors for the Screen Actors Guild.
She says she’s living proof that anyone can make his or her dreams come true, at any age. “Every moment you have a choice ... to move toward your dream or away from it. Don’t settle for less than wonderful in your life — and don’t give up five minutes before the miracle!”
SpeakerNet News is produced by Rebecca Morgan and Ken Braly. It is not affiliated with the National Speakers Association. Send comments or suggestions