Going forward, I’m just going to rename this horrible title. How confident can you be to trust what I’m saying when I self declare myself as the worst at improv. It’s kind of like a hipster who wears an ironic T shirt that says “I hate HIpsters.”
First note of the day is, if you want to take comedic improv, take a class at a comedy theater. I’m taking an improv class for actors. It has to be the least challenging class I’ve ever taken. We’re playing all of these games that do not build scenes and don’t connect and mostly involve strange sounds. But then again, that’s just my experience. In the last class, my teacher told us that she reenacted old abbot and castelo scenes. She uses the word “Gag”, “folks” and uses key phrases that I’m sure were from The Brady Bunch. The Point is, Improv for actors are not geared toward comedic scenes but a whole lot of repetitive games that build upon trusting your partners.
But from the class, I did get some useful information.
“If you’re waiting for the Perfect fish-”
1. Try not to reject your Impulse
2. trust the impulsive choice and don’t judge yourself.
3. Dare to Prove yourself wrong.
4. Honor your first impulse.
Common Blocks-
1. Asking a lot of questions.
2. Don’t introduce invisible people.
3. Don’t go for the cheap laugh
4. Don’t lower the stakes
5. Don’t Cancel out ideas
These lists were more probably attached to a book, but I got it from my teacher when she said it out loud and tried to pass this list off as her own.
I like that this list may touch upon some areas that some people may have problems with. The section “If you’re waiting for the perfect fish” is just a section dedicated to just go with your first thought. I know that I’m guilty of not choosing my first thought. I’m constantly thinking of something to say and immediately stopping myself. The monologue to myself sounds like this “Nope. You have no idea what you’re talking about. Not a good idea.”
What I should be doing is letting go of that self judgment and just going for it. There is no better phrase than “Follow the Fear.” What I’ve found about doing improv is that I don’t know shit. The more I do improv, the more I feel like I know nothing about anything except the newest shows on netflix. Regardless, I have to just continue the scene with the little bit I do know. I just trust that my partners know what I’m talking about because from what I understand, the scene is not about the pistons in the car that you have to repair, it’s about the relationship between those two characters.
Create the characters,the relationship and the conflict and the rest should fall into place.
As for the Common Blocks, they seem self explanatory. The only ones that may seem confusing are the 4 and 5. Lowering the stakes of the scene is kind of the opposite of what you want to do. How do you lower the stakes? Just say that someone says “The Monkey Vulchers are coming to attack the apartment!” and you say “Well I have a magical force field around the apartment building made to keep out vulchers…” That would be an example of lowering the stakes. You’re taking the rising action and saying that it’s not all that bad. Then ofcourse with that example, your partner could question you and make you sound like an overly confident idiot to save the scene but best not to lower the stakes.
Canceling the idea would be to just not acknowledge the monkey vulchers at all. Someone says “The monkey Vulchers are coming to attack the apartment!” And you say “There are no such things at monkey vulchers.” That would almost be a direct contradiction of the “Yes And” rule. Once you say no, the scene either stops or it slows down.
There are two other topics I want to cover in this post. Status work and practicing Improv.
STATUS WORK-
I’ve been reading Impro by Keith Johnstone and it has a chapter on status work which is the best part of the book. So you may want to check out the book for that section only. What he say’s about status work is that all of the improvisers must know there status in the scene whether that be high status or low status. He goes into great detail about the different forms of status but I’ll try and give you the condensed version.
High Status- The body language of a high status character is pretty stereotypical. Chest out and head up. This is interesting though- Johnstone says that when a high status character speaks, they speak without moving their head. They keep eye contact and if they do look away, it’s for a second before re-establishing eye contact again. A high status character will also occupy a lot of space. In a chair, they would lean back and spread their arms just say. It has nothing to do with the words that are coming out of their mouths. It’s mostly about the appearance.
Low Status – Low status characters would take up less room. They would kind of fidget around a little bit more also. They can not hold eye contact for long and they do not keep their head steady.
The book asks the reader to imagine people that we are typically high status and low status with. For instance, we are typically low status when we’re talking to our bosses. We might be high status with a friend or co worker. Everyone is a high status or low status depending on the situation and location. A nerd could be low status at a high school but high status in biology class. It’s all dependent on your surrounding. Johnstone says that knowing your status in a scene helps you in the long run.
BTW, we can be high or low status with objects. If you need to get that assignment emailed to your professor or boss by noon and it’s 10 am, your computer is high status. If that computer decides to be a dick for any reason, you would do everything in your power to make it work again. This could work even for video games. Some people spend hours on video games. The player might have the controller but the gamer is definitely low status and the game is high class.
Last note: Play improv games whenever possible. For the past week or so, I’ve been playing short improv games with my friend at work. The key is to try and do these games as quickly as possible to help yourself come up with ideas quicker. We do three games. The sales pitch, and the expert game.
Sales Pitch:
The sales pitch is when Player 1 gives Player 2 any product. Player 2 has to come up with how we can make that product unique. Example: “Glasses that can see into the future.”
Enthusiastically, Player 1 takes that idea and ellaborates how that’s a great idea and what demographic they should sell that product to.
Player 2 then Offers a celebrity to endorse that product and why.
Player 1 then comes up with the product Jingle or clever slogan.
The Expert Game:
This game is pretty simple and hard. Player 1 asks any question in the world to Player 2. It’s Player 2’s job to confidently, and quickly look player 1 in the eye and answer the question as if he was the expert.
Quite often, you may not know the answer to that question but it doesn’t matter. Think of something related or anything that comes to mind and go with it. The first time I did it, I was asked what Mitosis was. I knew only that it had something to do with Cells but the first words to come out of my mouth was, “It’s a pharmaceutical drug…” Then Mitosis, to me, became an antidepressant drug. I knew I was completely off base but to my best ability, I sold that load of crap to my partner.
Get Creative with it. Ask your friend how brakes on a car work or something.
Important thing to remember is to answer the question as honest as possible before moving onto crazier explanations because you don’t know the rest of the details. If you don’t know anything about the subject at all, try and relate it to something you do know and go from there.
The Beastly Jest 