Follow the Script

[TexasImprovMassacre]

I was reading over some notes from this summer and I came across a quote "All of our scenes are already written for us".

This idea that we can just go out and speak to what is already there is fascinating to me. Sometimes I over think things, and improv becomes super difficult for me. Last night in an interview Bill Arnett said that he had an improv epiphany once where he thought to himself "this is easy. I'm just pretending to be a salesman trying to sell someone a tornado. That's easy. I can do that all day. Just play the part of shady salesman trying to sell someone something..."

that's paraphrasing, but I was wondering what people's thoughts on this were. I took a pretty big 180 this summer from "scenes should start with a clear premise" to, "scenes can start with a premise, but an organic scene can be just as good". Just because something isn't funny right away is no cause to panic. It also is no ensured mark of quality as scenes can start funny and end horribly just as easily as they can start without a laugh and end with you falling out of your chair (from hilarity).

Back to the original quote about scenes already being already written. The premise is whatever the premise is...however the scene starts, it has begun...every now and then I see a scene that seems wildly simple but is incredibly impressive. "Oh, they're just a husband and wife performing act but their martial problems are getting in the way of the show"...Once the context is set, what is left to do but play within it?

Do you think its better one way or the other to start organic or with a premise? Do you find yourself in scenes where everything comes super natural and you barely have to think? What about those scenes are different? Do you find yourself in scenes where you have no idea what to do next? What about those scenes are different? Do you think the quote "all our scenes are already written for us" is bullshit, or do you take comfort in knowing that if you honor what you create up top the rest of the scene is merely a matter of playing it out and chasing the pattern?

[DollarBill]

I was reading over some notes from this summer and I came across a quote "All of our scenes are already written for us".

That quote is exactly how Philip Glass feels about writing music. And it's essentially what TJ and Dave talk about in their documentary. They feel that the world they embody on stage was happening before they got there and it continues after they're done. They're just lucky enough to bring it alive in our world for an hour every week.

I think it is a nice notion, but a little far fetched for my taste. My brain doesn't work like that. Maybe that's why I'm not as good as them. But if it were true, it just seems unfair to me that they consistently embody HILARIOUS worlds and characters while others continuously embody unwatchable worlds. I suppose you could argue that they are just better at picking which "worlds" will be the most entertaining, but I don't buy it. They are creating material weather they like it or not. I know improv that's good feels effortless and unforced, but that doesn't mean you aren't still the one creating it.

I suppose if you looked at it mathematically, there are only so many words and body movements and facial expressions and noises that two people can make in an hour. So if you created a set of sequences of those things, then a small subset would be good shows. And those shows are the ones that they embody. In that way the quote is accurate. But the set of possible shows is so vastly huge that it seems impossible to just luck into picking the correct sequence that makes a good show.

I think it's just a matter of having a good feel of where things ought to go next. I guess improv is just a theatrical version of a Ouija Board. The messages don't exist before they're spelled out, but it feels like they do when you do it right.

[Jeff]

I guess improv is just a theatrical version of a Ouija Board. The messages don't exist before they're spelled out, but it feels like they do when you do it right.

awesome

[acrouch]

I was reading over some notes from this summer and I came across a quote "All of our scenes are already written for us".

That quote is exactly how Philip Glass feels about writing music.

Yeah, it's the whole Michelangelo line that the sculpture already exists within the stone and you're just freeing it. Complete bullshit, but an extremely useful way of thinking about the work in order to get out of your own way.

[Scratch]

Well since we are getting all paranormal and Ouiji... it's kind of the idea behind throwing the I Ching, too. When you do the arcane yarrow stalk counting thing (which I have utterly forgotten from my 1980's hippie days), or throw the coins (hell of a lot easier to remember) to get a hexagram with associated interpretation, the idea is that the way the stalks/coins fall is the only way they can fall at that moment. Thus, the "truth of the moment" aspect to it. It's simply IT, right then, right now.

So all we have to do in improv is jump into that moment and riff on it.

Gee, it sounds so easy...

As a beginning (fetal), improviser, I like this idea but can't freaking let go and sink into it for the life of me...

But I do think that hitching a ride on the reality floating past us is essentially a stronger choice than starting with a premise.

Then again, sometimes it just feels so good to go with a fun accepted premise and work the crap out of it, even though it may not be the most intrinsically "powerful" choice

I mean, have you actually ever BEEN to Disneyland for the Main Street Electrical Parade??? OMG what a total freaking hoot! Yeah, global warming, conspicuous consumption, fascist homogeny, carbon footprint etc., be damned, that is just a bad-ass display of fun!

That seems like a totally valid improv choice, too. Just like Sun Ra's jazz rocks the world, but you may be driving home singing "We Got The Beat" and grinning as you drum it on your steering wheel...

Thank god it's a really big world and we can do all of this in the same sky!

[ratliff]

I'm not really qualified to render a judgment on the creative process of TJ & Dave or Philip Glass, so I'll just refer to my own experience.

I've had one and only one improv moment in which I was discovering rather than inventing. For one scene, it was blindingly apparent to me that everything was already there and that all I was doing was selecting certain things to highlight. Inventing something would have been not just unnecessary but ungrateful.

I've never recovered that moment in improv, but because I know it exists -- it's happened to me in songwriting too -- my goal is to play that way again. Preferably for longer next time.

[DollarBill]

I'm not really qualified to render a judgment on the creative process of TJ & Dave or Philip Glass, so I'll just refer to my own experience.

I didn't mean to pass judgement. I just meant that while I've heard people that I have oodles of respect for talk about art as already existing when they discover it, I just don't think that way. I agree that it feels effortless and discovered when I do what feels right, but I still don't think that's what's actually happening for me. I'm still doing it. I'm just doing it better. So it feels easier.

I've had one and only one improv moment in which I was discovering rather than inventing... ...I've never recovered that moment in improv, but because I know it exists... my goal is to play that way again.

I think that that on-stage "enlightement" is why people get addicted to improv. That feeling of being connected to the universe, or whatever. The longer I'm around the art, the more I hear improvisers say that it's what they're allways trying to get back to. I am gonna go try to be water for a while and see if that helps.

[mcnichol]

This idea that we can just go out and speak to what is already there is fascinating to me. Sometimes I over think things, and improv becomes super difficult for me. Last night in an interview Bill Arnett said that he had an improv epiphany once where he thought to himself "this is easy. I'm just pretending to be a salesman trying to sell someone a tornado. That's easy. I can do that all day. Just play the part of shady salesman trying to sell someone something..."

that's paraphrasing, but I was wondering what people's thoughts on this were. I took a pretty big 180 this summer from "scenes should start with a clear premise" to, "scenes can start with a premise, but an organic scene can be just as good". Just because something isn't funny right away is no cause to panic. It also is no ensured mark of quality as scenes can start funny and end horribly just as easily as they can start without a laugh and end with you falling out of your chair (from hilarity).

With regards to what Arnett's saying specifically, that's definitely the place where I try to come from (or feel at my best when I do) -- latching onto a character early on, whether there's an organic start or a premise. With the character, you can go on forever since the everything is just filtered through that character. When you follow a premise or make that the focus, it can just get played out to its logical conclusion. You can put that character in any situation and have a scene. I don't think scenes should start with a premise per se, but if you do its easier to just follow what that premise means about your character (to get a bigger picture of this person and this world) than to follow the premise through. Who cares about a premise, when you have this great character. Regardless of how it starts -- and I guess I don't understand the difference between "coming out with a premise" and starting organically and finding a premise? -- holding onto your character/shit/whatever is what drives and sustains it.

If you saw the TJ and Dave show in austin, you could glean at the top that this kid is in an ill-fitting suit and going to a job interview. But who cares about the job interview itself and playing that through? It's really about this kid whose dad died and him trying to find acceptance from a father figure and generally finding his way. I certainly don't know what Dave was thinking in that show, but even if he knew he was in an ill-fitting suit and going to a job interview, he probably wasn't thinking "What should I do at the job interview?" he instead seemed to be following "Why am in an ill-fitting suit and my mom is seeing me off, not my dad?" "What does that imply about me and maybe how I should be during that interview, what I really want, etc." I dunno, I'm not saying every improv show should be like that, but I think the latter is more fulfilling to play and to watch for me.

In that sense maybe the scene feels already written because you are fully inhabiting a character, and just doing what drives them (as a complex 3d human) feels effortless?

[DollarBill]

In that sense maybe the scene feels already written because you are fully inhabiting a character, and just doing what drives them (as a complex 3d human) feels effortless?

Sweet. This is something that I can really understand and believe in. Thanks, Bob.

[beardedlamb]

and invention is a tricky beast in improv. some people are taught early on to only follow. inventing is not necessary and in fact counterproductive. its how you end up with aliens, secret agents, and copout choices. everything you need is in the first few moments of the scene.
now this is of course like every concept in improv not entirely true. but i think some rules or concepts are merely in place to minimize their detrimental effects. like speeding. cops arent going to give you a ticket for speeding most times. they're going to give you a ticket for speeding only once you're speeding a certain unacceptable amount. so, of course, some invention is necessary, but to ingrain in yourself that inventing is not good, is to legitimately keep you grounded and keep your stories from going off in the stratosphere and losing the audience.
the concept of "only following" is for strengthening your ensemble or groupmind if that's your scene. to say that it already exists is hard for me to grasp, but to say it exists the best when the group makes it and not the individual works for me and is the closest concept i can attach to effortlessly playing out what the scene and group want.

[ratliff]

yeah, i don't think it's particularly helpful to a new improviser to say, "the scene is already there; just discover it and stop inventing." but i do think that if you have that idea firmly implanted you're more likely to discover the experience than if you've been told that it never happens.

[acrouch]

This TED speech by Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love, i all about this exact question.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/eliz ... enius.html

[TexasImprovMassacre]

In an interview about improv with Dave Pasquesi he invited improvisers to "discover scenes rather than invent them".

That quote describes something closer to what my initial though was more than some mystical nonsense about scenes literally already existing.

I am fond of this notion though that we can alleviate the pressure to invent beyond whatever our initial choice in the scene is. I prefer as thinking of scenes as being discovered based off of the initial choice....I agree strongly with what bob said about the benefits of playing a scene as character vs playing out a premise. I think the power in that lies in what Bob also pointed out that once you've decided to become the character the choices you make start to feel less like you the improviser making choices, but instead feel like you the character acting as yourself.

Thanks for the insight, ya'll.

[York99]

I would be wiling to bet that if you gave 10 pairs of experienced improvisers a script with the the first 3 lines of each characters' dialogue and even included detailed descriptions of how they deliver the lines, the setting, back stories, etc. (read: 10 scenes that are identical for the first 6 lines), you would get 10 very unique scenes, with many being radically different. In each case, they could have used the info in those 6 lines to set the direction of the scene.

There's a tremendous amount of info at the top of a scene, but because each improviser processes this information differently depending on the scene partner, the night, the mood, their training, the moon, or what color socks they have on, you're almost always going to get a different scene.

The idea of trying to map an entire scene from the first few lines (or the predestination idea of playing out a scene that's already been mapped in the first few lines), turns the concept of discovery from a gift to a burden. Further, if you're not on the same map as a scene partner who has mapped the scene him- or herself and refuses to understand that you can read his or her map, it can be very frustrating.

[TexasImprovMassacre]

The idea of trying to map an entire scene from the first few lines (or the predestination idea of playing out a scene that's already been mapped in the first few lines), turns the concept of discovery from a gift to a burden. Further, if you're not on the same map as a scene partner who has mapped the scene him- or herself and refuses to understand that you can read his or her map, it can be very frustrating.

I get what you're saying, but I don't think that's what is meant by the quote. I suppose If you read it very literally I can see how you might glean that from it...but, come on, read between the lines a little...I believe that what its saying is more about the notion that "your scene is what it is supposed to be". Not literally that every minute detail of your scene is already mapped out for you, or that after the first few lines you should have already figured out exactly what each and every line/moment of the scene is going to be...(refer to bob's post about dave pasquesi discovering the rest of the show based on his initial choice one moment at a time based on his initial choice)

I think there is an underlying notion that you shouldn't judge the choices made in a scene. To me it seems to speak to the idea that strong commitment up top makes it easy for the rest of the scene to come to you. Make a choice and explore it rather than make a choice and evaluate it. If you hold on to your initial discovery and filter things through it, the rest of the scene "feels right" or "feels easy" because you aren't judging your choices as good or bad, you're merely committing to and playing out what you decided upon initially...it doesn't mean that you can't change, or make new discoveries, or anything else that implies that you fall into some rigid structure which won't allow you to change course. There is no literal map, or script...its a matter of having confidence that what you are doing is what you are supposed to do so that you aren't spending time and energy second guessing choices when you should be using that to commit to your choices and play them out to the best of your ability.

Lamb has said something a few times along the lines of "there's no good or bad, just stronger choices", and I believe that this is proven by a show like TJ and Dave. Bill said something about how it seems almost unfair that they constantly embody hilarious...but really, at the heart of that, I think is not the fact that the actual choices Tj and Dave are making initially are destined to be hilarious as the fact that they're making them hilarious through their commitment to what they gave themselves to start with. I'm willing to bet that they could make most any choice hilarious not because the choices themselves are innately hilarious, but more because the method of play they use to commit to and explore the choices and make them work is one in which they aren't second guessing their initial decisions out of any kind of fear that those choices weren't correct. They make them the right in the way that they go about playing them.