Improv Obsession

It’s almost time for my Harold callback. Just getting the callback was electrifying. I hope I put my best foot forward and leave with no regrets. If I do not make a team, I will be ok. I will continue this art that I love. I will not be a lesser person for not making it.

If I do make it, I will work hard and earn my spot every day.

Stephen, you have a great life. Don’t ever forget that.

Let’s do it. This is it.

Trust. Go.

Discovered this today. What a sweet guy. I was ok. I do have a great life.

This is just a list of all the improv warm-ups & Exercises I used to use when I was coaching. 

At the front of every notebook I’d write out three pages

1. Warm Ups - and what they’re good for. New teams, energy, thinking harder, slowing down.

2. Exercises - and what they’re good for.

3. A Note to remind myself how I coach.

I’m getting rid of all of my coaching notebooks. Lots of good people in here. And it feels odd not to save these memories in some way. So... here we go...

Kyle Parulski is on the show! Improv fans will know Kyle from the indie teams Delta Flow, Argo Navis, and plenty of other great improv teams. Kyle is one of the hosts of Happy Hour every Tuesday in the UCB Sunset Inner Sanctum, and all around one of the funniest guys I know. Kyle and I have a great talk about improv today, where we focus on the value of strong emotional reactions, keeping scenes simple, and working on our deficits while still playing to our strengths. We also talk a bit about Kyle’s unique approach to improv, and he shares some practical tips on how to make your script much easier to say yes to for readers. As always, if you like the show, please subscribe, give it a nice review on iTunes, tell a friend about it, all that good stuff.

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Billy Merritt comes on the show to talk about the the darker side of improv. Jealousy. Loneliness. Failure. Fading passion. Billy helps me with the existential question of, should I just quit improv. We talk about the struggles being part of the community, and facing one’s changing place in that community.Plus, we talk about coaching best practices, Billy gives a perl of wisdom, and he notes that my head is now the right size. All of that and more.

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Ronnie Adrian is on the show! Improv fans will know Ronnie from the UCBLA Harold Team The Dragons. You may also know Ronnie from hosting Tuesday Night Thunder or hosting the Cagematch, or even his sketch and improv team White Women. Ronnie talks about his approach to getting on Harold Night. Spoiler alert, it worked. Also, we talk about coaching, the stresses of Harold Night, how he scouted talent for the team White Women. Plus, we compliment a bunch of great improvisers. Listen! Rate! Review! Share! Enjoy!

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James Mastraieni comes on the show to talk about improv! You may know James from UCB house team Outside Dog, or his former harold team The Ruckus. He’s also on the iO West House Team, Orpheus Roy. James talks about his specific approach to improv including how he likes to start scenes, his great “Fancy Dinner” analogy for harolds, and we wrap it up by talking a bit about coaching.

For full show notes go to BoardwalkAudio.com/ImprovObsession

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James Mastraieni (Twitter, ImprovCoaches) did a little workshop with a team I’m on talking about the Five Ways of Pulling Premise from an Opening.

One to One

Full Analogous

Pseudo Analogous 

Character Specific

Consequential

Notes before we go:

 I don’t know that this list is exhaustive of all the ways to pull from an opening, but so far I think it is. 

Some of these ways to pull premise work better for one type of opening than another, I will try to note that as I go along.

Some of these will be easier for you to do some of them not. 

Some of them are easier for the audience to get, some are not. 

Like all improv writing, this isn’t meant to be a definitive answer, more a tool to try and use, test, and see if it works for you. 

If you like it or have thoughts on it, tell James and I.

One to One

In this way of pulling premise, we take the exact same thing from the opening and use it. For example if the idea of a zombie grandpa comes up in the opening, we’ll use exactly that, one to one, zombie grandpa. We’re not changing anything about it or figuring out what’s sort of like that, it’s an exact use of the idea.

This way of pulling premise does not work as well for story based openings like monologues, living rooms, or interviews. The reason being doing a one to one off a story that’s already been told is sort of like re-playing the story we already heard. So, it’s a more suitable way of pulling premise in more abstract or character openings like the pattern game , sound and movement, documentary, and rants.

Full Analogous 

In this way of pulling premise, we take the idea from the opening, and we change it to an analogous situation and premise. For example, a story in an opening was pushing a kid to catch a baseball at a game, maybe our full analogous idea could be cutting in line to see santa at the mall. We’ve changed both our context and our unusual thing, instead of baseball game it’s the line at the mall. Instead of pushing a kid to catch a ball, it’s cutting in line to see santa.

This works better in story based openings. It’s harder in more abstract opening like pattern games, because the audience has to do a lot of mental math to understand where the ideas are coming from. This way of pulling premise can also be tricky because it’s easy to go too far with the analogy, making it difficult for your audience to quickly get on board.

Pseudo Analogous

In this way of pulling premise we keep one thing, change the other thing. Let’s say you have a story about being a kid and entering a pinewood derby race with a car you’ve named “Dancing with the Devil.” In pseudo analogous we’d take one of those things, either the context or the specific, and keep it, and change the other. So, I could keep the context the same, Entering the pinewood derby race, but change the specific, maybe something like “That’s right, I’d like to enter my car into the race, her name is Hail Satan.”

OR, I could keep the specific the same, but change the context. So we’ll keep the “Dancing with the Devil” part, but change the context. Maybe it’s: “I’m here to renew my drivers license, my name is Dancing with the Devil.”

Pseudo Analogous can work pretty well with most openings, but is probably best in story based openings. Pseudo analogous makes it easy for the audience to identify where the idea came from, while keeping it fresh and not rehashing an idea or story we already heard.

Character Specific

Character specific means taking the way or the words someone said and using that as a way to start a scene. This can be something like a commentary on how someone in a monologue said something unique, striking, or silly. Or it could be something from a documentary opening that really defined a character for you.

So, if in a monologue says, “You know, I’ve been thinking really hard about it, and you really should pay attention to your health.” You could initiate with that sentence. Or if in a character matching opening, someone said something that made the audience laugh or struck you as a funny character, you could start with that sentence.

Character Specific is a great way of getting the audience on board with a character quickly and they tend to like it. However, this way of initiating scenes also requires more work to be done in scenes later as you still need to set up context, and all the other nitty gritty of getting a scene going.

Consequential 

Sort of the, if this is true what else is true of starting a scene. We wanna see what would happen as a consequence to the story. James used two great examples based on the pushing the kid out of the way to catch a baseball at a game. One consequential scene could be that person who pushed the kid out of way showing his wife he’s on Sports Center for pushing the kid out of the way. 

Or another consequential premise could be a 20 year old man who’s taking Muay Thai lessons because he was pushed at a baseball game when he was a kid.

Consequential is a suitable way of pulling premise from all openings. I’ve heard Matt Besser say something of the effect of, it’s ok to start a scene right where the monologue left off, what would happen after that story?

There ya go, there the 5 ways to pull premise as taught by James Mastraieni, filtered through my memory and text. If you like them or don’t get them or disagree let me know, I’d love to refine this a little for people. 

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Improv classes must have just been letting out because about a dozen or so students poured out of iO. Many stopped at the top of the stairs to take notice of this crowd. 

“Wow, what’s going on here?” 

“Well, they’re definitely not here to see improv.” 

“What do you say we join?” 

“Haha, yeah we could fit in right?!”

The young white improvisers were commenting how odd it was to see all these people because the massive group of people were black. The comments kept coming from the improvisers perched at the top of the stairs looking down on the massive group. “They’d probably heckle our show.” 

I grew tired of the comments and went into the theatre, laid across three seats, and started playing the time suck that is the game on my iPhone.

Not long, the improvisers and audience for the show I was going to started filtering in. With them, more sentiments of derision for this group of people outside. “That crowd was crazy, I had to elbow my way through. I’m like, Jesus I’m trying to get through.” 

Annoyed, I walked back outside to the crowd. I made my way through with no elbows necessary. I looked around for some teammates, anyone who wasn’t so hung up on the the difference between improvisers and the people waiting in the street. 

Finding no one, I decided to go back in the theatre. Before I made it back, a woman waiting in the blob of a line stopped me, “Excuse me, is this Improv Olympic?” 

“Yeah, yeah it is.”

“Why does it say iO?”

“Oh, I think they got sued by the Olympics or something and had to change their name.”

Will Hines is on the show today to talk about this new book, How To Be The Greatest Improviser on Earth. You know Will from UCBLA Team The Smokes, Fuckable, and many more improv and comedy and sketch credits. In this episode, we spend the majority of it talking about his new book on improv, How To Be The Greatest Improviser on Earth, including what his process was like writing, who the book is for, and what some of the things mean in it. It’s a great book on improv, that I recommend you go pick up, which you can do by going to ImprovNonsense.com.

A dude I’ve been coaching for a while from 301-401 asked me for some advice on a few topics and general advice as he’s putting together his first group. I thought hard about it and decided to turn it into a post. 

Enjoy. Add. Tell me what you think.

Coaches. There are lots of good ones, there are plenty that are bad. More now than ever. Check out this site. I've listed some of my favorite in LA, you could start with them.

Shows. Submit to as many as you can. Some suck. Some are great. Most are in the middle. Whatever. Get your reps in, do the best show you can, make your own conclusions. You don't need me telling you some shows are a bucket of shit.

Teams. They'll come together and fall apart. If someone isn't working to keep them together, then it will fall apart. Someone's gotta put the effort in. Hopefully you'll have more than one person trying to keep it together, but if you want your team or practice group to stay together, put in the work to keep them together. Also, if you want it to fall apart, it probably will. Or just quit cause you're too busy. Everyone understands that.

Be friends with the people you meet and like. You may never get a TV show or whatever from doing improv, but you could make some good friends. I learned that late, and now I'm psyched by how great of friends I've made in the process.

Keep working. There's a lot of stuff to learn, a lot of forms, a lot of shows to do. Get at it. It takes time. And that's ok. Don't get too disturbed by the trials. Becky Drysdale says keep your eyes on your own paper. That's good advice. Do your work the best you can do. Fuck worrying about everything else.

Balance between practice and performances. Don't perform so much that you don't care that you're performing. Don't practice so much you can't reflect on the take aways of the practice.

Don't treat shows like a fuck off. You should have fun, but try not to be disrespectful to the 'art' of improv. But, don’t beat yourself or more importantly your team up if it happens.

Learn to write sketches. You can do this on your own, you could do it through classes. But, it'll give you some idea on how to go further with your game ideas. How to get more surprising with it. And, it's maybe a more practical skill to learn from doing this. Maybe. 

Have fun. If you're not having fun improvising for your coach in your friend's living room late on a weekday, take a break.

Give back. Help your fellow improvisers. There are lots of ways to do it, but try to help when you can.

There are few universal truths in improv. Some people will tell you there's only one way to do something, or one way of approaching scenes. That's wrong. Learn what you can from whoever you can. Leave what doesn't work for you behind. Don't let people make you feel bad for doing it one way over another. This journey of improv is yours alone, and I'm excited you get to take it.

Go kick some ass.

Last year, I got a job writing for reality TV. To be extra clear, I got a job writing the reunion show, so technically I was writing a lot of host copy and making sure we were talking about things that would be good for the show. Anyway, this was a different beast that I wasn’t quite prepared for, and I thought I’d share a few tips I learned.

You Never Know Where The Job’s Gonna Come From

4 years ago, I linked up with UCB as an editor for their digital teams. From that I was on an email list for job opportunities when LA Weekly was looking for writers for their April Fools Edition. I submitted 50 headlines because I really wanted it, and I got to write an article. I did the same the next year, and got to write again. 2015, I submitted a lot of article headlines, but didn’t get asked to do it. Then last minute, one of the editors asked me if I could get an article done in a rush. I said yes, and worked over my family vacation to get the article done. That article got published, and the some VP of Production at Collin’s Avenue read that article and loved it. She reached out to me, and asked to meet. I prepared stuff to pitch. Sent her stuff after we talked. And then she hired me to write the Dance Moms Reunion Show. 

Work hard for every opportunity you are given. You’ll be surprised the circuitous root jobs take to get to you. 

Use Their Software

I screwed this one up. They were using Microsoft Word to write their scripts. I scoffed and used Google Docs because Microsoft Word sucks. 

Well, I suck. When it was shoot day and I was passing scripts back and forth between producers, department heads, the host, and every 3rd person on set, it was a hassle to keep downloading everything as word documents, take any changes and get them back into Google Docs, then download again when the next person needed it. Not to mention Google Docs saving as a Word Document tends to make formatting errors, so I looked like an unorganized idiot when I was passing stuff around. 

Bonus thing I learned. Register your software to your real name. When I was making comments to the scripts they all came from the author and owner of the software, Mr. “Fucking Annoying, This Is.”

Learn Everyone’s Names

That’s just polite. I kept an email that I’d add everyone’s names, positions, and descriptions to as I met people. Helped me on the show day as I needed things, and I think endeared me a little to everyone.

Allow Yourself to Be Told What They Want

The Executive Producer of the show kept saying lines that could be in the show. I wrote down every one, and put them all in the script. Those lines were used, made my job easier, and some how I got the credit for doing great work.

Get Ahead

This was a busy show. I had to write an outline, get outline approved by a producer, get outline approved by the executive producer. Write a script, get it rewritten by executive producer. Get notes from network. Fix the outline and the script with network notes. Get the script rewritten by the host. Re write the script 20 more times. Make cue cards. The list goes on. 

I underestimated the work in the beginning and started to cruise at one point, then it all came tumbling down and I had to scramble to keep up. 

Get The Printer To Work

Nothing like a panic on set when everyone needs new cue cards cause a certain star didn’t show up, and the director wants to see the revisions, and you can’t print. 

Get that printer working early and often, and if it doesn’t at any point, find someone to fix it ASAP.

Also, don’t let anyone lock the door to your office and lock you out of the printer. That happened to me, and for a moment I thought about kicking down the door cause we were rolling, and we needed new cue cards for act 4. But I knew to:

Keep Your Cool

It’s a stressful environment. The pros stay relaxed. I noticed it, and did my best to adopt that behavior. 

I made my needs and intentions and goals clear, but I didn’t yell, I didn’t stress, I didn’t run. That’s amateur shit.

Do All That