Shadowing Practice: Portraying Marie Colvin in A Private War | Rosamund Pike on Acting - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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I actually sought out the role of Marie Colvin in A Private War.
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I actually sought out the role of Marie Colvin in A Private War.
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I heard that they were making a film about Marie.
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I read a Vanity Fair article that was written about her
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maybe a year and a half after her tragic death in Syria.
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And the article just struck me with the kind of commitment of this woman,
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the contradictions of her, the passion with which she pursued her career,
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the single-mindedness but also this person who was so effervescently
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optimistic I suppose despite all the trauma that she witnessed
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and I just thought this is an extraordinary person and
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if the right filmmaker comes on to direct the film then it could be an extraordinary film
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and when I heard
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that Matthew Heinemann whose background is in documentary was going to
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be the filmmaker I just really really wanted to be involved
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because I thought he's going going to have an unflinching eye on this woman
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and we're going to get all of her
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and there's going to be a truth to the war zone depictions
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which you know really matters it can't be a hollywoodisation
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when you're dealing with subject matter like this um
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so i tried to meet him and i
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and it took me about a year to actually um to actually meet him face to face
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but luckily he was working on the script for that long
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so the delay didn't matter we really hit it off it was a kind of meeting of minds
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and a sort of search for the same truth
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and he was probably being persuaded and people were probably trying to persuade him to cast someone else but we
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just sort of knew we had the same vision in mind
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and that sort of trust that we established on that day
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or an instinct for the trust that we could have just carried us through the movie.
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Marie's great ally towards the end of her life was her
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photographer Paul Connery had a reputation for ditching photographers who she became impatient with
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and Paul Conroy was one of the few who kind of stayed the course.
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And you know I think that was largely
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because they shared this fantastic sense of humour
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and they both like to kind of go against the grain and not follow the pack.
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And Jamie Dornan plays Paul in our film and the interesting thing is
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when I came on board the film we didn't actually have life rights to anybody apart from Marie herself.
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So other characters' names were changed.
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And then as people got to know Matthew Heinemann and me and we gained people's trust,
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more and more people said,
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okay, I think it would be great if you used my name.
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So that was true of Sean Ryan,
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the editor of the Sunday Times, and of Paul Conroy.
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And Paul Conroy came on board, actually, as an advisor.
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And he came out to visit us during our first week of filming in Jordan,
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and then he never left.
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I think he found a kind of,
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like another family, really, in the tribe that we become
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when we're making a film
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and I think it had a sort of strange relationship to
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the to the band of journalists on the road following conflict
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and I think there was something in the experience of making a film
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that he recognized and felt very comfortable with
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so we benefited from his stories his experiences you know
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when we were depicting a scene he was actually there
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so the level of accuracy
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that he could help us achieve was astonishing I think Matthew Heinemann and my greatest fear when embarking on this project was,
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you know, would we be able to get as close to something that felt truthful as we wanted to?
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You know, when we were depicting conflict zones, could they feel real?
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Could the experience that the audience was going to get come anywhere close to the experience
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that Marie had when she was in these places?
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And I think the fact that Matt has,
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you know, shot documentaries up to this point,
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you know, he's been the cameraman,
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he's taken his own sound,
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he's embedded with people very much in the way
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that Marie did to get to the truth of the stories
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that he's telling and he followed a kind of similar instinct with our film.
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So we filmed all the war zones in Jordan
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but he interviewed everybody who was going to make up the background of our film.
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So basically whatever conflict zone we're covering,
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we went, Jordan stood in for Libya,
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Iraq, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Syria
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and Matt found refugees from all those countries currently living in Jordan
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and they became the fabric of our of the war zones as we showed them in the movie
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so when I'm interviewing people or coming across people
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or interacting with anyone who's been you know the victim of an IED explosion
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or you know people who are crowding around a mass gravesite
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that Marie had an instinct about and she She hired a digger to dig up the earth.
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And they did find bodies.
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The people crowded around the graves.
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We were in a clinic in the besieged city of Homs.
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Everybody was someone who had had a very similar experience,
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if not the very experience that we were describing.
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So there was a level of reality that I just didn't believe could be achieved really.
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And it became the kind of touchstone of our film.
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It's what gives it its truth.
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It's what gives it its fierceness.
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It's what gives it its power.
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Because again and again, you're diving into an experience through these people that doesn't just feel real.
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It is real.
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So, for instance, there are two women at one point tell me the stories of losing their husbands
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and one tells me the story of losing her child.
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And I'd never heard it until the minute it's told to me on film,
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and that's the moment that's in the movie.
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And it's harrowing, and it's harrowing for the audience,
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it was harrowing for me.
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and I think comes very close to the kind of in-depth connection-driven reporting that Marie was famous for.
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I mean, I think I'm still very affected by Marie.
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I think she's in me somewhere.
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I think my eyes have been opened to the world as she saw it.
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You know, you inhabit someone.
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Your job as an actor is to trick your brain into believing you are the person.
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And if you trick your brain well enough,
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your body starts to respond as if you are that person.
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So situations that are not dangerous because you're an actor
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and it's a movie are read by your body as dangerous and your heart will race,
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you'll sweat, you'll have a physiological reaction that's not of your making.
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you know, and that those experiences in the body never leave you, I think.
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I mean, there is so much pressure in playing a real person,
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especially someone who was as fiercely loved and missed as Marie.
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I mean, Marie's friends are devoted.
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Her family, you know, it's a painful recent loss for them.
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Her family are fighting at the moment.
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They're bringing a court case against the Syrian regime for Marie's murder.
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They really believe and have a body of evidence to support the fact that she was targeted by the Assad regime
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when she went into Homs.
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I mean, it was an enormous pressure because in this instance,
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and I don't think it's the same with every real person you play,
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sometimes I think you can have a legitimate choice as an actor to get a feeling of the person across
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or tell the truth of their story but not,
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you know, embody them fully.
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But in this,
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I had a documentary maker as my director who is used solely to trading in the truth in real people,
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in observing real people.
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And secondly, I found Marie such an intoxicating woman when I listened to her,
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watched her, that I just thought I want to put that on screen.
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I want to be as close as I possibly can to her.
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I want to be her.
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I want to apologise for not being her,
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you know, with a documentary maker as my director.
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So I just tried to do everything I could to kind of eradicate all trace of my own instincts and behaviours.
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And once I decided to do that,
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I then realised what a momentous task it was,
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to change your voice, change your posture,
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change the way you walk,
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change the little tells, the little insecurities that you default to in an uncomfortable situation,
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learn to smoke.
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And that's just the external,
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there's a whole world of internal stuff too, of course.
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One of my heroes I ended up playing right after I played Murray Colvin,
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and that was Murray Curie.
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So I had this very extraordinary year where two very important Marie's came into my hands at the same time.
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And that was, you know,
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they definitely influenced one another in my mind,
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I think, because I was sort of thinking about them both in tandem sometimes.
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And Marie Curie was just an astonishing person.
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Again, someone who lived courageously.
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I mean, Marie Curie probably,
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I would say, lived pretty fearlessly.
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Mary Colvin, I don't think was fearless.
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You know, that's often the cliche about the war correspondent,
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is that they're fearless.
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I think she was not fearless at all.
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I think she had tremendous fear,
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but the need to tell the story was so urgent that she went past her fear.
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Apart from that, there's no one currently calling me,
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no. But give me a year.
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Hearing stillker
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About This Lesson
In this lesson, you will practice speaking and listening skills by focusing on the nuances of spoken English from the interview with Rosamund Pike about her portrayal of Marie Colvin in the film A Private War. This engaging conversation highlights the emotional depth and commitment involved in acting, as well as the intricate dynamics of collaboration in filmmaking. By utilizing the shadowspeak technique, you will enhance your ability to mimic natural speech patterns, intonation, and emotional expressions, which are crucial for fluency in English.
Key Vocabulary & Phrases
- Portray: To depict or represent someone in a particular way.
- Commitment: A strong dedication or obligation to a cause or activity.
- Optimistic: Hopeful and confident about the future.
- Documentary: A non-fiction film or program that provides a factual report on a particular subject.
- Effervescent: Bubbling with high spirits; lively.
- Trust: Firm belief in the reliability or truth of someone or something.
- Advisor: Someone who gives advice or counsel, especially in a professional context.
- Experience: Knowledge or skill acquired through involvement in an activity.
Practice Tips
To effectively implement the shadowing technique while watching this video, follow these tips:
- Watch first: Pay attention to the video without attempting to repeat the words. Focus on understanding the emotion and tone of Rosamund Pike's delivery.
- Slow down: Since the original speech might be fast-paced, use playback controls to slow down the audio. This allows you to accurately catch every word and inflection.
- Pause and repeat: After listening to a short segment, pause the video and repeat what you just heard. Try to match Rosamund's intonation and rhythm to enhance your speaking skills.
- Utilize the key vocabulary: Incorporate the key phrases and vocabulary into your practice to improve contextual understanding and usage.
- Record yourself: Consider recording your attempts to shadow speak. Listen to the recordings and compare your pronunciation and rhythm with the original video.
By following these steps, you can maximize your learning experience and improve your English speaking skills through the engaging format of learn English with YouTube. Embrace the art of shadowspeaks and let it guide you towards fluency!
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.
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