"Close Quarters" format

Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell · June 28th, 2011, 8:59 am

beardedlamb wrote:cupholders and well hung jury have done something like this. in the old days whj would just do scenes in the same general location without any other guidelines really, and there was no overlapping time. it was independent of any influence and apparently i called it Schmorgasbord: http://web.archive.org/web/200208021527 ... rmats.html

i have a vague recollection of something called Diner? was that the same thing? or do i just have a Mickey Rourke fetish that's coloring my nostalgia?

EDIT: never mind. i was thinking of Restaurant Booth.

mcnichol · Post by **mcnichol** » June 28th, 2011, 9:18 am

Matt · Post by **Matt** » June 28th, 2011, 9:40 am

Bob, you are awesome.

hujhax · Post by **hujhax** » June 28th, 2011, 10:09 am

Matt wrote:Bob, you are awesome.

Bob Mc

, you are awesome.

(FTFY.)

--
peter rogers @ work | http://hujhax.livejournal.com

What concerns me is that snark functions as a device to punish human spontaneity, eccentricity, non-conformity and simple error. Everyone is being snarked into line.
-- Roger Ebert

ratliff · Post by **ratliff** » June 28th, 2011, 10:56 am

mcnichol wrote:

i saw this and was like, "why is bob saying it's two sides of the same coin?"

TexasImprovMassacre · Post by **TexasImprovMassacre** » July 20th, 2011, 4:49 pm

I heard from Jim Carlson that Noah was asked to create a form for people that was "too hard to perform", and that's where the idea came from.

Noah allegedly wrote this poem about the format

Heighten characters by engaging,
think adjacent space when staging...
environments are rich with sound,
time collapses turning round...
when throwing forward sounds as cues,
a later payoff oft ensues...

brittjw · Post by **brittjw** » July 22nd, 2011, 2:31 am

Close Quarters is probably my favorite form! Not sure why I haven't seen it performed more often? I'm gonna get on that!

B. Tribe · Post by **B. Tribe** » July 22nd, 2011, 8:22 am

brittjw wrote:Close Quarters is probably my favorite form! Not sure why I haven't seen it performed more often? I'm gonna get on that!

It's one of the best forms I've never done in a show.

Journey to the Big Water has elements of Close Quarters in their format. A scene will take place at a location and in the background we'll see other people doing 'something'. Later we'll see the scene from there perspective with the original scene 'happening' in the background.

ratliff · Post by **ratliff** » July 30th, 2011, 2:19 am

B. Tribe wrote:
brittjw wrote:Close Quarters is probably my favorite form! Not sure why I haven't seen it performed more often? I'm gonna get on that! ;)
It's one of the best forms I've never done in a show.

Journey to the Big Water has elements of Close Quarters in their format. A scene will take place at a location and in the background we'll see other people doing 'something'. Later we'll see the scene from there perspective with the original scene 'happening' in the background.

For a kind of mindblowing cinematic equivalent of this, I highly recommend Gus Van Sant's Elephant. (And if anyone could explain to me how they did what they did, technically speaking, I'd be much obliged. Unless they just edited out the cameras from the opposite shots, in which case: boring.)

Spots · Post by **Spots** » July 30th, 2011, 3:31 am

ratliff wrote: For a kind of mindblowing cinematic equivalent of this, I highly recommend Gus Van Sant's Elephant. (And if anyone could explain to me how they did what they did, technically speaking, I'd be much obliged. Unless they just edited out the cameras from the opposite shots, in which case: boring.)

Pretty sure it was multiple takes, different angles. Superb choreography & continuity.

ratliff · Post by **ratliff** » July 30th, 2011, 3:58 am

Spots wrote:
ratliff wrote: For a kind of mindblowing cinematic equivalent of this, I highly recommend Gus Van Sant's Elephant. (And if anyone could explain to me how they did what they did, technically speaking, I'd be much obliged. Unless they just edited out the cameras from the opposite shots, in which case: boring.)

Pretty sure it was multiple takes, different angles. Superb choreography & continuity.

Really? I've only seen it once, but it seemed like the conversations that got repeated were identical. Either way, pretty impressive.

Spots · Post by **Spots** » July 30th, 2011, 4:01 am

If you could find an example on youtube, I'd love to try and spot any trick photography.

Craig Cackowski · Post by **Craig Cackowski** » July 30th, 2011, 10:25 am

TexasImprovMassacre wrote:I heard from Jim Carlson that Noah was asked to create a form for people that was "too hard to perform", and that's where the idea came from.

Noah allegedly wrote this poem about the format

Heighten characters by engaging,
think adjacent space when staging...
environments are rich with sound,
time collapses turning round...
when throwing forward sounds as cues,
a later payoff oft ensues...

And the final couplet was "Repeat some scenes where they've begun, if all else fails, then just have fun."

jose · Post by **jose** » August 15th, 2011, 3:12 pm

Thanks, Cody and Craig, for posting the Close Quarters poem.

It was posted somewhere online at some point (maybe on Noah's old Geocities site?) and I kinda lost track of it.

There's a decent chunk of Rob K.'s Art of Chicago Improv book dedicated to CQ: http://www.amazon.com/Art-Chicago-Impro ... 032500384X

mcnichol · Post by **mcnichol** » August 17th, 2011, 11:02 am

There's a film called Close Quarters coming out featuring a large cast of IO/Chicago improvisors.

http://www.facebook.com/CloseQuartersMovie