TCIF Musings

Here I am, finally getting around to sharing my thoughts on the workshops I took during TCIF.

The first workshop I took was with Bill Arnett called Characters With a Point of View. I found this to be very helpful, as he gave us an extremely simple way to create a character: string together an adjective and a noun. Voila! Lonely balloon, whiny zookeeper, perfectionist coach, nervous general, savage panda, burned-out lawyer, ditzy crossing guard, intimidating apple, jealous microwave...these are all characters. This really spoke to me because I need to keep the improv simple. Otherwise I get into my head trying to create a character that has the depth of the Pacific Ocean. And then the moment is gone.

The other Bill Arnett workshop I took was The Power of Keeping It Real. We have heard this many times about playing the truth of the moment. There are endless opportunities to do zany and absurd stuff, and that end of the spectrum is certainly funny. Taking snippets of everyday life that anyone in the audience can relate to also yields memorable moments. Bill's thought was for you to be cool or uncool with your partner's choice. Our workshop just played out some exercises reinforcing this. One exercise was to respond with an emotional noise (not a verbal response) to your partner's declaration before you engage in dialogue. The noise deemphasizes the declaration, which is good; the scene is not about the declaration, anyway. "I made a Boston Creme pie." "[shrieks of joy]" gets you on the path of not talking about the damn pie. So is "I made a Boston Creme pie." "[stomps around angrily]".

Another exercise was something you could call Armchair Psychologist. Two people would engage in a scene, and a third person would observe it. After the scene is done, the third person analyzes each character like a psychologist might. The key here is to look for behavior, not actions. Not exactly sure how this exercise fit in with the theme of the workshop, I just remember doing it and thought it was interesting.

A third workshop I took was with Zach Ward called Spread to Survive. This was a technique that would be employed in a Harold structure, though it could easily fit into any multi-scene structure we do (a montage, even freeze tag, maybe some others...). Zach noted that occasionally you are in a scene that you know is not going anywhere, characters are blase, and there is not much established that would warrant calling it back later (like would be done in a Harold). You could spread out the world of the characters with other people who know of them. These Spread scenes exist as their own unique scenes with different characters, not just regurgitating ideas from the original scene. In that regard, Spread scenes are considered "one-way".


For example: if your scene involves a doctor unloading all his personal problems on an unwitting assistant, you could spread that out to a scene with new characters where the opening line is "My doctor was an emotional wreck. I do not want to see you turn out like that." That first sentence ("My doctor was an emotional wreck.") acknowledges the previous scene, and that is the entire connection of the Spread. The second sentence ("I do not want to see you turn out like that.") indicates this scene stands separately, not having anything to do at all with the doctor from the previous scene. It gets right to the relationship of the characters in this new scene. Spread scenes should connect characters, not objects.

The idea is that a Spread connects two scenes with the tiniest of threads. That way "boring" scenes end up serving a purpose: setting up a better subsequent scene. The earlier (shittier) scenes look better in retrospect by drawing on a detail used. In theory, you could have a scene, Spread that scene, Spread that second scene, Spread that third scene, and even Spread that fourth scene. If you finally hit comedic gold, the audience will feel rewarded for sitting through some mediocre scenes to get to the payoff. Those threads will help the whole structure "make sense".

Zach also had an interesting take on scenework that had nothing to do with The Spread. He thought you could approach a scene like an architect, where you build a scene from the ground up. He also thought you could approach a scene like an archaeologist: a scene/world already exists, and the player is just unearthing it and showing it to the audience. His preference was to go for the archaeological route.

Notes: Improv In a Nutshell

Notes from a workshop with Michael Gellman:

A character knows more than the actor
The product of a scene is not your responsibility. It is the character's responsibility
Emotion and Reaction = Honesty
Pick something and find something about it to have a strong emotional connection. Out of the emotional response will come a character
Characters must have stairs to climb in a scene
Our discoveries come through objects, others and the environment
If you get a suggestion such as "you are in the desert" think about the possibilities. You don't have to be thirsty just because you are in the desert. "Fuck it...make a sandwich if you want!"

Your Faces

I miss you guys! Look forward to seeing you next Saturday! I took some notes at the workshop I attended. I'm putting together a real gollywopper of a powerpoint right now. (not really but I wanted a reason to use gollywopper)