BENSHI: Your chance to SHINE!

Students,
The benshi is not just another presentation. NO! This is your chance to SHINE! You can use a rich vocabulary, a wide range of intonation (command, question, declarative, fear, love, anger, sweetness, and hundreds more!), variety of pitch, fluency, volume, and pace (apart from standard pronunciation). By pace I mean fast-slow. By pitch I mean up or down the vocal scale (not necessarily the same as volume). By fluency I mean "flow," as the word means. (Fluency has nothing to do with pauses, which can be quite effective: "I told you . . . no.") By volume I mean soft-loud. By intonation I mean plotting the sentence in terms of rise and fall: "Do you REALLY want to DO that?" "I TOLD you!" "I told YOU." "I told you." Of course there are many more variations apart from the illustrations.
    When you select a video don't paint yourself into a corner as it were. If you're not making progress with one video clip try another. The main goal is to come up with ideas and then to execute those ideas.
    I would like you to send me drafts of your presentations. It doesn't have to be a final draft, just so I know you're on the right track.
    Remember, the time range is between 3-5 minutes. That range is variable, depending on how much text you use in the presentation. Obviously if you don't talk too much during some moments in your clip, or if you talk slowly, you may have to increase the range to 5 minutes. If you're very verbose during the clip the duration can be proportionately lower than 5 minutes.

---