Experience vs. Memory

[zyrain]

One of the quotes from Johnstone is that if the first part of a show is good, then the show's a disaster. Now, the more analytical among us might want some science to back up the assertion.

I direct you to the new TED talk by Daniel Kahneman who discusses the emerging science of happiness, and, in particular, the difference between experiential vs remembered happiness:

http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahnema ... emory.html

The basic idea is that people remember very differently than how they experience. In particular, to have an audience leave with remembering a great show, endings matter, and expectations matter, but minute by minute enjoyment does not.

What defines a story are changes, significant moments and endings.

We know that contrast matters. The peaks look higher when the valleys are lower, so if going in we set the bar low, then leap over it, and pull lights at the biggest laugh (who cares that you have 5 minutes left!??!), the show will be remembered as great.

Other thoughts?

[buseman]

I didn't watch the video but i'll add this,

I don't think "setting the bar low" with a lousy opening helps anything. Of course you want the show to get better and pick up the pace as you move forward, but in my experience bad beginnings lead to bad shows.

On the other hand, I've been in some shows that were going quite well, only to have the last 5 or ten minutes drag with confusion. It slowed down the entire show, and sucked the energy out of the room. So, endings are definitely important, but I think it is much, much harder to have a great ending if you've been having a lackluster show since the beginning. I think it affects the entire room, crowd and improvisers alike. the crowd is bored, the improvisers get in their head about the quality of the show. And we all know what happens when we're in our heads.

[Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell]

i've often thought this about people remembering films. if a mediocre film has a killer ending, you will walk out of that theatre LOVING it and talking about it...but when you have to say what you loved, you'll go to that ending moment more often than not. whereas a movie that's been brilliant for two hours and then falls apart at the end leaves very little impression. this is, of course, until repeat viewings when you have a chance to see how well they hold up. with improv, there's very little opportunity to review, so more often than not it exists ONLY as a memory. so you've got to stick that landing and have a stand out ending...

that said, shows i've seen where the troupe is clearly looking for the ending, grasping for a button or some kind of resolution just feel frantic and desperate and rarely ever pull it off. troupes that stay calm, follow the story through and allow for the conclusion to come organically (or even randomly) are much more satisfying to witness. and on occasion you get that rare combination, where they're searching frantically and it's all falling apart and you know at any second everyone onstage is going to burst into flames and die and THEN they pull it out with some comment or gesture that makes sense of everything and that is the most satisfying of all.

[mpbrockman]

In particular, to have an audience leave with remembering a great show, endings matter, and expectations matter, but minute by minute enjoyment does not.

I seriously could not disagree with this more. A crap ending can't ruin a show for me.

Going deep... shows, like life, are series of moments. An ending is just another moment, and moments are what I remember; be they at the beginning, the middle or the end of the show (or at dinner afterward). I will concede perhaps a bit more weight to the last moment of any event, but taken to the logical extreme this implies that 30 minutes of boredom can be saved by a genius twist of an ending. Horseshit - I've left the theater long before that.

Maybe I'm alone here - but I would put far more stock in a series of enjoyable moments than a big ending.

[jillybee72]

In ComedySportz we often have the audience applaud for whether they liked the red team's game better or the blue team's game better. They will almost always vote for the last game they saw. It is very rare that they will not. I've always been curious about that.

[Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell]

In particular, to have an audience leave with remembering a great show, endings matter, and expectations matter, but minute by minute enjoyment does not.

I seriously could not disagree with this more. A crap ending can't ruin a show for me.

Going deep... shows, like life, are series of moments. An ending is just another moment, and moments are what I remember; be they at the beginning, the middle or the end of the show (or at dinner afterward). I will concede perhaps a bit more weight to the last moment of any event, but taken to the logical extreme this implies that 30 minutes of boredom can be saved by a genius twist of an ending. Horseshit - I've left the theater long before that.

Maybe I'm alone here - but I would put far more stock in a series of enjoyable moments than a big ending.

i think to a certain extent as artists and performers ourselves, we watch and see and think about these things differently from a normal audience. even if we haven't had a great deal of formal training, if we've been doing and watching performance long enough, you start to develop your critical faculties...breaking down, analyzing, critiquing, making mental notes...as an instinctive process. the struggle for me once i started studying theatre in college and most of our time was spent learning how to do exactly that was how to enjoy ANYTHING ever again with that constant nitpick machine going on in my head. i've figured out the balance since then, but the device is still at work. so we're naturally able to hold certain internal moments in our memory longer because we were examining them more closely in the moment, even if we didn't realize that's what we were doing. whereas the average audience goer, to improv, to theatre, to movies, to concerts, etc. are just along for the ride which culminates in that final moment. so yeah, for a lot of people, i think it does work like that, that a big finish can trump any missteps or blandness along the way to it.

at least, that's the only way on Earth i can explain why anyone likes Ibsen. :p

[Scratch]

I seriously could not disagree with this more. A crap ending can't ruin a show for me.

Going deep... shows, like life, are series of moments. An ending is just another moment, and moments are what I remember; be they at the beginning, the middle or the end of the show (or at dinner afterward). I will concede perhaps a bit more weight to the last moment of any event, but taken to the logical extreme this implies that 30 minutes of boredom can be saved by a genius twist of an ending. Horseshit - I've left the theater long before that.

Maybe I'm alone here - but I would put far more stock in a series of enjoyable moments than a big ending.

Nope, you're not alone. For most kinds of performances, the ending does not have the strongest impact even on the memory of the experience. Not for me, anyway.

I often will watch something (movie, play) that I really enjoy, and leave with a strong impression of the whole thing... a few weeks or months later, I remember that I loved it, I remember many key moments/images/sounds, the emotional shifts etc.... But I may very well not remember the end.

(This is actually really a pain in the neck sometimes... I know I have seen a movie, don’t want to watch the whole thing again, but I can't remember the resolution. If I do watch it again, or ask someone to jog my memory, the ending may or may not have been always the strongest part for me)

Watching the video (I love TED), I have a theory why this is...
He points out that emotional impacts at the end have the most impact on memory of happiness (the colonoscopy example). Maybe most shows and movies that I see have the strongest emotional impacts up to and around the climax, not in the resolution. Resolutions are often satisfying on a more cognitive level "ooh, neat how that was all wrapped up/reprised" etc. As the speaker said, a colonoscopy is not a really good story... I think most improv shows have better stories than that...

Did Johnstone explain his statement more? I think it is still really interesting, but for me as an audience member, does not ring true. As a performer (disclaimer: y'all know I barely perform improv and a just an improv fetus really, but I am thinking all types of performing I've ever done), I can see some reasons... Maybe he was saying if the first part of a show is good, it may mean you played it safe and did not take enough risks, which means that the rest of the show will suffer?

But as a performer and audience member, if a performance is going well at the beginning because it is in that great zone where ego and fear is out and it is just the experience, usually that bodes really well for the rest of the show. Unless you, well really I mean "I", get all freaked out and scared because it is going well but I'm not sure to where, exactly, and so I grab the rudder in panic and steer it back into the shallows... (sigh.)

[KathyRose]

I think Keith (who had a lot to say about reducing fear in performers) was really just saying don't panic (i.e. say, "so what?") if a show gets off to a rocky start. Take solace in the facts that (a) imperfection assures the audience that this is all made up and (b) you still have the opportunity to hit some high notes, if you don't panic.

It wasn't so much "try to be bad at the beginning of the show so the ending will look better," but rather "relax and don't lose your focus because you think you are doomed from the start." That's what I got out of his comments.

[jillybee72]

I disagree with your assessment Kathy. I think he was saying he honestly wanted one of the first scenes to tank. He wants the audience to know it's not perfect, it's not showbiz.

[KathyRose]

If you read "Impro" carefully, you'll see where he admits to using psychological tricks on his students to break them of their fears. I'm convinced this is one of them. One doesn't need to try to fail. It happens easily enough on its own - especially before you get into The Groove. To take him literally, I think, is to underestimate his commitment to teaching and his understanding of the psychology of performance.

[acrouch]

If you read "Impro" carefully, you'll see where he admits to using psychological tricks on his students to break them of their fears. I'm convinced this is one of them. One doesn't need to try to fail. It happens easily enough on its own - especially before you get into The Groove. To take him literally, I think, is to underestimate his commitment to teaching and his understanding of the psychology of performance.

I've heard him express this idea -- that it would be nice if there were some underwhelming stuff at the beginning of the show -- too many times and in too many ways for it to be a trick. He even mentioned it early in the Long Center Maestro as we were directing; something went less than ideally and he was pleased.

[PyroDan]

I would have to say that the effcs of memory are subjective.

Of course youwill remember a strong finish as your mind will encapsulate the entire thing as over at that point. No one really starts watching a show with the thought 'I'm gonna make a memory cuz this is gonna be good.'

I will say this about a strong opening, it can only help. It sets the bar high and if you can build from that the whole show will be fantastic.

I think the issue here is on consistency, as long as you are consistent the whole thing will be great.