How To Be Friends and Act Like Idiots

When I first moved to San Diego, I played with the (now sadly defunct) longform group the “Ugly Truth”. At the time, that group was playing around with different forms – some of them very Harold like, others not so much – when we got to talking about some shows we had seen that we had wanted to emulate. Those shows at the time that were mentioned in particular were “Seinfeld”, “Arrested Development”, and “It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia”, though now you could also throw “The League” on that list of shows about groups of friends acting like idiots. Our conceit was that these shows were endlessly funny, and seemed to have natural, organic scenes, with very fleshed out, fully realized characters; we didn't want to do an “improvised Seinfeld” per se, but we did want to figure out how to incorporate that kind of storytelling stylistically, to be able to walk out into a scene and instantly have these kinds of arresting, filled out inter-personal dynamics.

My initial hypothesis about what common traits these shows had was that they were about selfish people. This does, on the surface, appear to be a unifying element to all shows: Gob is typically only interested in pursuing either his own magic or sex related desires, Kevin underhandedly messes with a suspect pre-trial to get a better draft position (in the first episode no less), and Seinfeld et al go to jail because they can't be bothered to help someone being mugged. These shows seem to be riddled with examples of being being completely self-serving to only their own ends. And yet, this explanation didn't feel quite right – my teammate Chris Rubino accurately pointed out that this didn't sufficiently explain these characters completely, or even mostly. These people do act selfishly at times, but to call them blanket “selfish” wasn't precise.

My next theory was that the status differences between all the characters is very narrow (an explanation I love; see my previous essay), and this is true – none of those various characters really has a very high status over anybody else, and even when there are, there are lots of status shifts: George Sr. runs the company, then Michael, then Gob, then back to Michael. All the members of the various groups of the League and the Sunny folks don't have a leg up on each other, ever, really, and they're always joining forces and then dispersing, so the status balance is always dynamic. This does explain a lot of the relationships in all the shows, but it's an incomplete explanation, more functional than philosophical, and that's the point I needed to get to. Perhaps the stakes are the issue; in all those shows, the matters at hand are often trivial or inconsequential (“Seinfeld” is, after all, a “show about nothing”), but this also falls short, as the stakes are high for the characters (i.e. the things going on are important to them), and in “Arrested” can often be quite actually high (“mild treason”, anyone?).

Then, I found the heart of what makes the characters functional in the ways that they are (I should point out this is two years after I originally asked the question, so kudos to me for sticking it out) – these characters are vain. Vanity – plain and simple – the need to feel attractive, talented, smart, loved, respected, feared, is what constantly drives these characters. It's not enough that Dennis Reynolds thinks he's gorgeous and rich, he needs other people to feel those things too; Ruxin will fight tooth and nail to feel superior to his friends, and even Michael Bluth wants his father to give him control of the family business, because he feels he's earned it (a characterization that drives a good chunk of the show). These people are vulnerable, low, petty creatures, that just want to feel like they have a leg up on those around them. The only other archetype is the “idiot” (Kramer, Taco, Charlie, and Tobias-Gob-Buster), a foil that is often not even aware that they are doing strange things – all the better to set off the status grubbing other characters.

This lead me of course, to my final realization about how these characters work: they're human. What James Bond, John McClane, Luke Skywalker, and countless other action heroes have in common is that while they can be physically injured, and potentially emotionally affected, these people don't really have basic desires. Our other characters of interest are far more human: they have weaknesses, bad habits, and foibles. They're irrational and quick to make rash decisions. Sometimes they just want a marble rye or the waitress – these characters are fascinating to watch because they are so unabashedly human, and playing them is as simple as not being perfect; flaws are what make us so damn interesting. Doing a show that plays these kinds of dynamics is as simple as being human, and being affected.

Three years to figure out that good characters are human? Yeah, that was time well spent.

American Pie v Technology: Reunion Trailer

As I've talked about recently, I believe that "American Pie" is modern anti-technology allegory, despite the fact that that universe has unfortunately dropped into the straight-to-video market, a new trailer for "American Reunion" recently released, meaning that there is another in-canon addition to the franchise. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEJn00VGV4s)

The trailer (in case you didn't watch) has a scene (first prediction: this scene will almost verbatim be the first few minutes of the final movie) wherein Jim and Michelle are now living happily as a married couple - Michelle retires to take a bath, while Jim stays up to work on his laptop. Of course the siren call of the Internet draws him to watch some porn on it, his son walks in, and he cannot turn off the moans emanated from the digital porn he's now holding. He stumbles into the bathroom to find his wife, also onanistically engaged with a vibrating shower head. These developments will come as no surprise to those familiar with my previous writings: the AP universe has always been at its heart a series about the eternal battle between artifice and sincerity. Here we have two healthy adults, self-engaging themselves sexually no more than ten feet from each other - of course they will be embarrassed by this, this universe always punishes using technology over authentic human interaction. (Second prediction: this will be followed by a scene where Jim talks to the Guys about his sexual insecurity, followed by him trying to get his groove back, and finally them reigniting the flames through the power of the Flute.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7qq0iJGSu0

This will be followed up by a more in depth critique after I watch "Reunion", but for now, we continue to ponder how the ramifications of a world that has become increasingly artificial. The last film came out in 2003, and since then we've had an explosion of Facebook and Twitter (allowing social interaction to occur without ever actually "seeing" anyone), Netflix and Hulu (allowing the consumption of mass media without gathering around a TV or movie theater), and smartphones (allowing us to ignore even casual interactions with, heaven forbid, strangers). The second trailer there is the longer one - wherein we learn that it's time for the ten year reunion for the class of East Great Falls High (nevermind their actual reunion should have been three years ago - don't worry about that). Jim and Michelle are married with a kid, Kevin has become a housedad, Oz and Stifler both appear to have become successful somethings (junior executives?), and Finch shows up as enigmatic as ever. (Also apparently Jim's mom died three years ago?)

What is key here is that a high school reunion was selected - the central motif of artifice versus sincerity can be rewritten as artifice versus innocence. In a lot of ways, the ten year reunion really marks a definitive end of innocence - the Guys get back together in their old home town, find a high school party (which they crash), but the main struggle here is that they are no longer even young adults - they're grown ups now. When you return home and see your former classmates, many of whom you have not seen in a full decade, you're suddenly hit by the resonance of seeing people you used to do, well, high school things with now professionals and parents. Responsible, settled into lives with significant others and jobs and children. This life now feels artificial, especially when sharply contrasted against their childhoods - but this is, for better or worse, life now. This existence only feels artificial, and it's a sad fact of life that we cease being innocent at a point. (Prediction three: Kevin will have the hardest time coping with this fact right before the reunion proper. Alternative prediction three: same as before, but the clinching moment will happen in the middle of the reunion.)

Ultimately the philosophical dilemma of the artifice (embarrassing premature videos, Finch and Stifler pretending to be each other in "Wedding", etc.) and innocence and truth (expressing love for someone by impersonating a mentally touched trombonist, realizing who your friends are etc.) in light of the more debauched behavior of the films leads us to the only conclusion available - these movies are about growing up, and the adventures we have along the way.

Prediction four: I will love this movie.

Sideways

Back in 2004, I used to write movie reviews for the USM student newspaper, the "Student Printz". Because I occasionally feel lazy, and it seems a shame that all of five people ever read these, I've decided to repost them here, in the original versions that I emailed to my editor, Noel, all those years ago.

Finally, we have an achievement of the year for filmmaking – a clever turn on the familiar buddy road film. But this general plot line is where “Sideways” pulls away from its more popular cousins, like “Taxi” or “Tommy Boy” and sides more with “Lost in Translation”. “Sideways” is warm and fuzzy one minute, then depressing and provocative the next. Of course, a movie this good isn’t playing in Hattiesburg, but should you go home for the holidays and find it playing nearby – definitely check it out.

“Sideways” is a about Miles (Paul Giamatti), a very depressed author and wine connoisseur. Miles used to be happy of course, but his earlier divorce destroyed him realizing that he has long past his peak and is gradually sliding towards death. At the complete other end of the spectrum, is Miles’ old college friend, Jack (Thomas Haden Church) a washed-up actor and womanizer, just a week away from his marriage. For his last week of bachelordom, Miles is taking his friend Jack on a trip through California wine country. Miles wants a good glass of wine and golf, and Jack wants a lot of wine and a couple of flings before he’s tied down. Their travels bring them across Stephanie (Sandra Oh) and Maya (Virginia Madsen), a wine-pourer and waitress, respectively. While Jack and Stephanie become sexually entangled, Miles attempts to woo Maya. Of course, Stephanie and Maya eventually find out about Jack’s wedding, and Jack and Miles have to return home to their lives.

“Sideways” is in a lot of ways similar to director Alexander Payne’s other work like “Election”: the plot may not be breakneck, but its obvious that there’s a whole lot going on, and by the time the movie is over, you can’t help but being entertained. Miles is very similar to Mathew Broderick’s character in “Election”, a teacher, yearning for something much more but only being shadowed by other people’s success. But don’t think that the movie is only wilted flowers; in fact it is very humorous which only helps to make the film feel more real. Giamatti and Church’s acting is spectacular, and the dialogue and secondary characters only add to the body of the film. And to top it off, the cinematography is fantastic, as it appears that the color scheme was taken from a random pick box of wines: lots of warm and friendly hues, which combined with the Jack character, only makes you pity Miles just that much more.

I would like to say that’s there is nobody out there who wouldn’t like this movie, but then I think about those poor fools locked in that “unfeasible fortress of unknown disability” and I realize that there is more than a few people who wouldn’t like this movie; probably not enough explosions and gunfights to keep you preoccupied. But this movie really is fantastic, and the disillusioned philosophy majors out there would probably really enjoy it. I think the greatest strength of the movie though, is the ending: instead of spending ten minutes wrapping it up, the credits roll pre-denouement, leaving you thirsty for more.

Cause and Affect 3: Oh Geez...

My uncle flew re-fueler planes in Vietnam; just close enough to the action to hear it, but far enough to not really participate in it. The Air Force uses a so called "guard channel" that radio traffic about enemy planes is relayed over. The fighter pilots are a hard bunch - they have the speed and the firepower, so they are in the melee all the time, but again, they are battle-hardened, so they are uniquely unfazed about things that would make most other pilots take pause, at least. Routinely listening to traffic, you could hear various pilots relaying clipped, urgent messages back and forth to each other as they came in contact with bogeys, reacting in ways that seem fairly normal to the rest of us. But among this excited (possibly worried) chatter, the fighter pilots would stick out with simple, terse lines like: "Bogey, 10 O'clock, low. Got him." One particular story is during a refueling flight, my uncle's plane linked up with a fighter element, and the various pilots would go through, reading off their remaining fuel, until it gets to the last plane, who replies in a high-pitched squeal, "I'm almost out of fuel!"

I started watching "Curb Your Enthusiasm" recently, and I was thinking about it in terms of the idea of reaction-based scenework (see my two previous posts, Cause and Affect 1 & 2 in the archives), and Larry David would not, by any means, be considered a "badass". He is only interacting in a very "real" universe: there are no zombies, storm troopers, or supervillains; only the regular kind of everyday people even you could encounter on a regular basis. And in this world, he cannot fulfill the basic criteria for being a badass: 1) having the capability to affect change and 2) being willing to do whatever is necessary to make it happen. Larry David repeatedly shows that he lacks completely the capability to affect change (sure, he can make small gains, but he is so nebbish, tactless, and misanthropic that he routinely fails in relating to others) and is generally more than willing to allow perceived slights against him to go un-remedied and often un-addressed.

So then, why is this character able to maintain a story around himself? The answer is that Larry David is an anti-badass (The complete opposite of a badass. Goodbutt? Nicetush? Greatfanny?) Here's the way it works: Larry doesn't actually cause much change around him, but what he does do is changed by much of what goes on around him. Small stimuli from others around him, cause him to change greatly. He gets very bent out of shape, deeply affected, and dramatically changed in mental and emotional ways by every single one of those stimuli. Remember how we can tell if someone is a badass (or make someone a badass) by creating change to their affects? Batman starts fighting 20 thugs, and we know whether or not he is a badass by whether or not he beats them, and how easily. If he doesn't break a sweat, he is more badass, if he barely crawls away, he seems like less of a badass. If he is defeated, he's not a badass any longer. In effect:

[BF] = [HE] - [EOH]

Where:

BF = Badass Factor (how badass a character seems)

HE = Hero effect (what and magnitude of changes precipitated by hero

EOH = Effect on Hero (what changes the Other precipitates on hero)

Now, in Larry David's case, he effects so little change and is so greatly affected by everyone around him that his BF is effectively negative, which makes everyone else a badass. Remember that there has to be a response to stimuli in order to register change - you can't force the Other to change for you, but you can choose to be changed by stimuli, and because Larry is so changed everytime - greatly frustrated, embarrased, anxious, and angered by everything that goes on around him, that he makes everyone else badass.

Greatbehind?

Field Guide to the North American Improv Scene

My father and his two brothers grew up in east Texas, and from what I can tell, the vast majority of their formative education appears to have been built around naturalism. It's not nearly enough for them to be outdoorsmen – they want to be able to identify literally everything in the natural world. Typical conversations with them go something like this:

Me: Oh, that's a cool [tree, bird, animal, fish].

My Dad or either Uncle: That's called a [name of tree, bird, animal, fish, as appropriate].

Me: Cool.

They seem to have a near encyclopedic knowledge of the various flora and fauna (which may be more a product of growing up on a farm, pre-internet, than anything) but these facts allow them to draw parallels about the world, to understand it beyond merely wandering through it. By that same token, I'm the one my father calls when he wants to know “what else [actor/actress's name] has been in”. This kind of fundamental information becomes critical in truly understanding our worlds, so here is a review of the four basic scenes (I would like to specifically thank iO West's Brian O'Connell who taught me this list).

Straight/Absurd: The most commonly encountered scene. Person A is wacky and strange; he has strange points of view, is irrational and expresses those elements. Person B is a normal guy – he's us, the audience – reacting to the craziness. This basic scene is one of the most commonly exploited for laughs; provided you set up the A causes B frustration (a hammer/anvil situation) then you've got comedy. “Ghostbusters” is a classic example, where depending on the scene, different people play the part of straight or absurd (which is a key element of this dynamic: it's all relative). Peter and Egon sell Ray's family home, and they're absurd and he's straight. They visit the new headquarters and critique it as Ray slides down the pole; now he's absurd and they're straight. Janine asks Egon what his hobbies are and he replies “I collect spores, mold, and fungus”, and you get the idea.

Character: This is the second most common, and is in essence just an extension of the previous scene type. In this one, two characters have similar (often identical) viewpoints. In this one, the points of view often have to be far more exceptional, because now the burden of the “straight man” has passed to the actual audience, who has to recognize the ridiculousness. It's important to note that in a character scene, A and B need not have peculiar characterizations, it's more about how they think. Also, if a third player enters and presents a different viewpoint, you're back to a Straight/Absurd.

Alternate Reality: In this very rarely encountered scene, the players are normal, but the world has gone absurd. Whatever universe these characters inhabit, it has different rules than our own. iO West's Lusty Horde revels in this kind of scenework, where ice bases, dragons, mole men, and other classic B movie fare are considered normal. The fun comes in watching how life works in this other realm. By this same token, Improvised Shakespeare and Improvised Musical pieces could also be considered this scene type, since each of those shows present worlds with different rules than our own.

Roommate: You don't actually have to be roommates in this scene, but this dynamic is one that is set in our own reality, and has normal characters. A and B will often have very similar statuses, and this scene can also have elements of any of the other scene types, but the emphasis is on highlighting reality – absurdism is kept to a minimum. Shootin' the Shit with EJ is great example, but so is Shotgun!, Dinner for Six, and Hold 'em.

Those are your four basic scene types; they can intermingle and hybridize, but you'll find that when you're in a scene, if you can identify the particular species, you can figure out how to make it thrive.

Cause and Affect 2: Being a Badass

What do Batman and Penny from “Inspector Gadget” have in common, and why are they inherently different from Superman and Alvy Singer (“Annie Hall”)?

I was thinking for a while about what makes a particular character “badass”. Some characters (like Batman, for instance), are almost always referred to as being badasses (TV Tropes even uses a picture of Batman in their definition of “Badass Normal”), while some characters (like Superman), are not usually put into that category. Meanwhile, some characters are not considered to be badass, but can have moments in a narrative (think Toby Jones' character in “The Mist” or Shaun in “Shaun of the Dead”), that despite any of their previously expressed traits, that would definitely be “badass moments”. So what makes the difference?

By all accounts, Superman should be one of the most badass characters that exists – he can fly, has superspeed, super senses, heat vision, freeze breath, x-ray vision, is invulnerable, and can (apparently) turn back time (and it should be pointed out that one explanation for why no one puts the whole Clark/Supes thing together is that he also has subconcious kryptonian hypnosis – whatever that is). This should be one of the most badass characters ever created anywhere, but he's not. Superman is introspective, moody, and mopey, regardless of whether or not we're talking comics or “Smallville”. By that same token, Woody Allen's Alvy Singer is not badass (no Woody Allen character usually is, they're too nebbish for that), but it is clearly demonstrated that Alvy has the ability to break the metaphysical constraints of his story: he can talk to the audience, he can freeze events to comment on them, even bringing media theorist Marshall McLuhan onto screen to rebuke an insufferable man at a movie theater. Alvy has some control over his own world, as he can bend and even knock over the forth wall at will. (In this way, he his empowered similarly to Zach Morris from “Saved by the Bell”, another character not really considered badass, but who does have a lot of power.)

So having the capability to do amazing things does not make someone a badass (see also: Dr. Manhattan). That's clear from characters like Batman, who obviously has no superpowers, but is very capable, just in a more human way. Now, why Inspector Gadget's niece Penny? Gadget is the bumbling fool in the show – he is superpowered to the point of being able to do basically anything – fly, a Mr. Fantastic-style reach, magnets, additional hands, and a whole slew of other gadget-related abilities – but Gadget is a bumbling character, and Penny does all the real work. Penny, with Brain, her watch and laptop, can hack computers, do research, and just about anything else computer related. Penny is kind of a badass.

But it isn't an inverse rule of 'no powers = badass' (think Nightcrawler's White House attack in the beginning of X2). What I eventually came to realize is that badasses exert whatever capability they have – they are badass by virtue of their ability to affect change. They see what needs to be done, and they do it. Batman and Penny are badass because they use whatever abilities they have to get things done. By that same token, Superman, Alvy, and Zach have the capability to do some really incredible things, but don't – Superman and Alvy are both too introspective, and Zach would prefer to use his powers to make jokes. As a great example, look at the T.V. series “Heroes”, which had Hiro, who could stop time, travel through time, and teleport – his ability is almost too powerful, so the writers have to figure out ways to limit it, and make Hiro decidedly lame. (“Heroes” also suffered from some other people who had powers that were way too powerful and also had to be limited.) This is an interesting corollary to this: “affects change = badass”. If someone is too powerful, they cross over into a god-like territory where they can affect too much change at will. (This is mostly due to a stakes issue – there's no dramatic tension when someone can do anything.)

So, characters are badass because they see what needs to be done, they become steadfast in their convictions, and they figure out a way to do it that makes the most of their abilities. This is worth noting, because it carries over into character/story dynamics; tragic characters have the ability to fix their problems, but are reluctant and ultimately fail to do so, and badasses do whatever is necessary, and when the Call comes, they answer it.

To carry this over to scenes, we as players have no control over whether or not our stimuli will effect change – we merely do, and our worlds respond how they do (not every explosion shatters a mountain). But as fellow players on stage, we can make others powerful by being affected (Batman is badass because villains are thwarted – not because he attempts to thwart them). Be affected – make someone a Badass.

Team America: World Police

Back in 2004, I used to write movie reviews for the USM student newspaper, the "Student Printz". Because I occasionally feel lazy, and it seems a shame that all of five people ever read these, I've decided to repost them here, in the original versions that I emailed to my editor, Noel, all those years ago.

The Hollywood action film is about to get a major overhaul, done with: wood. “Team America: World Police” is an insanely funny movie by the creators of “South Park” and done entirely with wood constructed marionettes. The movie takes the action genre, which over the years has degenerated into shallow productions, and sets it against a politically minded plot to create movie that is everything it promises to be and more.

“Team America: World Police” follows the exploits of Team America, a group of globetrotting adventurers who travel the world fighting terrorism, capturing weapons of mass destruction, and destroying practically everything in sight. The story begins with the recruitment of Gary Johnston (voiced by Trey Parker), a Broadway actor who is recruited by Team America to help them infiltrate a terrorist organization in the Middle East. Even though their mission is a success, the terrorists pull of an attack on Panama Canal and it becomes obvious that there is a larger terrorist plot at work. To make matters worse, Team America’s actions are protested by the Film Actor’s Guild, their secret headquarters in Mount Rushmore come under protest, and most of the team is taken hostage by the true terrorist mastermind: Kim Jong Il.

Undoubtedly, anyone who is a fan of Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s previous work like “Baseketball”, “South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut”, or “Orgazmo” will find this movie to be nothing less than hysterical. The movie was not only written by the duo, but also directed, produced, performed, and every song but two was written and performed by Trey Parker. The use of marionettes allows the movie to take full comic advantage and do something very original. The movie makes it completely obvious that strings control these characters: one of the first fight scenes features hand to hand combat where the two puppets just jiggle around next to each other. Additionally, since every character is made of wood, the opportunity to have people detonate or melt away is relished in every scene.

What this movie really has to offer is what it says about Hollywood and action movies in general. Originally Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s idea was to create a marionette version of “The Day After Tomorrow” and release it on the same day as its live action counterpart. Although legal matters prevented this, they decided the idea was good enough to warrant a movie that shows just how shallow and interchangeable action movies are. The entire movie is actually meant to satire the use (or over-use as the case often is) of CGI and lame special effects as a crutch for good acting and a decent plot in movies. By using wooden marionettes, they have an enormous amount of flexibility in creating an nearly typical action movie, yet making it different enough to be downright amazing. The movie also takes the opportunity to make some interesting statements about the political atmosphere in America. Instead of seeing a ‘politician’ in the movie, the only political statements are made by characters meant to be Hollywood stars. Additionally, the entire movie is presented as being ethnically unconscious, for example, every location is presented as being a certain distance from America.

“Team America: World Police”, is an incredibly hilarious film, quite possibly the funniest movie to come out all year. Despite the limitations of wooden puppets as the only actors, the movie is an extremely successful satire of not only action movies, but also the political atmosphere. “Team America: World Police” may be crude at some times, but there really is no substitution for good comedy.

Special Affects

One summer before college (probably 2002), my friends and I got together and hung out, and one of us (I think my friend Harrison) brought along a blue foam paddle. I don't know where he got it, or why he had it, but we discovered a wonderful game, of which the only rule was: hit each other with said paddle. While not a complicated game, it was a whole bunch of fun, and we set about boxing each other around with this thing, smacking each other wherever, with the other goal being to catch someone when they weren't expecting it. Now, I should point out, these paddle hits weren't painful – in actuality, they were little more than mildly irritating, but that didn't stop us from howling in (faux) pain every time we were socked with it. My friend Josh and I were both working at the movie theater, and this being a rare night when neither of us were working, and this also being one of those dog summer days when we actually had all night to do anything, and had planned on doing nothing, we ended up trucking down to the theater anyway to say hi to our fellow employees slaving away. We brought along the blue foam paddle, as this game was nary three hours old, and had nowhere near lost its luster. When we got there, we ran into Genghis (so named because he got a hold of the name tag maker and made himself a name tag that said as much), who seemed interested in our game, but upon being hit once with it, remarked that it didn't hurt. That poor blue paddle went into retirement that instant, and we never played that game again.

Our game had been deflated by someone who poked a hole in our logic – there was simply no point in playing a game that had so summarily had it's effects removed. And this point is a singularly destructive element that can cripple scenes: stimuli must affect change. Hitting each other with that blue paddle, we all now knew, would be fruitless, so what was the point? Similarly, two characters in a scene who are not affecting change are going through the motions (pointless, blue paddle motions). It's been called the “ABC's” by multiple writers and instructors: Always Be Changing. The bottom line though is that a cause has to create an effect – that's how the human brain works; we're always looking for causal relationships in the universe, but in an improv scene, there is actual opportunity for someone to break down a causality by not reacting (or, usually, reacting in a way that actor has deemed as “funny”, which is a hollow choice). For our blue paddle, the hit elicited howls from the target, and once we knew that it was just an act, it no longer seemed interesting – prior to that, with the veil still pulled, we could pretend that the affect was honest.

The so-called modern “existentialist” dilemma can be drawn back to a feeling that we are ineffectual in our worlds. (In “Something Wonderful Right Away”, Del even says that the improviser lives out the existential choices on stage.) In existentialism, we, as the individual, are ultimately responsible for providing our own lives with meaning, and living that life authentically – which is to say, passionately and sincerely, and for expressing ourselves. When we inhabit lives that are ultimately ineffectual, or feel meaningless or pointless, we are encountering those prevailing forces. I think of it this way: when you use a computer, you feel productive. You can type documents, surf the web, or listen to music, and we feel fulfilled in the use of the computer. However, when you click on a button and the computer freezes (I'm talking no hourglass/spinning pinwheel), what do we do? You click the button again a bunch of times. It doesn't make sense to our human brains that the clicking didn't produce an effect (because in all other cases, a click did produce an effect – maybe we missed?). So when you're in a scene and someone drops a bombshell like “I want a divorce” we expect to see some effect. It violates the audience's known existence for it not to.

When I see the dreaded transaction (salesman/customer or teacher/student) scene not working, I see ridiculous offers and ridiculous responses that don't seem to match, and I see two characters not reacting. That's it, bottom line – no mysteries here. Want to have scenes with life? Pick an offer and be changed by it; have a strong reaction to it. The more honest the better, but really any reaction is better than no reaction. When fire touches paper, we'd be bored if it didn't do anything, we're interested when it bursts in to flame and is reduced to ash. (If your a twelve year old boy, you then want to see other things be affected by flame). Our whole universe is built on reactions, A and B meet, and C happens. This is important, and should not be overwritten.

YMCA class pictures

I taught an improv class to a YMCA class (I honestly don't know what to call them - they weren't teenagers, they were probably in the 10-12 year old range. "Pre-teen" or "young adult" feels to official, and "kids" is a bit condescending.) a few weeks ago. Here's some pictures that were taken during the class (which was one stop as part of a larger, rotating afternoon - including art, fashion, and screen-printing).

An Open Letter

*Writer's note: I wrote this article about three years ago - I had just saved it because it is a vitriolic, but I also needed content today. Though it is directed to one person, the point I believe is endemic to more than just this one instance.

Dear White Shirt Guy,

Hi there! I saw your improv show last Saturday night; I was the guy in the third row, center stage who wasn’t laughing (more on that later). It might help if I point out that I was sitting next to the two older couples who wouldn’t shut up and left fifteen minutes into your set. They may have had the right idea.

Now you may be asking yourself: “Why am I being targeted for this letter?” Well, there are a couple of reasons, the first of which is that you were one of the two hosts, and therefore I assume that you are in some semblance of in charge of the group. Additionally, you are undoubtedly the most handsome member of the team. Now, I may not be gay, but I do appreciate and respect handsome looking fellas. And you are definitely aware of this fact, as you fulfill the role of “handsome leading guy character” in every scene you’re in.

Allow me briefly to emphasize that last point. You see, what I really mean to say is: every single scene. I’m not sure if you’re aware of the fact, but you were in nearly every single scene. At first I sort of suspected it, like when you’re walking past a window and you think you see two people having sex out of the corner of your eye. But just like my two lesbian neighbors, I had to stop, and step back to see if my initial observation was correct. (It was, and they were. And boy were they going at it.) I started paying very close attention to you, and you were in every god damn scene.

I reckon you fancy yourself as the guy to beat in your troupe. You’ve probably been doing this for a couple of years, and in the tiny fishbowl that is the San Diego improv scene, you’re kind of a big fish (perhaps a halibut?). But I’ve seen this kind of thing before. You feel it’s your duty to make all the scenes funny, and by god, you’re the only man who can do it. Problem is, you’re not very funny, and you play the same character every time. Now, I don’t want to come off too harsh; after all, there wasn’t a single person I saw that entire night who was particularly funny, but I’m singling you out, because at least your problem can be fixed.

Improv is a team sport, man. There is no quarterback, no point guard, no Queen. Now, I’m a big proponent of people playing their group roles and group strengths (you’re the good-looking one, okay), but I have never seen a scene be saved and only rarely made funnier by the addition of another player. And trust me, I have tried. My friends have tried. I have seen the experiment played out in the laboratory of the stage over a dozen times, and it never works. If a scene isn’t going well, the best thing you can do is just edit it. If it is going well, then leave it the hell alone.

Very respectfully,
Dude in the third row, center

Improv and Thank you

I taught an improv class for a YMCA teenage program last week, and this week I have a very nice thank you letter from them.

Soft Skilled part II

A few months back, the New York Times reported on Dr. Verghese, a physician who is trying to revive the lost art of the physical examination of patients[1]. As may come as no surprise to anyone who has spent any time in a hospital – either as a patient, visitor, or medical professional – modern medicine has largely been reduced to tests. The MRI, CT Scan, X-Ray, Ultrasound, and a million other fancy instruments and other tests have begun to be repeatedly and exceedingly relied on for the diagnosis of ailments, and for good reason; these instruments can shed light on things that previously could not be seen (not without surgery anyway), but the good doctor's problem is that these instruments, no matter how useful they may be, have begun to be relied on more than good old fashioned observation (an over-reliance, even). (As Dr. Verghese says: “What's the most important part of the stethoscope? The part between the earpieces.”) The powers of close observation of the patient, from what you see medically, to what's around them, can be infinitely useful in understanding the patient, shattering the concept of the “therapeutic distance” and replacing it with something bordering on connecting and caring.

The point here is that we as improvisers cannot survive on stage using a “therapeutic distance” (perhaps an “empathetic distance” in improv parlance). I wrote about what I call soft skills a few months ago (you can read it in my archives, Oct. 2010), and I mentioned that in a blog written by Jason Chin, he bemoaned the idea of going to get a beer after class being the anathema to no group mind, but what I think Mr. Chin's issue is assuming that group mind will be the ultimate goal of such a trip. Now, I won't argue that you're not going to get group mind out of just pounding drinks with your classmates (sorry), but you will become more comfortable with them. Soft skills are not synonymous with group mind – quite the contrary. Group mind is that capacity to follow the invisible drum beat in your group, to accept and work with mistakes as though they were intentional, to understand where your fellow players are going; what an audience often sees as “mind-reading”, or more appropriately to act as if you were one entity, as opposed to a bunch of individuals. Soft skills and group mind do have some overlap, and one may help the other, but they're not the same thing. (At least, that's what I think Mr. Chin doesn't like about the concept; I may be dead wrong.)

Let me reference another New York Times article, one that analyzed research that found that people with sisters were more like to consider themselves “happy” than people who did not[2]. The knee jerk response is that it's because women are more likely to be open emotionally, whereas men are not. However, what really appears to be happening is not that women are more open (because research has shown that time spent talking, regardless of the topic, makes people happier), its that women are more likely to talk more often and for longer periods of time than men. This is what we're doing when we go to the bar with our fellow improvisers (or really anyone). It should be noted that it doesn't have to happen at the bar, just seems that's the way it works out. (What does that say about us as people?) It's not that its the drinking that spurs the soft skills, its the spending time with people, playing games, go-cart racing, or just talking that allows us to become better, more connected people, which in turn helps us be better improvisers.

So then what are these skills we want to acquire? Well basically the concept boils down to players being willing to be open and accessible to each other. I just finished reading Johnstone's “Impro for Storytellers”, and he lists at the end what he sees as qualities players have when they are working well together: “They're taking care of each other and being altered by each other. They're daring, mischievous, humble, and courageous. They're being themselves, rather than fleeing from self-revelation.” (For counter-point purposes, here's what he sees as “bad”: “Being negative (e.g. killing ideas). Fighting each other for control. 'Planning' instead of 'attending'. Wrecking stories for the sake of easy laughs.) What I was struck by was how much those don't just sound like “My list of things that make a good scene”, but more like “My list of qualities that make a good player or group of players”. Especially take note of that middle one: “daring, mischievous, humble, and courageous”, these are qualities that hard to foster in a group of strangers, but if your group takes the time to spend with itself, these qualities come naturally as you get comfortable with each other. (Picture any long-time friend of yours, and even if you haven't seen them in years, you know that if you got together it would be “just like old times”. Or, the proclivity of some people to get back into relationships with people they've previously broken up with (even if just “for benefits – seriously, some guys have all the luck).) Studies have shown that happy people tend to be more creative problem solvers, making decisions faster, with less back-and-forth, and are better at combining material in new ways and to see the relatedness between things (sounds pretty useful for this improv thing, just sayin')[3,4,5,6,&7]. Johnstone also refers to what he calls the kinetic dance, which I find to have a lot of similarity to what I'm calling soft skills (not the least of which because it's a better sounding name).

The kinetic dance is the existence of the “threads” that connect all the players – it's the little, almost intangible and for the most part unquantifiable little physical things we all do: how we hold our hands, our bodies, our heads, how far apart we stand from each other that allow us to maintain our various statuses and dynamics with all the people around us. (Imagine two people talking in an office. A third person enters – how do the previous two people react to accommodate the new addition?) This dance exists outside the stage, but often can be lost when we get on stage – but this kinetic dance is the same soft skills that allow us to react spontaneously to each other. Spending time with your fellow players helps strengthen these threads so that they don't disappear under the watchful eye of the audience – it makes for more playful, more attuned teams.

Footnotes

[1] Grady, Denise. Oct. 11, 2010. “Physician Revives a Dying Art: The Physical.” New York Times.

[2] Tannen, Deborah. Oct. 25, 2010. “Why Sisterly Chats Make People Happier.” New York Times.

[3] Greene, Terry, and Helga Noice. 1988. “Influence of Positive Affect upon Creative Thinking and Problem Solving in Children.” Psychological Reports, 63, pp 895-98.

[4] Isen, Alice M. 2001. “An Influence of Positive Affect on Decision Making in Complex Situations: Theoretical Issues with Practical Implications.” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 11 (2), pp75-85.

[5] Isen, Alice M, K. Daubman, and G. Norwicki. 1987. “Positive Affect Facilitates Creative Problem Solving.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62 (6), pp. 1122-31.

[6] Isen, Alice M., Thomas E. Nygren, and F. Gregory Ashby. 1988. Influence of Positive Affect on Subjective Utility of Gains and Losses: It Is Just Not Worth the Risk.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55 (5), pp. 710-17.

[7] Isen, Alice M., and Robert Patrick. 1983. The Effect of Positive Feeling on Risk Taking: When the Chips Are Down.” Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 31, pp. 194-202.

The Hot Spot

We as performers are constantly charged with an exceedingly daunting task: getting along, working, and performing with nearly complete strangers with the ultimate goal of producing laughter. Improv already has very little set up, and we want to make it as portable and flexible as possible, so as a result improvisers (starting with Charna Halpern and Del Close) formulated those treasured iO ideals of cherishing each other on stage and loving each other's contributions. But it’s one thing to say something (“the earth is round”, for instance) and quite another to make it happen.

Primarily for this reason (and maybe others, hell I wasn’t there when they invented the game) Hot Spot was created. The basic rundown of Hot Spot: everyone gets in a circle, one person steps into the middle and starts singing a song. When it starts to become obvious that they no longer know the words, or are uncomfortable, someone steps out of the circle and takes their place in the middle. My level one teacher said we should use the game to train our own internal instinct to edit. “Feel it in your stomach” he would say. “You already know when things need to stop to make room for something else, and you already know when your partners need your help. Just feel it.” (I am actually paraphrasing; it’s not like I recorded my improv classes.) This game actually sounds great in theory, but I’ve never seen it work the way I think it should.

Here’s what I think the problem is: the game says that someone goes out there and sings for 15 seconds or so and then is replaced. I don’t think the average improviser’s brain allows for this kind of fast editing. It requires a little longer than that to settle into to new input. The other problem, and I encourage everyone to look at this the next time you play, is that everyone is thinking way too hard. It’s just natural. We are all trying desperately to be inspired by something right now so we can get in there with a new song. The result is not a nice organic in and out flow of players, but a forced projection.

I make this humble theory on a few distinct observations. First, the larger the group, the slower the interchanges, which runs opposite to what’s expected. You would expect that with an increasingly large circle size, there should hardly be anytime for anyone to sing. Everyone should be charging the center. (For example, let's say that at any one time, 25% of a group is ready with a new idea. That means in a group of four, one person has an idea, but in a group of 10 two or three people should have ideas.) Additionally, I have only ever seen maybe two times where two people entered the center at the same time, and I have never seen three enter. The principle of the game should result in this constant cascade of nearly everyone entering the circle at the same time, because everyone should be simultaneously recognizing the need for an edit. (Then again, maybe they are, they’re just too busy thinking of a song to get in there.

Does this mean Hot Spot is a bad exercise? Probably not, as its heart is in the right place, but it’s just a weak game. It has a very lofty goal, but just doesn’t achieve it. Or maybe the problem is I’ve only ever seen it done with brand new groups where everyone’s still unsure and nervous as a result of all these new people. Or maybe the larger groups make everyone feel like the responsibility is spread out thinner than in small groups so people don’t feel as big a need to help out. Good group work is everyone's responsibility; one group, one voice.

The Abyss of Status

As a second entry into my series of Things That I Have Learned Doing Improv That Were Ill Understood And Yet Still Taught To Me, this week we will be discussing status. Status is the dynamic between two people as expressed in how they either command or acquiesce to each other. Improv teachers say that well defined, big status offers are interesting and powerful to watch. A teacher and a student traditionally have a fairly large status chasm between them, because the teacher is in charge, and the student(s) have to follow the teacher's instructions. (This is, as is turns out, quite necessary, as anyone who has ever tried to control a large group of underage children and also teach them something). The teacher and the principal also have a fairly large status chasm between them, as the principal is the teacher's boss (and can also fire the teacher). When discussing two characters, we usually say that one character is “high status” and the other is “low status”, though bare in mind that these are only relative terms.

A high status character is usually more still (little head movement, gesturing, definitely no fidgeting or nervous twitches), speaks and moves with brevity and purpose, is comfortable, and makes themselves seem bigger or taller.

A low status character is usually more fidgety, nervous, rambles, tries to keep distance from others, and tries to make themselves seem smaller.

Ultimately, status is a relative measurement of how more or less in control, and confident a character is (but always compared to a second party). We typically associate high status with police, judges, bosses, soldiers, while low status are usually employees, students, or children. The examplar exercise for this is the card game – affix a playing card to each player's forehead so that they do not know what they have, and everyone treats everyone else based on what they know about other people, with Ace being lowest and King being highest. At the end, have everyone get in a line of increasing status, and then take their card down and see how well they did. The concept of establishing status is very Johnstonian (and as a result the people I see teach it the most are either Johnstonians, TheaterSporters, or ComedySporters) and is often one of the first concepts taught to new improvisers. Establish the status, establish the scene.

There is nothing inherently wrong in pursuing strong status at the start of a scene – finding out who the boss is and who the employee is tells us a lot about the relationship, dynamic, and setting of the scene with very little effort. However, the way the concept is taught is often to make big status offers (“I'm the King, you're the peasant.”) which, while very edifying, make scene management very difficult. One of the most common questions I hear from improvisers is how to make a scene last longer – and often the answer is one of status. A scene between a king and a peasant has a very large abyss of status – the king is very high, he is, after all, ordained by God to be the supreme ruler of the kingdom, whereas the peasant is, quite literally, a nobody (no offense to any feudal era peasants who may be somehow reading this – now back to the field!). As you stare into an abyss of status this deep, know that it stares back into you.

What you can do to make your scenes last longer is to narrow the abyss of status. The slimmer it is, the longer, richer, and more interesting your scenes become. The first strategy is to make offers of slim status difference between you and your scene partner. The vast majority of truly amazing scenework I've seen has been between two equals (for example, friends) – you may not feel like the scene is going anywhere, but it is – it's just not going as fast as would with the king and the peasant, a dynamic that has a lot of power, but can't necessarily continue forever, and often will burn out much sooner. The other tactic is what often termed a status shift or switch, but is often just a narrowing of the status abyss. The boss and employee are talking, and the boss admits he's broken up because his wife is sleeping around – now the boss is closer to the same level as the employee, and they can communicate.

This all really boils down to the capacity to be changed, that is, your character's capacity to be changed by what's going on – static environments are boring, dynamic environments are exciting. That's why your big status offer stalemates the scene after 60 seconds – a high status boss who won't be changed preserves the status abyss, and it swallows you whole. But show me the king who is conflicted about being supreme ruler and confides in a lowly peasant or two guys sitting around drinking beers commiserating about women mistreating them, and you'll see a chasm that can be crossed, and it will seem all the more interesting for it.

Group Suck

There was an improv article that I found circulating the internet a while back, written by Adam Felber, titled “Why Improv Sucks” (the article can be found here, for those who want it in its original context: http://www.improvresourcecenter.com/mb/showthread.php?t=1075). The article is a fairly succinct missive about the many shortcomings that improv has that continue to prevent its professional evolution, and one point in particular stuck with me, if only because I've written on a related topic about a year ago (you can read it in my archives in August 2010, “Expert or Fun?”). I'll only paraphrase Adam's point here, which is that improv groups have a unique organizational structure, by which he means (and I agree with) that unlike in other endeavors, under-performing, weaker members are often allowed to remain on a group's rosters forever effectively hindering what the group can ultimately do.

Now obviously, being an improviser himself, I'm sure Adam is aware where this attitude comes from; it's the “Theater of the Heart” concept put forth by Close. In order for improv to be successful, we had to train people to cherish and celebrate each other's ideas on stage, or scenes would never form (or just one or two railroading individuals would control everything and everyone else would just follow along). This “treat others like geniuses, artists and poets” (as well as “yes, and...”) conceit extended from the stage into the organization, which was great, because that helps encourage along the “group mind” books are always going on and on about. Groups have to be more than people holding each other at a detached, professional distance to achieve the level of powerful artistic intuitiveness that leads to great improv – they need to be open & available. (This quest for group mind, I believe, is largely the reason for the current immobility of membership – I disagree with Adam's notion that “there's too few good improvisors [sic] around”; that may have been true back in 2001 when Adam wrote the article, but I see too many talented people for that to really be a valid argument anymore. Alternatively, it may be because, as Carrane and Allen put it – we're “too nice”. Or even more, that improvisers see themselves as so different from “real acting” as to be more accepting of mistakes – the “populist”, “accept all mistakes as offers”, or “acting-is-bad-because-actors-are-snooty” theories. I personally think that there is an unfortunate spiral of having a flippant attitude towards improv – there are too few that take it seriously, and too many who just see it as a whatever hobby – the latter, majority viewpoint has more people adhering it, and tends to make even people in the former camp switch sides.)

However, we've allowed that to extend into a family-oriented dynamic that overrides our professional sensibilities about making good art. I had a conversation with a fellow improviser who is a member of a group that has that kind of people-don't-leave-except-by-their-own-accord dynamic, and he told me how much he loved being a member of such a group because it meant not having to worry about getting kicked out of a group – essentially, he liked the fact that he could coast once he got in (alternatively, he could continue to work hard, and he does because he's a good improviser, but not everyone will have the same work ethic). That group as a result has a some really talented people, and some real clunkers, but no system to foster creative or talent growth, other than a wish and a prayer. The plus side of this approach, it should be noted, is that no one needs to feel afraid of failure, because nothing bad can happen to you in such an event (side question: is that such a good thing – improvisers are lazy enough as is).

But this is the other side of Adam's rub – if members are never removed, even if they under-perform (like my friend likes), then the group suffers by having a few weak links, but because new people can't be brought in, then improv suffers (because you're not putting the most talented people together – you're splintering your talent pool). My friend compared this to groups he was familiar with in NYC (though the comparison holds true to other large cities as well) where getting in the theater is a struggle, as is staying in it – though this fosters growth and does not allow “coasting”.

Now, I am by no means am going to tell you what to do (but you're likely interested if you've read this far), but you're two option are thus: 1) value friendship, fellowship, and fraternity or 2) value talent, productivity, and skill. Notice at no point did I say that the first option is wrong in any way. I have a friend who has been practicing once a week for the last seven+ years with a group and they've never done a show. There's nothing wrong with that; it's just a bunch of people who like the artistic outlet and the social aspect, but don't need to do the whole show thing. If you take option one though, you can't be upset about your group not exceeding expectations and breaking new ground artistically – you have to be happy with the people you have, whether they're an “A+” improviser or a “D-” who's just doing it because he has time and it's fun. (It should be pointed out that even your iO or UCB or Second City rosters aren't immune – but the difference is that new additions are heavily vetted, and those that are at the point that they don't have to worry about being removed have been doing it for a great number of years, and are usually, let's face it, really good.) By the same token, option two isn't automatically right – it certainly won't make you any friends among those you don't deem up to snuff – but getting the best people together is how you make the new cutting edge, and hopefully you won't forget to still love and cherish each other once you get there. Though do read my previously mentioned article – even in a superstar team, you'll still need to grind the whole thing out and stick with it.

It would do well to remember that even under option 2, we still have a duty to our fellow improvisers that we share the stage with to be supportive, and to still look to play with people we enjoy the company of (see my previously indicated article). We can still strive for constant improvement, push harder and farther in our craft without being snooty, self-absorbed blowhards. Got a player in your group who's not working like everyone else is? Push them harder – make it clear that the group wants to keep moving, and they'll either step up the game (which is awesome if you like playing with them) or both parties will realize that it's time to part ways (which sucks if you like playing with them). Improv is still a team sport if you're taking it seriously, and the whole team will have to go along pushing it up to the next level for it to work.

College

Back in 2004, I used to write movie reviews for the USM student newspaper, the "Student Printz". Because I occasionally feel lazy, and it seems a shame that all of five people ever read these, I've decided to repost them here, in the original versions that I emailed to my editor, Noel, all those years ago.

“Stay with her. It's the best advice I can give you. Oh, that, and bring rubber flip-flops in the shower. I got warts all over my feet.” This was the best advice given to Mike Dexter (Peter Facinelli) for college in the movie “Can’t Hardly Wait”. College is always represented on the silver screen as some larger than life entity. More chilling than a thousand knife-wielding maniacs, college as a movie topic is a powerful force if only because of the gravity of the reality following it. It drives men to foil administration at every turn to either graduate or stay in it (“Animal House”, “Van Wilder”). For high school students in movies, it’s something even more frightening: ‘the next step’ (“American Pie”).

Typically, college and high school kids were relegated to the lower echelon on the movie pyramid, having to settle with partying naked in graveyards just in time to get eaten by zombies or causing some great political cataclysm (“Return of the Living Dead” and “WarGames”). Then someone realized that people enjoyed watching movies where these characters weren’t doing some outlandish activity and instead did things that people their age actually do. For high school, the story was always the need to move forward: graduate, go to college, get a job, and sever the old friendships with people you probably won’t see again. Sometimes though, it’s just about remembering the good times and keeping your friends as you move forward, from Spicoli ordering pizzas in Mr. Hand’s class (“Fast Times at Ridgemont High”) to Preston Meyers getting his high school sweetheart (“Can’t Hardly Wait”).

College movies, it’s a different story: find purpose, graduate, move into the ‘real’ world, at whatever cost. In “Dead Man on Campus” two roommates try to find a suitemate desperate enough to kill himself so they can stay in school and inadvertently discover what they actually want to spend the rest of their lives doing. In “Road Trip” an accidentally sent tape of a sexual encounter to his girlfriend forces Josh Parker to realize what he needs to make it in college. If high school was about keeping your friends and finding yourself, college is about finding where you need to go and getting there. The worry is that you graduate without having it all figured out, and then you get sucked back in to college or into affairs with controlling women (“Old School” and “The Graduate”).

Regardless, it seems that everyone manages to drop into the role of adult just in time, and this is the climax of the picture.Remember that no matter what happens once you get ‘out there’, you’ve always got the memory of what happened during your time here. If there is one thing that all these movies can teach us, it is that life is not about the ending credits, it’s about the story before the credits. College loses it mysticism after you spend some time at it, and undoubtedly the real world will too. Like Mike Dexter, we tend to linger and hang on to the familiar, but high school and college are only gateways to the rest of our lives.

Aloha, Mr. Hand.

To Err is Improv Part 3

Our brains are good at making connections and finding patterns, but that is often all we do. We simplify the world around us into generalizations and stereotypes, we discuss things in probabilities and statistics, but as my friend used to say: “Statistically speaking, statistics are meaningless.” When we trade details for abstractions, we run the risk of missing potentially damming and useful information. The easy fix for this is to simplify. This may sound counter to my previous statements, but we really have to do a lot less work than we usually end up doing. Be blunt in the information you present, and it makes it easier to interpret it bluntly. Often we learn more from summaries of information, yet we still decide to overload ourselves with information, which, as it turns out, doesn't actually help us. (We also tend to focus on the inconsequential and easily observed.)

This is, for the most part, one of the great obstacles for a young improviser: humans dread finality. We prefer to think of our worlds as pliable and malleable, with options available to us, which interpreted into an improv scene is what Keith Johnstone referred to as wimping, Tom Salinsky called waffling, but you can just think of as “wiggle room”. It's the difference between a general saying we're in a missle silo, and the some dude saying we're at work. Put bluntly (here we go): “Hope impedes adaptation”. When you're stuck with something, you have to adapt and learn to live with it. In our current model, we can break it down a little more, and take the opposite form of “hope impedes”, and make it instead “decisions breed”, and make “adaptation” into “justification” (a wonderful improv word), and we get a fantastic improv mantra: “decisions breed justification”, which is (roughewn) Del Close's third “Kitchen Rule”.

Decisions, properly committed to will give you more defined, clear scenes. You can't fear mistakes and errors in improv. But to do so isn't the end of the world – you just learn more. Studies seem to repeatedly show that adults and children have trouble tolerating mistakes, which is the opposite of what improv teachers try to breed in players (Salinsky I think put it best: “This is going to be great! What is it?” Improvisers need to be made to see the perceived benefits of taking risks are worth taking them – the tightrope is where the tension is, not in the safety net.

“A pilot who doesn't have any fear probably isn't flying his plane to its maximum.” - Astronaut Jon McBride

I had an enlightening discussion with a fellow improviser a little while back; his argument was that beginner improvisers need a teacher to tell them how to do things correctly, and we ended up putting it into terms of skydiving instruction. The first few times you take dives, you are strapped to an experienced skydiver, and after doing that, you get to move up to heavily supervised solo jumps. Now, my friend's stance was that you need that instructor flying with you because otherwise you might die – a completely valid concern about skydiving. The problem with using the metaphor in discussing improv is that messing up while skydiving can at the very least seriously injure the diver if not kill them, but that doesn't really happen in improv. If your scene tanks, you and your scene partner don't slam into the ground at 120 miles per hour and get carted off in body bags, you go “that sucked” and move on. But fearing failure like the plague and relying on someone else to tell you the “right” way defeats much of the point of learning a craft. A better metaphor for improv is Legos: sure, the lego company tells you how to put the pieces together to make the pirate ship or the castle displayed on the box, and just doing that doesn't make you a bad person, but there is literally nothing stopping you from making the pieces into anything you want. Put together something strange, or unwieldy, or that falls over instantly? No problem – take it apart and start over. Want to make a pirate spaceship instead? Knock yourself out.

Never leaving a comfort zone means that you are potentially preventing yourself from discovering something amazing that may exist just beyond the bounds of what you currently know that works. I'm not saying that there aren't dragons out there, but you can't let fear of encountering them keep you from venturing forth.

To Err is Improv Part 2

So how do mistakes ruin a scene? I like to think of it this way: imagine your scene is a ship at sea, thousands of miles from home, no land in sight, driving into the great blue unknown. Now, any mistake made on this ship could potentially doom it: steering, navigation, morale, food, disease and any number of other things that could potentially go wrong. Now with your scene, you have an opportunity after each mistake to treat it as a gift instead; to make it an offer instead of an error. Small mistakes are easier to correct than others – calling a character “Tom” instead of “Tim” or “Bob” are relatively minor errors, in the same magnitude as maybe a minor miscalculation in navigation. An error that small can sometimes be ignored altogether; it doesn't really matter what the character's name is, and a small miscalculation might still get you pretty close to your destination, or at least not that far off course. The larger the error gets however, the harder it is to ignore and still keep the ship together, and the more the error needs to be justified and incorporated. Making multiple mistakes back-to-back without opportunities to justify them drive the ship to the briny deep much quicker (rotten food + off course + dangerous storm + disease = Davy Jones' Locker; rotten food – rationing + off course – course correction + dangerous storm – more beer + disease – medicine = OK).

“You learn more losing races than winning them.” - Frankie Avalon, Fireball 500

It's a little too easy to get bogged down in the details of failure – this is exemplified by what is called hindsight bias. Essentially, when you know the outcome of something, the events that lead up to that conclusion seem inevitable, and significantly changes how we perceive and remember those events. In retellings, irrelevant or inconsistent data is discarded for those data points which bolster the ultimate finding. But before we get to that final destination, the finality is obfuscated and buried in conflicting information – this makes sense, since after all, a good improv scene does not have a predetermined, fixed point prior to the scene, but afterwards all of the information presented make where we got to become the only available option. Which is a sign of a good scene – no conflicting information, or other possibilities, just a singularity of conclusion. The issue becomes that the more familiar we are with something, the less we tend to notice – we assume things as we think they should be, not how they are. The brain doesn't tend to notice a difference between an improv scene and real life, so when we step on stage, we don't tend to notice some things because on a subconcious level, we think we're observing real life, and we have a list of things that we do normally in real life. Except, these are imaginary situations we are presented with, and we need to pay a little more heed to pick up some of the abnormal minutiae. The noticing is what is important, usually as part of an active experience, not a passive one.

To Err is Improv Part 1

From the very first time we start improv, we are taught that one of the basic rules is that there are no mistakes (or at least I hope you were). The very nature of the craft is that nothing you can possibly do is wrong because, since there is no script, technically nothing can be a mistake. By definition, a mistake is a wrong action, and how can anything necessarily be wrong when there is no “right”? After all, improv is in the interpretive, and what is right to you is correct – there isn't a test proctor who can grade you against what the right answers were. On the flip side however, everyone who's ever gotten notes after a show or class knows that it is possible to make mistakes, but how is this possible? A quick check of scenes that are “right” and ones that are “wrong” shows where the rubric lies: it's not in the individual answers, but in the piece as a whole, and from that perspective, we want something that is entertaining for an audience. But that still doesn't satisfy the dichotomy in mistake making.

“The Buddha said each mistake is a rebirth ... don't you want to get reborn?” - Charlie Crews, Life

Improv is, in a strictly technical sense, a practice that is built for failure. When systems or tools are designed to maximize success and minimize failure, they are built with what are known as constraints – devices meant to block failure. A Phillip's head screwdriver has the familiar plus sign shape that locks into a Phillip's head screw, and as a result it is difficult to use incorrectly because the system doesn't allow for many configurations. This may explain why some people prefer multiple choice tests over essay ones; multiple choice answers effectively constrain the possible answers. Improv has no such constraints – anything is possible, which means there are an infinite number of ways to make mistakes. There are also an infinite number of ways to be correct, and a lot of improv games and forms are actually just a system of constraints meant to block the capacity for making errors, and drive you down a road of success. Because there are no errors in improv, we build the constraint that as information is added to a scene it becomes fact. (The first “Kitchen Rule” - don't deny the established reality.)

Then how is it possible that mistakes can drive a scene off the rails? First, it may be helpful to indicate a few common types of errors: errors of commission and omission and errors of wimping and waffling. An error of commission is one where someone intentionally goes against the scene, for example: calling someone “Dad” when they previously established as “Mom” simply because you didn't like the original decision. Errors of omission are ones where something is forgotten, not seen, or not heard – there is no malicious intent here, just human nature (more on this later). Errors of wimping are ones where a player prefers to keep things vague instead of concrete, for example, compare “Hand me that over there” with “Hand me that rifle next to the zombie head”. This is because when we are going to make a mistake, we would rather make that mistake by failing to do something as opposed to doing the wrong thing. Errors of waffling could also be thought of as errors of committing, where ideas are tossed away because we either don't feel like keeping it in the air or because we want to try another idea. It's also important to look at errors in terms of their significance: minor all the way up to major.

American Pie versus Technology, Part 3

(This is part 3 in a series - part one can be found in the archives over there (->) in November of 2010, and part 2 in January 2011.)

Kevin deserves special mention, largely due to the contributions made to the anti-tech argument made by his girlfriend Vicky. Kevin manages to win his girlfriend over with sexual techniques learned in the “Book of Love”, and there can seldom be a more non-modern tool than a paper book. Vicky on the other hand, has the hardest time losing her virginity – she is the only character who must be “talked into it” - and no surprise here, she is the one seen using the most technology. She is the only person in the first film seen driving (though early in “Pie”, Finch attempts a dramatic exit on a yellow Vespa, saying “Gentlemen, destiny awaits”, only to have his vehicle sputter underneath him. Clearly, he will travel to destiny on motorized transportation), and minutes later is seen using a vending machine, and a few scenes later again, is discussing manual stimulation with Jessica referring to it as “double clicking the mouse” - a direct reference to what is arguably the most powerful piece of technology today. Jessica even refers to Vicky's statement that her first time must be “the right time, the right place, the right moment”, by telling her it's just sex, and not a “space shuttle launch” - real modern rocket science! And her eventual realization that she wants to lose her virginity comes while she is doing homework with Jessica in a library, again paying homage to the power of the written academic word (and also possibly tying into the place where Kevin found the Book of Love, perhaps representing the purity of their previous physical interaction). Kevin does however benefit slightly from a modern staple – a phone call connects him with his brother in both “Pie” and “2”, and receives useful advice: the Book of Love in the former, and the idea to get a summer house in the latter. Why then does these phone calls actually result in success? Well the answer is that, while the phone calls do provide Kevin with useful information, it is incomplete. The Book does not get him laid, that honor falls to his being able to tell Vicky he loves her, and the lake house does not settle his concerns about his fading friendships, it is only a third act revelation about the friendship he has. Even at its best and most helpful, it would seem technology is still incomplete – it can only open the door, it is up to us to walk through it.

It would seem that technology is out to get anybody anywhere – Stifler's hotel reservation in Wedding is canceled by phone (in actuality at the hands of Finch off-screen, but only made possible by the lack of personal, face to face communication that a phone call provides). Additionally, his decimation of the flowers for Jim and Michelle's wedding in the same film is as a result of his incompetence in using technology as simple as a light switch (his flipping of random switches accidentally switches off the cooler keeping the flowers fresh). Stifler would seem to deserve special attention, however – he is three times embarrassed, none of which seem to have an underlying tech behind them: by drinking a cup of beer that Kevin has ejaculated into following fellatio with Vicky in the first film, by being peed on while wooing a freshman in the second film, and by being caught covered in cake and being licked in the crotch by dogs in the third film. This continual humiliation which does not come as a result of tech would seem to fly against my theory of the trilogy. But Stifler, if you will recall, is always presented as an outsider. He is popular, in that he hosts parties that are seemingly very popular, is capable of getting laid, however, he is always presented as being outside the primary group of friends of Jim, Kevin, Oz, and Finch (indeed at the end of the second act in “Pie”, Finch asks: “We were friends with Stifler?” Even these four do not see themselves as his friends, merely acquaintances.). Instead, Stifler has a number of people who watch his antics – he is seen entertaining the lacrosse team about Heather's possible sexual noises, gathering a crowd to make fun of Finch as he leaves the girl's restroom after putting laxative in his coffee, and uniting his football team in “Wedding” to make fun of Jim, but all of his bluster with these large groups of friends are largely one way – him telling jokes and other people watching and laughing. In this respect, Stifler is more like a blogger, tweeter, or message boarder. He has no real friends, only “followers”, in today's parlance. He is punished because he actually is technology, in a metaphorical sense. He chases after the kind of instant, self-gratification that has become so common in our interconnected society, and he is punished for it, until he begins to make real friends in “2”, and finally a worthy mate in “Wedding”. The first two films both feature a tracking shot following Stifler from room to room as he says hello to the respective party-goers, but he has no meaningful conversations with anyone he talks to, instead just resorting to witty, snippy, and snide comments – a sort of wiki-walk/commment hybrid.

If anything, the films make the statement that modern technology stands in the way of real intimacy and real relationships – though at the time the internet was limited, today it is possible to have an entire life on-line with seldom having to venture into the real world. “Pie” seems to take the stance that real life is better – for example, even though Jim is a stammering idiot around Nadia, she still has a thing for him. The films tell us one simple thing – people who use technology are made the worse for it, and those that choose a simpler, more social experience are made the better for it. In order to grow up, you gotta unplug, go out, and live a little.

For Charity!

A few weeks ago I caught a disaster movie marathon at a local theater, the centerpiece of which was Irving Allen's disaster epic “The Towering Inferno”. “Inferno” is a movie on a grand scale, and is first and foremost proof that viewers had an obsession with procedural dramas well before “Law & Order”. There are some things that are a little dated, but what sticks out the most are some rather clunky dialogue bits – ones that don't advance plot, deepen characters or stakes, and are often uttered by random characters: for example a shot of people evacuating the building holds on an older couple who say that there were supposed to be fire drills, but none were ever conducted. There is a clear point to the movie – entertainment, but the filmmakers took the opportunity to deliver important (though not subtle) messages about fire safety.

As artists, our goal is often very basic – to entertain (or on a deeper level, illustrate on the human condition). This doesn't make what we do normally ignoble or unvirtuous; something could be said for providing laughter to the masses, but often that is as far as we go. The possibility is there to do something good with our craft either by message (even if it is the hamfisted approach that “Inferno” takes) or by product. Improv is actually a very useful tool for both kinds of change – it is unique in that it is able to instantly change to meet developing pop culture, news, or social changes as well as being an exceedingly populist craft in that its inspiration is derived directly from audience influence.

I've now organized two different improv charity shows, and I firmly believe that this craft can be very useful for doing good, and appropriately so – it is the most populist art form, one where even the objective audience gets to participate and also because it is cheap to produce. Most improvisers are used to doing gigs for no money, so you typically can get away without having a limited (or no) performer's budget; the only true cost that you won't be able to escape from will be space rental. If you want to do a charity show, you can always look into cheap options: the first show I produced was on a university campus and because we were a student organization, we could rent a very large, very nice space on a Saturday afternoon for no cost. With enough logistical working and sufficient advance notice, you may even find a space willing to allow you to use their usual space for free. (People are very rarely loathe to help out a cause, they usually just lack the initiative.)

As for the show itself – I recommend the simpler, the better. You may have a fantastic, high concept idea that you have been just dying to put in front of an audience, but the key is to make the show lean & accessible. Something fun, and light – with emphasis being on things that anybody can step in and enjoy – is better. Save your new, experimental 'prov for your regular showcases. What can often work well is a drawing: at the university show, we had a bunch of local businesses donate some gift certificates and the like which we raffled off (mostly because university regulations prevented us from selling tickets, so this was how we raised money). For the current show, we're just charging admission, and everything over cost (which is, with free actors, only space rental) we're donating. Beyond that you just need to market the hell out of it. Unfortunately for productions like ours, which have limited budgets, you need to get creative, but the internet actually provides a bunch of cheap alternatives which have varying levels of success. Any free print listing is a must get, but never underestimate the power of word of mouth; the strange energy of these kinds of shows is a product of the “special” or “one-time-onliness” factor, but also the rather common desire among people to help others, especially if you're giving them something in return (that's the performance!).

Now, go out and spread some cheer; for charity!

Defining You and Me (AKA Us)

“The relationship is the most important thing in every scene you will do.”

As I discussed in my last post, there is a danger in attempting to apply hard rules like “You must know each other for X amount of time” and “It is only sufficient to name the relationship” to found dynamics in scenes, but how can we teach these concepts? Here are three exercises I created that I've used with my group that illustrate the concepts and give players practice with stepping away from those previously named crutches.

Relation Dash – Take two players, and give them a relationship; for our example, we'll take the relation of roommates. The players are going to do two scenes – the first is these two characters meeting for the first time, in our example, maybe it's move-in day at the dorm. The point is, we are going to specifically outline that these two people do not know each other and see the dynamic that develops (maybe it's your classic party animal/studious roommate dynamic, or maybe it's a freshman and a junior who transferred in from another school). Next, we're going take the same two players, and have them play the same characters and relationship, but with a certain amount of time passed – in this example a year might suffice, and we can take them on move-out day. The exercise has two goals – one, to mandate two people meeting each other for the first time so that players can see what that kind of dynamic feels like; defensive, nervous, eager to please, etc. You don't shy away from that, you embrace it, play it honestly, and keep accepting the reality. The second goal is to see how a dynamic changes over time (rising hate, perhaps, to a loud, disrespectful roommate or a comfort to someone you got to know, for example) and to see what the difference between a new and an established relationship is.

Click, click, mom – I've adapted this one from a Bill Arnett exercise; two players, and give one person a slip of paper with a relationship written on it (e.g. Mom/Child, Boss/Employee). Have the two players start a scene and after 30-45 seconds or so, have the player read the slip of paper and drop that relationship into the scene. Again, we're looking at two different things; the first is that what the relationship is doesn't really matter (although I should point out that it is hard to maintain some dynamics, say a resentful one, when you discover you're the other character's mother – coach the players to maintain their original point-of-view in the face of such adversity) there are an infinite number of variations on the same named relationship, because (and this is the second point) dynamic (which is to say point-of-view, attitude, etc.) is independent of relationship. You might be surprised at the kinds of dynamics that can emerge, and seem completely organic in relationships you would never expect to support such a dynamic. You can, additionally, coach players to ask themselves “If this is true, why is it true?”

Relationship Drills – Two players; assign them a single relationship (e.g. Teacher/Parent), and instruct them to do four different scenes which will all have the same relationship. Each scene should be two minutes or so – long enough to establish the dynamic. The characters can change, as can the setting, but the important part to coach is that we don't want to see the same dynamic played out four times; in our example, we don't want to see concerned teacher/apathetic parent four times. Encourage the players to test the boundaries of the relationship to see what kinds of dynamics can emerge; we did a really great one where a single parent asked the teacher out on a lunch date to hit on him. The goal of the exercise is to get the players to not go for the most obvious dynamic, because other possibilities do exist, and can all be equally entertaining. Basically, not every older/younger sibling scene has to be an authoritarian dynamic.

These exercises have worked well for me so far – feel free to use them at will, develop them, and provide me with any feedback on them. The most important thing is to continue to foster a philosophy in your group that emphasizes an open mind, and honest dynamics. Happy relationship hunting.

It's not you, it's not even me. It's more "us".

There are new people in two of my improv groups, so it's got me thinking about basics again. There is so much “basic” stuff that we want to get across to new improvisers so that they'll have a good foundation, and while at the same time we like blank slates to draw on so we don't have to fight against any preconceived notions and habits (good or bad); it is however, certainly an easier climb when they already know some of the “stuff”. I was talking with one of the new peeps who was telling me that she had never done improv previously, but was really enjoying learning all the keystone elements, yes, anding, listening, and building the relationship. It was this last one that really stuck out to me, mostly because it was probably two years into my improv training before I heard of this concept, yet I have heard probably every teacher and coach I've had since then try to pound that concept home. It's a good idea, don't get me wrong, but it's also one of the worst understood basic concepts in all of improv, and if there is but one thing I could do to right any listing on the part of a new improviser, it would be on this one.

I say it is poorly understood with the full knowledge that I didn't understand it for quite some time. If you were to believe most improv teachers and coaches, “finding the relationship” is as simple as just naming the relationship between two people. In other words, just look across at your scene partner(s) and just name a relationship. In a shitty scene? Apparently all you have to do is say “Gosh, I don't know dad/mom/sis/bro/boss/co-worker/spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend/friend” and your scene has just been saved. Tied into this poorly understood concept is that idea that every relationship has to have been previously established for X amount of time (the length of time appearing to vary depending on what books your teacher has read or who taught them). The problem with this is that if just naming a relationship was all that was needed to rescue a flailing scene, why doesn't everyone do such a simple thing? (And more importantly – how could a scene ever fail with such a simple lifesaver?) The answer is that just naming the relationship means absolutely nothing. Not a single frickin' thing. I've been in a number of classes where this exchange took place:

Teacher: Pause. What's the relationship here? Continue.

Player A: [Pausing a moment] I'm tired of this, mom!

Rest of class: [Laughter]

The reason they laugh is because there has been such an obvious correction at the prodding of the teacher, but really, we all know deep down that just naming the relationship is worthless. The relationship I have with my mother is unique (because I'm a special boy) and is completely different from the relationship you have with your mother. Even the relationship I had with a girlfriend is unique from the relationship you would have with the exact same girl, despite the fact that in either case we would still refer to her as The Girlfriend. What the teacher is looking for, but often can't articulate is that we were looking for how you relate to this person. Do you care for this person? Put up with their bullshit, regardless of how strange it is? Treat them like shit? There's a game I've played before where you get four people, and each person is tasked with silently choosing another person that they will always treat as smart, funny, or beautiful. That's what's interesting. Any teacher's misguided prods are often just trying to get you to treat your scene partner like a real person, or as Gellman would succinctly say: “do you like or not like this person?”, which is the most basic level for relating to another person, but serves as a nice jumping off point for the infinite levels of subtle ways we treat everyone around us. Asaf Ronen uses a good vocabulary for this by calling the relationship the logistical circumstance, and the emotional one a dynamic – a term that I like a lot.

The second problem is in the “you must know this person for X amount of time” corollary to the Relationship Rule. I want you to right now think of any movie, T.V. Show, or play where there was not a major relationship that started with the two characters not knowing each other. Did you come up with even one? (Following this rule would mean we could never do scenes of job interviews or even worse, first dates – a scene whose humor lives on the awkwardness of meeting someone for the first time. Part of how I can prove this one as being misleading is that there is no established minimum length – I've heard everything from 3 months to 3 years.) In everyday life we regularly encounter people we have never previously met, and have absolutely no previously established relationship, and it would serve well to remember the Arnett Axiom: if you can say it in real life, you can say it in a scene. This relationship corollary likely spawned itself from the reverse logic we have for looking at scenes (as Napier described in his book, only looking for the problems in bad scenes, and not looking at the successes in good scenes). It's true that doing scenes with characters who are just meeting for the first time is difficult, but not impossible. The same with the first half of this conundrum is that what's important isn't that you get to put a name on it as soon as possible, it's that you treat the other character like a real person – listen and react to them, form opinions about them, like them or hate them. These were guidelines that were created because they do make scenework a lot easier, especially in the beginning; the problem is that somewhere along the way they became gospel, and often get taught in concept as such, because people didn't think to analyze and digest what was being taught.

This concept is unfortunately rarely analyzed, so we get a lot scenes like:

Player A: Mom, I had a hard time at school today.

Player B: That's okay, son. School will get better.

Rest of class: [Quietly checking their cell phones]

Which is not necessarily a bad scene, and following the “name the relationship” rule is technically perfect. It is however, a tad boring. Nobody cares if you're parent/child or boss/employee or lonely housewife/pool boy; we care that you understand interpersonal relationships well enough to make those exchanges more than just a name or a time limit.