Open by thanking everyone involved in giving you the award. This includes the organization sponsoring the award, the individual(s) who nominated you, and/or anyone who may have recommended you for this honor.
Oh man. Oh man. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was preparing for this after the nomination...but it’s still a huge shock. Let me catch my breath for a second.
For example: “I’d like to thank the Academy for allowing me to be here today.”
State how honored you are, mentioning the award by name. Even if you secretly think that having to give a speech is a crummy reward for a job well done, conveying your gratitude for everyone’s time and attention is an absolute must. This should be about 1 to 2 sentences.
Oh man. Oh man. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was preparing for this after the nomination...but it’s still a huge shock. Let me catch my breath for a second.
Okay. So here I am. I know everyone says they’ve dreamt about this moment since they were a kid or whatever. I seriously did, though. Like, I pretended I was giving this speech many times over, except my audience was a bunch of stuffed animals and the like, not the Hollywood elite. It’s so weird, man. I’m telling you.
State how honored you are
For example: “I am so pleased to win Actress of the Year. Receiving this award is such an amazing honor.”
Share your thoughts about being awarded. This is a good place to convey how humbled you feel by
if you come across as entitled or superior, everyone will regret honoring you. This should take about 1 to 3 sentences.
Oh man. Oh man. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was preparing for this after the nomination...but it’s still a huge shock. Let me catch my breath for a second.
Okay. So here I am. I know everyone says they’ve dreamt about this moment since they were a kid or whatever. I seriously did, though. Like, I pretended I was giving this speech many times over, except my audience was a bunch of stuffed animals and the like, not the Hollywood elite. It’s so weird, man. I’m telling you.
Here’s the thing about the production of All These Messy Houses. I hated it. Every minute of it. I don’t think I made any bones about this, even during production. Most of you will probably remember a certain widely publicized interview I did saying exactly that—with more colorful language, of course.
Share your thoughts
For example: “I never thought I would win such an honor, let alone work in one of Bob Smith's fantastic movies.”
Say something inspirational. This might be a quote from someone who made the award possible or your thoughts on whatever it is you won the award for. (This might also be a good place to personalize your speech with an anecdote.) This should be 2 to 3 sentences.
Oh man. Oh man. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was preparing for this after the nomination...but it’s still a huge shock. Let me catch my breath for a second.
Okay. So here I am. I know everyone says they’ve dreamt about this moment since they were a kid or whatever. I seriously did, though. Like, I pretended I was giving this speech many times over, except my audience was a bunch of stuffed animals and the like, not the Hollywood elite. It’s so weird, man. I’m telling you.
Here’s the thing about the production of All These Messy Houses. I hated it. Every minute of it. I don’t think I made any bones about this, even during production. Most of you will probably remember a certain widely publicized interview I did saying exactly that—with more colorful language, of course.
But I stayed on because I knew it would be a great project. None of my complaints were because of my coworkers, of course. Everyone from actors to the dude keeping the donuts warm at craft services were great. And that, I think, shows in All These Messy Rooms.
Your thoughts on whatever it is you won the award for
For example: “It was an experience to remember. Bob was a wonderful director and all of the other actors were very friendly and professional.”
Thank everyone who collaborated with you on your work. Chances are you didn’t do it on your own. Moreover, if you neglect anyone who put their time and energy into your projects, they probably won’t want to help you in the future. This should be about 1-2 sentences.
Oh man. Oh man. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was preparing for this after the nomination...but it’s still a huge shock. Let me catch my breath for a second.
Okay. So here I am. I know everyone says they’ve dreamt about this moment since they were a kid or whatever. I seriously did, though. Like, I pretended I was giving this speech many times over, except my audience was a bunch of stuffed animals and the like, not the Hollywood elite. It’s so weird, man. I’m telling you.
Here’s the thing about the production of All These Messy Houses. I hated it. Every minute of it. I don’t think I made any bones about this, even during production. Most of you will probably remember a certain widely publicized interview I did saying exactly that—with more colorful language, of course.
But I stayed on because I knew it would be a great project. None of my complaints were because of my coworkers, of course. Everyone from actors to the dude keeping the donuts warm at craft services were great. And that, I think, shows in All These Messy Rooms.
And these, of course, are the people who really need thanks. I might have done well at my job, but this recognition from the Academy, which I very much appreciate, comes at the cost of a LOT of other peoples’ work. Everyone from the donut guy up to the producers deserves at least a little credit for what I believe is the finest film I’ve worked on.
Thank everyone
For example: “But it wasn't just acting well tha I wouldn't be here getting this award without the blood, sweat, and tears of the writers, director, producers, stage crews, and all my brilliant fellow actors.”
Thank everyone who gave you moral support. It’s crucial to acknowledge the countless everyday sacrifices that your loved ones have made, especially if your work was time consuming or took you away from your family. You might thank teachers, parents, friends, your spouse, etc. Include specifics to show that you noticed and cared. This is usually 1 long sentence.
Oh man. Oh man. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was preparing for this after the nomination...but it’s still a huge shock. Let me catch my breath for a second.
Okay. So here I am. I know everyone says they’ve dreamt about this moment since they were a kid or whatever. I seriously did, though. Like, I pretended I was giving this speech many times over, except my audience was a bunch of stuffed animals and the like, not the Hollywood elite. It’s so weird, man. I’m telling you.
Here’s the thing about the production of All These Messy Houses. I hated it. Every minute of it. I don’t think I made any bones about this, even during production. Most of you will probably remember a certain widely publicized interview I did saying exactly that—with more colorful language, of course.
But I stayed on because I knew it would be a great project. None of my complaints were because of my coworkers, of course. Everyone from actors to the dude keeping the donuts warm at craft services were great. And that, I think, shows in All These Messy Rooms.
And these, of course, are the people who really need thanks. I might have done well at my job, but this recognition from the Academy, which I very much appreciate, comes at the cost of a LOT of other peoples’ work. Everyone from the donut guy up to the producers deserves at least a little credit for what I believe is the finest film I’ve worked on.
And it was a fine film. If my award doesn’t prove it to you, look at all the other ones this film’s actors have won this evening—and the nominations it still has coming. There were a lot of fine actors that stopped at the nomination phase that maybe should have won, but the content of the film was just that strong. I rarely get moved watching dailies, or even going to a premiere, but this one had me in tears halfway through the screenplay. That’s really saying something, I think.
Thank everyone who gave you moral support
For example: “I'd like to thank Mom and Dad for always being there and encouraging me, my agent John for getting me the part, Bob for never giving up, even when there were technical issues and the like, and everyone else in my life who made this moment possible for me.”
End the thank-yous. Let the audience know you’re wrapping things up. A good way to end the thank-yous would be with a general statement of how everyone helped. This should be 1 sentence.
Oh man. Oh man. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was preparing for this after the nomination...but it’s still a huge shock. Let me catch my breath for a second.
Okay. So here I am. I know everyone says they’ve dreamt about this moment since they were a kid or whatever. I seriously did, though. Like, I pretended I was giving this speech many times over, except my audience was a bunch of stuffed animals and the like, not the Hollywood elite. It’s so weird, man. I’m telling you.
Here’s the thing about the production of All These Messy Houses. I hated it. Every minute of it. I don’t think I made any bones about this, even during production. Most of you will probably remember a certain widely publicized interview I did saying exactly that—with more colorful language, of course.
But I stayed on because I knew it would be a great project. None of my complaints were because of my coworkers, of course. Everyone from actors to the dude keeping the donuts warm at craft services were great. And that, I think, shows in All These Messy Rooms.
And these, of course, are the people who really need thanks. I might have done well at my job, but this recognition from the Academy, which I very much appreciate, comes at the cost of a LOT of other peoples’ work. Everyone from the donut guy up to the producers deserves at least a little credit for what I believe is the finest film I’ve worked on.
And it was a fine film. If my award doesn’t prove it to you, look at all the other ones this film’s actors have won this evening—and the nominations it still has coming. There were a lot of fine actors that stopped at the nomination phase that maybe should have won, but the content of the film was just that strong. I rarely get moved watching dailies, or even going to a premiere, but this one had me in tears halfway through the screenplay. That’s really saying something, I think.
I really don’t know where I’m going with this. Maybe I didn’t practice enough as a kid! Whatever the case, I was just a small cog in a very large machine. A cog that happened to win an award, yes, but again, I think that’s more of a side effect of a very good movie.
End the thank-yous
For example: “I couldn't have done it without you guys.”
End it on a final note of thanks. Your last impression should be one of gratitude. Make this very brief.
Oh man. Oh man. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was preparing for this after the nomination...but it’s still a huge shock. Let me catch my breath for a second.
Okay. So here I am. I know everyone says they’ve dreamt about this moment since they were a kid or whatever. I seriously did, though. Like, I pretended I was giving this speech many times over, except my audience was a bunch of stuffed animals and the like, not the Hollywood elite. It’s so weird, man. I’m telling you.
Here’s the thing about the production of All These Messy Houses. I hated it. Every minute of it. I don’t think I made any bones about this, even during production. Most of you will probably remember a certain widely publicized interview I did saying exactly that—with more colorful language, of course.
But I stayed on because I knew it would be a great project. None of my complaints were because of my coworkers, of course. Everyone from actors to the dude keeping the donuts warm at craft services were great. And that, I think, shows in All These Messy Rooms.
And these, of course, are the people who really need thanks. I might have done well at my job, but this recognition from the Academy, which I very much appreciate, comes at the cost of a LOT of other peoples’ work. Everyone from the donut guy up to the producers deserves at least a little credit for what I believe is the finest film I’ve worked on.
And it was a fine film. If my award doesn’t prove it to you, look at all the other ones this film’s actors have won this evening—and the nominations it still has coming. There were a lot of fine actors that stopped at the nomination phase that maybe should have won, but the content of the film was just that strong. I rarely get moved watching dailies, or even going to a premiere, but this one had me in tears halfway through the screenplay. That’s really saying something, I think.
I really don’t know where I’m going with this. Maybe I didn’t practice enough as a kid! Whatever the case, I was just a small cog in a very large machine. A cog that happened to win an award, yes, but again, I think that’s more of a side effect of a very good movie.
To the academy, my coworkers, and my fans, thank you. This is the realization of a huge life dream. I am truly and honestly thrilled to be here with this award. If I my work somehow made people’s lives a little better, if only for the duration of the film, then I feel like it has been a success. You all have given me the chance to live my passion, and I thank you all sincerely from the bottom of my heart.
End it on a final note of thanks
For example: “Thank you all again!”
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Tell us everything you know here. Remember, more detail is better.
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Do say: Add fats with some nutritional value to the foods you already eat. Try olive oil, butter, avocado, and mayonnaise.
If you get a laugh, pause until they’ otherwise, no one will be able to hear you.
Make it memorable. While are definitely guidelines to follow, giving it that personal touch will make it seem thoughtful instead of obligatory.
Practice before the event. Time yourself.
Keep people interested in what you are talking about.
Don't get off topic while speaking to the audience.
Talk about how many and who changed your life with the award/certificate.
Touch people's emotions if possible. How did this experience change your life?
Make it humorous to keep people interested.
Keep it short. Lengthy speeches are a bore and are harder to memorize.
Memorize it! You will look amateur if you bring up your speech or use cue cards.
Keep an eye contact to the audience.
Keep still. Don't move around too much. It will distract from your message and credibility.
Don't slur your words keep it clear and simple while speaking.
Avoid negative or apologetic statements.
Don’t force humor. Not everyone is a comedian and nothing will make your audience cringe like a badly-delivered joke.
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Becomean Author!FSM: An End History, taped in Sproul Hall - Mario Savio 1964, Free Speech Archives
\ Free Speech
Movement Archives \&
AN END TO HISTORY
BY MARIO SAVIO, STUDENT
IN THE DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY,
BERKELEY, AND MEMBER FSM STEERING COMMITTEE
Published originally in Humanity, an arena of critique
and commitment No. 2, December 1964. Reprinted with permission of Lynne Hollander.
Copyright 1998 by Lynne Hollander.
I originally intended to revise [this] thoroughly. I have
since changed my mind, deciding to have it reprinted as first taken from a tape made in
Sproul Hall during the December sit-in. I find the article does not even conform to the
subject of the title. But I also believe that a positive purpose would be served by
preserving the text.
-- Mario Savio
Last summer I went to Mississippi to join the
struggle there for civil rights. This fall I am engaged in another phase of the same
struggle, this time in Berkeley. The two battlefields may seem quite different to some
observers, but this is not the case. The same rights are at stake in both places -- the
right to participate as citizens in democratic society and the right to due process of
law. Further, it is a struggle against the same enemy. In Mississippi an autocratic and
powerful minority rules, through organized violence, to suppress the vast, virtually
powerless majority. In California, the privileged minority manipulates the university
bureaucracy to suppress the students' political expression. That &respectable&
bureaucracy masks the
that impersonal bureaucracy is the efficient
enemy in a &Brave New World.&
In our free-speech fight at the University of
California, we have come up against what may emerge as the greatest problem of our nation
-- depersonalized, unresponsive bureaucracy. We have encountered the organized status quo
in Mississippi, but it is the same in Berkeley. Here we find it impossible usually to meet
with anyone but secretaries. Beyond that, we find functionaries who cannot make policy but
can only hide behind the rules. We have discovered total lack of response on the part of
the policy makers. To grasp a situation which is truly Kafkaesque, it is necessary to
understand the bureaucratic mentality. And we have learned quite a bit about it this fall,
more outside the classroom than in.
As bureaucrat, an administrator believes that
nothing new happens. He occupies an a-historical point of view. In September, to get the
attention of this bureaucracy which had issued arbitrary edicts suppressing student
political expression and refused to discuss its action, we held a sit-in on the campus. We
sat around a police car and kept it immobilized for over thirty-two hours. At last, the
administrative bureaucracy agreed to negotiate. But instead, on the following Monday, we
discovered that a committee had been appointed, in accordance with usual regulations, to
resolve the dispute. Our attempt to convince any of the administrators that an event had
occurred, that something new had happened, failed. They saw this simply as something to be
handled by normal university procedures.
The same is true of all bureaucracies. They
begin as tools, means to certain legitimate goals, and they end up feeding their own
existence. The conception that bureaucrats have is that history has in fact come to an
end. No events can occur now that the Second World War is over which can change American
society substantially. We proceed by standard procedures as we are.
The most crucial problems facing the United
States today are the problem of automation and the problem of racial injustice. Most
people who will be put out of jobs by machines will not accept an end to events, this
historical plateau, as the point beyond which no change occurs. Negroes will not accept an
end to history here. All of us must refuse to accept history's final judgment that in
America there is no place in society for people whose skins are dark. On campus students
are not about to accept it as fact that the university has ceased evolving and is in its
final state of perfection, that students and faculty are respectively raw material and
employees, or that the university is to be autocratically run by unresponsive bureaucrats.
Here is the real contradiction: the bureaucrats
hold history as ended. As a result significant parts of the population both on campus and
off are dispossessed and these dispossessed are not about to accept this a-historical
point of view. It is out of this that the conflict has occurred with the university
bureaucracy and will continue to occur until that bureaucracy becomes responsive or until
it is clear the university cannot function.
The things we are asking for in our civil-rights
protests have a deceptively quaint ring. We are asking for the due process of law. We are
asking for our actions to be judged by committees of our peers. We are asking that
regulations ought to be considered as arrived at legitimately only from the consensus of
the governed. These phrases are all pretty old, but they are not being taken seriously in
America today, nor are they being taken seriously on the Berkeley campus.
I have just come from a meeting with the Dean of
Students. She notified us that she was aware of certain violations of university
regulations by certain organizations. University friends of Student Non-violent
Coordinating Committee, which I represent, was one of these. We tried to draw from her
some statement on these great principles, consent of the governed, jury of one's peers,
due process. The best she could do was to evade or to present the administration party
line. It is very hard to make any contact with the human being who is behind these
organizations.
The university is the place where people begin
seriously to question the conditions of their existence and raise the issue of whether
they can be committed to the society they have been born into. After a long period of
apathy during the fifties, students have begun not only to question but, having arrived at
answers, to act on those answers. This is part of a growing understanding among many
people in America that history has not ended, that a better society is possible, and that
it is worth dying for.
This free-speech fight points up a fascinating
aspect of contemporary campus life. Students are permitted to talk all they want so long
as their speech has no consequences.
One conception of the university, suggested by a
classical Christian formulation, is that it be in the world but not of the world. The
conception of Clark Kerr by contrast is that the university is part and parcel of this
particular stage in the history of A it stands to serve the need of
A it is a factory that turns out a certain product needed by industry or
government. Because speech does often have consequences which might alter this perversion
of higher education, the university must put itself in a position of censorship. It can
permit two kinds of speech, speech which encourages continuation of the status quo, and
speech which advocates changes in it so radical as to be irrelevant in the foreseeable
future. Someone may advocate radical change in all aspects of American society, and this I
am sure he can do with impunity. But if someone advocates sit-ins to bring about changes
in discriminatory hiring practices, this cannot be permitted because it goes against the
status quo of which the university is a part. And that is how the fight began here.'
The administration of the Berkeley campus has
admitted that external, extra-legal groups have pressured the university not to permit
students on campus to organize picket lines, not to permit on campus any speech with
consequences. And the bureaucracy went along. Speech with consequences, speech in the area
of civil rights, speech which some might regard as illegal, must stop.
Many students here at the university, many
people in society, are wandering aimlessly about. Strangers in their own lives there is no
place for them. They are people who have not learned to compromise, who for example have
come to the university to learn to question, to grow, to learn --all the standard things
that sound like cliches because no one takes them seriously. And they find at one point or
other that for them to become part of society, to become lawyers, ministers, businessmen,
people in government, that very often they must compromise those principles which were
most dear to them. They must suppress the most creative imp this is a
prior condition for being part of the system. The university is well structured, well
tooled, to turn out people with all the sharp edges worn off, the well-rounded person. The
university is well equipped to produce that sort of person, and this means that the best
among the people who enter must for four years wander aimlessly much of the time
questioning why they are on campus at all, doubting whether there is any point in what
they are doing, and looking toward a very bleak existence afterward in a game in which all
of the rules have been made up, which one cannot really amend.
It is a bleak scene, but it is all a lot of us
have to look forward to. Society provides no challenge. American society in the standard
conception it has of itself is simply no longer exciting. The most exciting things going
on in America today are movements to change America. America is becoming ever more the
utopia of sterilized, automated contentment. The &futures& and
&careers& for which American students now prepare are for the most part
intellectual and moral wastelands. This chrome-plated consumers' paradise would have us
grow up to be well-behaved children. But an important minority of men and women coming to
the front today have shown that they will die rather than be standardized, replaceable and
irrelevant.
http://www.fsm-a.org//stacks/endhistorysavio.html
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