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Acting as Steve Jobs for school project - Help

RonHC

RonHC

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 27, 2010
996
7
I have a project to do by next friday to act like a famous person so i choose Steve Jobs, pretty much me becoming him in baby terms

Now I already know why i am gonna wear, black turtleneck and blue jeans

But I don't know what to say, I have 5 minutes to fill so it shouldn't be too hard to find some topic to talk about

So far my ideas are to make a small parody of the iPhone 4 keynote and say lines like
this is the new iPhone 4. It's $200, you have no choice of carrier, the reception is horrible, and it breaks if it lands on soft pillows
Click to expand...

So please guys, give me some ideas
 
Turn off all your wifi devices... my iPhone needs to connect to the internet

And what are those lines on the cases? they are do not touch lines. If you touch them prepare for failure!
 
Be sure to use adjectives like 'magical' and 'gorgeous' and have a copy of the New York Times nearby, and constantly drink from your water bottle.
 
after reading all of the other comments, there isnt really anything constructive left out. so in the end.....at the very end......pull out your iphone and pretend to call Bill Gates:D
 
When you enter the 'stage' just stand there for a while and take in the applauds smile, walk to your left, walk to your right and say thank you. Smile again wait some more repeat. Then say "We have a great show for you today".

Then you can start introducing your magical and revolutionary product. Make sure to get Phil Schiller in there.
 
Find any clips from SNL. (They did him 2 or 3 times.)

The things the SNL guy really hits on:

* Technology progressing really fast - to the point where the product he introduced at the begining of the sketch is obsolete at the end.

* His amazement at everything. A wide-eyed wonder about the products he makes.

* Changing one huge number into another huge number to humanize it. In other words, instead of a 40 GB hard drive, Steve would say "it holds 10,000 photos." The underlying joke there is that this is still not a very useful fact. (Who really knows exactly how much 10,000 photos is?)

= = = =

But even though I suggest looking at SNL for some ideas, I DON'T suggest going for laughs in your writing. Don't try to tell jokes. Don't exagerate speech patterns or movements just to be funny. Play it straight and try to be as real as possible.

Trust me, you WILL be funny if you pull it off right. Just be as accurate as you can and people will laugh. Pause when they do but DO NOT smile. Just wait for them to finish and start talking again. Actually trying for humor is what will sink it. This is the ultimate straight-man bit.

The one exception to that is that you can bring real-world stuff into your act as a joke. Talk about how wonderful the desks in your class are designed. Make a slide showing cafeteria meals in a box chart that all end in "99" for the prices. Explain how your presentation is better than the 2nd grader's because they have 'no taste.'

So adding real-world elements to your act is a bit of a joke, but other than that, just play it straight and be serious in your acting. The jokes must come from the situation, not from something you actually do.
 
How about actually reading all or portions of the various biographies on him... you know do research on the person you are trying to portray. Maybe do vignettes of Jobs at different points of his life. Garage w/ Woz, Fired from Apple, Back @ Apple, etc. Give people a full flavor of his life.

Unless this is for a comedy class I wouldn't go parody. You'll look like you aren't taking the assignment seriously plus, depending on your audience, they may not have a reference point to the parody and you will fail and look stupid. Example - references to "boom" are uberfanboy. No one else will get it.
 
RonHC said:
I have a project to do by next friday to act like a famous person so i choose Steve Jobs,
Click to expand...

I dunno. But I guess I am wondering why you and so many people seem to think that you need to be funny, satirical, or snarky in your performance. 5 minutes is short. Way short. If you are supposed to become the person, why not try to do a little method acting type research. Learn about him and walk in his shoes for a bit, what motivates him? Then as someone else said above, maybe describe something that you (he) finds to be an elegant solution to a complex problem. Heck, don't even go with the costume. Can you make others believe you are he without the trite props? Maybe not tell anyone who you are and see if your performance is beleivable enough that they know!

Anyway, good luck. Sounds like a lot of fun.

edit: yeah, Chupa Chupa beat me by a few minutes, and I concur.
 
As chupa chupa said, (lol my iPad corrected your name to chips chula) stray sway from parody. If the excitement is to act like a famous person, then ACT like him. Comical impersonation and true impersonation are different things often confused for the same.

I personally wouldntve chosen Steve since his method of public speaking would probably take a lot longer than a week to learn. But I'm sure you can get by with the costume and just mimicking one of his keynotes.
 
DynaFXD said:
I dunno. But I guess I am wondering why you and so many people seem to think that you need to be funny, satirical, or snarky in your performance. 5 minutes is short. Way short. If you are supposed to become the person, why not try to do a little method acting type research. Learn about him and walk in his shoes for a bit, what motivates him? Then as someone else said above, maybe describe something that you (he) finds to be an elegant solution to a complex problem. Heck, don't even go with the costume. Can you make others believe you are he without the trite props? Maybe not tell anyone who you are and see if your performance is beleivable enough that they know!

Anyway, good luck. Sounds like a lot of fun.
Click to expand...

I think if his class were advanced enough to the point where he would need to be method acting and expect his classmates to know who he is just with the acting alone (not everyone watches his keynotes) he wouldn't be desperately asking for help
 
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