the 6 most essential long-form structures

jillybee72 · Post by **jillybee72** » July 3rd, 2011, 3:11 am

If you had to pick the 6 most essential long-form structures, what would you say?

Jastroch · Post by **Jastroch** » July 3rd, 2011, 12:12 pm

For the skills they impart:

The Harold
The Living Room
The Deconstruction
The Play

The Armando

After these four, I wouldn't call any of them "essential."

scook · Post by **scook** » July 3rd, 2011, 1:12 pm

agree with jastroch, the ones i think are essential are more for the skills they teach you, and further, the skills they teach that allow you to evolve the art form. for that...

-harold (for the group work and organic aspect, as well as the connections and hippieish aspects)
-deconstruction (for the deconstructive aspect, as well as the discipline in learning it)
-narrative play (learn how to tell a story and how narratives are constructed, learn how to play only 1 character and follow him/her through, learn how to connect to other characters through story and watch relationships change)
-the horror (or some inherently serious/dramatic improv. everyone should do a dramatic improv show at least once. it's wonderful to feel yourself have to change the way you play and relate to the show)
-i don't know of a form, but do a show that is something you've never done and seen, completely experimental, german expressionism, slow motion, psychedelic, etc. make improv do something it doesn't seem to do. it will teach you to look at your other shows differently and you'll learn to make moves you might not have thought of before.
-armando or some sort of monologue show (for the "easy going" "normalness" aspect. learn how to just hang out and have fun)

also, these are just the names i know these things by. the spirit behind them makes them essential.

jillybee72 · Post by **jillybee72** » July 4th, 2011, 12:26 am

Thank you for these great thoughts.

Katherine · Post by **Katherine** » July 5th, 2011, 1:09 am

Who is going to be obsessively looking these improv forms up for the next week or two? ...This gal!

Thanks!

erikamay · Post by **erikamay** » July 6th, 2011, 7:57 pm

slightly different list for me:

the harold
the deconstruction
montage
the living room
armando
laronde

but, yeah agree that these are just foundations to how to create your own form, like mr potato heads.

Asaf · Post by **Asaf** » July 6th, 2011, 11:26 pm

I feel like it is just the three:

The Play - one narrative from beginning to end that revolves around certain constants: be it characters, location, theme, etc.

The Montage - a series of scenes that can be as connected or unconnected as you want.

The Harold - a form that has a structure where certain elements are recurred in a certain pattern.

I feel like all other forms are a variation on these three.

The Living Room and Armando are montages with a set piece every once in a while that is returned to. Some people follow the form of the Harold.

The Horror is a Play with a particular tone. The Movie format is a Play with certain set mechanics.

The organic form (some call Mayfly or The Transformation) is a montage that has a particular transition technique.

etc. etc. etc.

dirty baby · Post by **dirty baby** » July 7th, 2011, 6:51 am

it's hippieish aspects all the way down

Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell · July 7th, 2011, 9:01 am

hmm...for me, because of the delightfully bassackwards nature of how i learned this lunacy...

Relationship freeze
Flowy donut (montage)
Play/story
Avant garde

everything i did/learned after that has pretty much been variations on those, yes.

beardedlamb · Post by **beardedlamb** » July 7th, 2011, 10:23 am

i'm in the same boat as Jordan, but without all the smilies.

have you seen this, or something like it?: http://us.penguingroup.com/static/html/ ... -matt-haig
i guess it relates directly to narrative more than anything else, but its interesting to think of 7 basic units and the rest just being window dressing.

so what are yours Jill? i'm curious since most people don't name 6. why 6?

Jastroch · Post by **Jastroch** » July 7th, 2011, 10:50 am

What's relationship freeze?

What is a flowy donut?

Sounds like delicious treats to me

(puts hands on hips suspisciously)

Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell · July 7th, 2011, 10:59 am

beardedlamb wrote:i'm in the same boat as Jordan, but without all the smilies.

have you seen this, or something like it?: http://us.penguingroup.com/static/html/ ... -matt-haig
i guess it relates directly to narrative more than anything else, but its interesting to think of 7 basic units and the rest just being window dressing.

so what are yours Jill? i'm curious since most people don't name 6. why 6?

one smiley! ONE SMILEY! DI DI MAO!

i thought about putting the Harold just to fill out my list and out of obligation (like someone listing the greatest films of all time feeling the need to put Citizen Kane on there, even if they didn't particularly care for it)...but it's never been that essential to me personally so it would have felt a bit insincere. heck, i only just did one onstage for the first time last month during the marathon, which in all fairness to the format was a LOT of fun. but prior to that, i'd only done it a few times off stage, seen it done both poorly (frequently) and well (less frequently, but the people who did it well did it REALLY fucking well!) and mostly thought "well...that's there. now how can we incorporate carpentry and get Ace to sing in the next show?"

oh, i guess i should give a nod to The Form, which was JD Walsh's pet format at Ultimate Improv in Los Angeles for a long time, if only because it was a different kind of improv than i was used to so broke me out of some old habits and got me thinking about the different "realities" we play with onstage. but it was tough for some performer to wrap their heads around and some of the explanations were a bit ambiguous, so it seems to have died out...

Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell · July 7th, 2011, 11:06 am

Jastroch wrote:What's relationship freeze?

essentially freeze tag, but instead of taking on the person you've tagged out's exact position, you take on a different relationship with the person you DIDN'T tag out. so if two players are having a father/daughter scene and you tag out the father, you could now be the daughter's boyfriend or boss or teacher or best friend, etc.

Jastroch wrote: What is a flowy donut?

i can't remember where the name came from (i think i used to assume it was a riff on "bagel," which was a Jury inside joke), but it's basically what we called a montage in Well Hung Jury with a slight focus on recurring/reincorporated characters, scenes, relationships, etc. or that might've just been my slight focus. lol!

Jastroch wrote:Sounds like delicious treats to me

they are!

Jastroch wrote:(puts hands on hips suspisciously)

i'm highly suspicious of the way you've just placed your hands on your hips...

beardedlamb · Post by **beardedlamb** » July 8th, 2011, 2:40 am

flowy donut came from when whj went to the orlando improv festival in 2000 and saw a group from chicago called Plain Cake Donuts (which featured a young Jeff Griggs and 3 other people who i think have since disappeared. we were blown away by their show and fascinated by the format which seemed to just be a flowing stream of scenes with callbacks and tons of positive energy. it was nothing like the high-concept narrative stuff we were doing or the shortform we were accustomed to in austin. over time flowy donut was revealed to actually be called montage, but thinking about how griggs was a student of del and plain cake donuts was an iO group, maybe they were doing a harold and because we didn't know what the hell that was either, i just gave it its own name so we could emulate it and add it to our stable of formats.

http://forums.minneapolisimprov.com/vie ... 87e456a529

http://fuzzyco.com/bare/foolfest2002/ph ... C01112.htm

Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell · July 8th, 2011, 8:47 am

beardedlamb wrote:flowy donut came from when whj went to the orlando improv festival in 2000 and saw a group from chicago called Plain Cake Donuts (which featured a young Jeff Griggs and 3 other people who i think have since disappeared. we were blown away by their show and fascinated by the format which seemed to just be a flowing stream of scenes with callbacks and tons of positive energy. it was nothing like the high-concept narrative stuff we were doing or the shortform we were accustomed to in austin. over time flowy donut was revealed to actually be called montage, but thinking about how griggs was a student of del and plain cake donuts was an iO group, maybe they were doing a harold and because we didn't know what the hell that was either, i just gave it its own name so we could emulate it and add it to our stable of formats.

http://forums.minneapolisimprov.com/vie ... 87e456a529

http://fuzzyco.com/bare/foolfest2002/ph ... C01112.htm

sigh...i missed so much not going on that trip...