top of your intelligence

acrouch · Post by **acrouch** » May 1st, 2007, 11:36 am

York99 wrote:
erikamay wrote:a natural - or suprising - conclusion.
Doesn't this just mean "any" conclusion? If it's not natural then, by default, it must be at the very least surprising. And since it's "any" conclusion, then you cannot very well attribute the idea of "concluding" a show "any" way to a specific approach to improv.

Natural and surprising still have to fall within the circle of the audience's expectations. A surprising conclusion is one that the audience wasn't actively expecting, but when it happens, they think, "oh, yeah, that totally fits with what I was expecting from the scene in general, or the show in general." Defying their expectations is to drop the shit that they were hoping was going to pay off in some cool way in favor of something "clever" or non-sequiter -- resulting in a "what the fuck?" Young improvisers do this all the time because they want to be more "interesting" and "original", so they force it. So in our classes, we teach people to "be obvious" and "be more boring," and as a result, students learn to say the thing that is natural to them, and therefor authentically engaging and funny.

York99 · Post by **York99** » May 1st, 2007, 12:56 pm

shando wrote:
erikamay wrote:this seems like circular logic to me.
Welcome to the Thicket of York.....

I wasn't giving the logic, I was trying to understand it. This thicket was not grown by my hands.

And Andy cleared up what he was saying. I understand now what he was trying to say.

kbadr · Post by **kbadr** » May 1st, 2007, 12:58 pm

I miss the old Justin who would irrationally start shit and piss on everyone's parade.

York99 · Post by **York99** » May 1st, 2007, 1:03 pm

shando wrote: Erika, this is definitely part of it. But there's another part that comes out in Johnstone inspired-classes. Not having gone through other training disciplines, I can't testify as to how much these things differ, but Johnstone is very very very concerned with what makes a scene work. Why these people? Why this particular moment? What did you initiate at the start of the scene that you better not forget at the very end or else the audience will think then why the fuck did you bring up pancakes at the beginning of the scene if it had nothing to do with what just happened? It's why a number of his formats are director heavy--like Micetro--he's very concerned with the scene on stage not being trivial. In this way, I doubt it's all that different from other schools of thought. It's just that Johnstone spends time on giving the performers a language to talk about the kinds of patterns that audiences are likely to see--and since audiences are human beings who are inherently pattern-recognizing beings, they're going to see all kinds of patterns in what we do whether we want those patterns to be there or not.

Or let's put it another way. Finding the game is a good way to make a scene pop. Johnstone would say that this is because games are patterns and that is inherently delightful to a viewer. From my understanding, other schools might place the focus a little differently, in that games allow for the player to get out of his or her head and to let the game play them.

And Justin, if this is something you're actually interested in, you should take classes from the BATS dudes next time they're in town.

All of that was taught to me in other schools, as well. A big difference, as I see it, is that there is a lot more room for error (and play) when not attempting a narrative... and this has nothing to do with how a scene is played out, rather in how the scenes fit together. Other than that, I am still struggling to get a solid grasp on Johnstone.

Let me know when the BATS guys are here and teaching and I will swallow what they have to say whole.

York99 · Post by **York99** » May 1st, 2007, 1:04 pm

kbadr wrote:I miss the old Justin who would irrationally start shit and piss on everyone's parade.

I hate white people. Discuss.

TexasImprovMassacre · Post by **TexasImprovMassacre** » May 1st, 2007, 2:33 pm

York99 wrote:
kbadr wrote:I miss the old Justin who would irrationally start shit and piss on everyone's parade.
I hate white people. Discuss.

shando · Post by **shando** » May 1st, 2007, 2:34 pm

York99 wrote:Other than that, I am still struggling to get a solid grasp on Johnstone.

You and me both, baby. It's supa-dupa zen. A lot of it doesn't make literal sense. Hence the thicket. Trust me, back when Sean was teaching a lot at the Hideout, a lot of people would grumble about the Johnstonian bon-mots and say "What the fuck does that mean?" The it kind of sinks in later.

Also, speaking about Johnstone, people should know he's not necessarily an advocate of contained linear narrative longform--almost all the forms Andy mentioned are decisively non-linear. It's just that his teaching places such a focus of the narrative potency of scenes and the audience's circle of expectation, a lot of company's coming out of his teaching extrapolated on that and have been some of the prime creators of narrative based improv--people like BATS, True Fiction Magazine and Three for All in San Fran, LATS in Los Angeles, and Dad's Garage in Atlanta. A lot of the narrative stuff here in Austin comes out of the traditions promulgated by those guys, the SF scene in particular, as imported here by Sean Hill.

Jastroch · Post by **Jastroch** » May 1st, 2007, 2:48 pm

Pierce, a 19th century American mathematician and the father of pragmatic philosophy said, in a nutshell, that if two differing theories or approaches yield essentially the same result, then they are, in practice, the same theory.

After reading this thread for an eon, it seems to me that you are all using different language to describe the exact same thing. Your training is making you think that you're disagreeing with each other, but you are not.

If you are making HONEST choices in a scene--not pandering to stereotypes or cheap laughs or not being weird for the sake of being weird--then you are making the right choice, whether or not it is "grounded."

Comedy comes from patterns. Making, following and heightening patterns. Fucking with patterns in weird unexpected ways. And sometimes breaking the patterns you've already established. There's no formula for how and why and when this works. But I've found that truly inspired improv shows play with a healthy mix of all of these. How do we know when it's the right time to play the shit out of that game, to make an "obvious" choice or to do something out of left field?

Our left brains don't. It's instinct, baby! When you're in that zone and being an honest performer, it just happens. Make strong decisions and stick with them, and they'll be the right decision. Don't force a choice because your left brain thinks it's the right move. That's not being honest. Be a zen master. Be a jedi. Your right brain knows whats up. Listen to it. Your instincts are way smarter than you'll ever be.

I hate rules. Rules are for suckers. I have an earthen mound of rules weighing me down telling me what I can and cannot do, from what fork to use to how long my sideburns should be. I don't want to hear about what I can't do or should do on stage. The fact is, the more we discuss what makes a good scene work the more we lose sight of this simple fact: there is no formula for what works or what doesn't. What the audience does or does not want to see. What is smart or what isn't. The same exact scene done at the same exact time with two sets of performers can fail and succeed at the same time. Why?

One of these groups were committing to honest choices. One of these groups were trying to be funny.

The first long form show I saw, a scene evolved where a bunch of Santa's Elves started suing for equal pay, or something like that. It seems an obvious premise NOW, but at the time it blew me away, because it seemed to come from nowhere. I want to live in a world where anything is possible. I'll never actually get to live in that world (read: be Spiderman) so I play pretend.

- end rant.

York99 · Post by **York99** » May 1st, 2007, 3:04 pm

I think we can all at least agree that Jastroch is full of shit.

shando · Post by **shando** » May 1st, 2007, 3:06 pm

York99 wrote:I think we can all at least agree that Jastroch is full of shit.

Fuck that. Jastroch being full of shit is a rule.

Jastroch · Post by **Jastroch** » May 1st, 2007, 3:09 pm

This is why joining discussions on the boards is for suckers.

Trolls!

kbadr · Post by **kbadr** » May 1st, 2007, 3:11 pm

Justin saying Jastroch is full of shit was totally inside my circle of expectations.

shando · Post by **shando** » May 1st, 2007, 3:11 pm

C'mon Jastroch, you know we love you. How many emoticons do I have to hit you with for you to know that. All of them?

Jules · Post by **Jules** » May 1st, 2007, 3:15 pm

kbadr wrote:Justin saying Jastroch is full of shit was totally inside my circle of expectations.

Were you delighted?

shando · Post by **shando** » May 1st, 2007, 3:17 pm

Besides, Jastroch, since I said this:

shando wrote: It seems like there are two very different things being implied here by 'audience expectations' where most of the apparent disagreement on this thread arise.

*snip*

These two definitions aren't in opposition. It just makes it hard to hear what someone using the other set of definitions means when they're talking about "audience expectations."

before you said this:

Jastroch wrote:After reading this thread for an eon, it seems to me that you are all using different language to describe the exact same thing. Your training is making you think that you're disagreeing with each other, but you are not.

,

would Pierce say we're actually saying different things?