I've only been taking improv for roughly two months. I went to college for music comp. So obviously my background in acting is lacking. So, the question is..well statement first.. I find myself standing and talking more than actually moving/acting/motioning. Is there any excercises or videos to teach common scene work examples that I can practice outside of class?
Scene work..
- Thread starter RonnyPascale
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move in your scene at the top. walking out in neutral position waiting with your arms at your sides while you listen to your partner's idea is almost like a trap where inactive scenes are are often all you have left.
do something. I don't know why "what am I saying" takes precedence in so many people's minds over "what am I doing". I think it should be easy to hear a suggestion and think of something to do-- and then think of how and why you feel as you do about it and all that.
Practice responding to suggestions with actions and activities instead of words.
You've been at this 2 months, I suspect I did every single thing in improv complete wrong 2 months in. Relax. You're rewiring your brain right now to think in a different kind of abstract world with different kinds of ambiguities that need to be progressively filled in over the course of a scene.
do something. I don't know why "what am I saying" takes precedence in so many people's minds over "what am I doing". I think it should be easy to hear a suggestion and think of something to do-- and then think of how and why you feel as you do about it and all that.
Practice responding to suggestions with actions and activities instead of words.
You've been at this 2 months, I suspect I did every single thing in improv complete wrong 2 months in. Relax. You're rewiring your brain right now to think in a different kind of abstract world with different kinds of ambiguities that need to be progressively filled in over the course of a scene.
One way to practice talking less is to...well...talk less. When we get too chatty in our scenes, our director has us do scenes in which dialog is restricted to using up to five words until someone else has spoken (also five words or less). After someone else has spoken, you get to use up to five words again. Doing so forces us to act, react physically, move, emote, inflect without worrying about talking. Then we do scenes using four, then three, and sometimes two words. It really gets one out of his or her head and into his or her body.
Invariably, we come up with some really cool scenes just by talking less.
Invariably, we come up with some really cool scenes just by talking less.
Hey Ronny, Viola Spolin can be considered the source of American improv. She worked under Neva Boyd in a settlement house in Chicago teaching immigrants theater (I'm sure I'm butchering it). She used games to teach them ideas and to get them playing their ... plays and stuff. It came out of Neva Boyd's ideas about play as a means of learning or problem solving, and Viola expanded on it. That is like the start of why she's important.
Her son, learning how she directed people like at her side, started with some others the Compass Theater or the Compass Players which used her ideas to do theater. They started doing "scenario plays" where they improvised to find cool ideas to play and then would play the best parts and the most playable parts of what they improvised. It would be like a sketch but without a script, they would just know who the characters were and what the beats of the scene were and they kept playing it. Nichols and Mae were like good examples of what that could be.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0vSLIO7m20
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_Spolin
for another take on how important she is, and forgive the political nature of the essay as they author is comparing/contrasting Spolin (and improv) with Rand.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-bonifer/why-ayn-rand-does-not-mat_b_181321.html
Her son, learning how she directed people like at her side, started with some others the Compass Theater or the Compass Players which used her ideas to do theater. They started doing "scenario plays" where they improvised to find cool ideas to play and then would play the best parts and the most playable parts of what they improvised. It would be like a sketch but without a script, they would just know who the characters were and what the beats of the scene were and they kept playing it. Nichols and Mae were like good examples of what that could be.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0vSLIO7m20
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_Spolin
for another take on how important she is, and forgive the political nature of the essay as they author is comparing/contrasting Spolin (and improv) with Rand.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-bonifer/why-ayn-rand-does-not-mat_b_181321.html
- Take note of times in your real life where you're "doing" things instead of just standing and talking (folding clothes, chopping vegetables, driving a car, reading a book, feeding ducks) and observe what you're doing with your body and face and hands, etc.
- Take some time every once in a while to recreate those moments. Pretend to take a shower or chop a salad or make a bed, all in mime.
- When you start a scene, give yourself some kind of physical thing to do like that and let it inform your character/emotion/etc.
Mime Rules
Real-world objects obey certain rules.
- They take up space.
- They have weight to them.
- They have permanence.
Make your mimed objects approximate the same rules. Leave space between your fingers for the handle. Tense your muscles like you would if they were reacting to 5 pounds or 10 kilos or whatever. Once something is mimed, make it continue to exist (don't walk through things, don't hold a cup and then wave at someone and then magically have a cup again).
- To rely less on dialogue, do less dialogue.
Try to add to the scene nonverbally. Instead of saying "I'm mad at you!", act mad. Show, don't tell.
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Hey Ronny, my understanding is that the book is more for directors than for players. I've flipped through it and didn't get much out of it.
This is the guy teaching Spolin stuff in NYC. I've heard good things but my schedule never worked out well with when he's taught. http://www.jasonhale.net/teaching.html
That or Meghan Duffy, but she very much does her own thing and you'll get a ton of Viewpoints, Spolin, Jo Foresberg, etc in with it.
This is the guy teaching Spolin stuff in NYC. I've heard good things but my schedule never worked out well with when he's taught. http://www.jasonhale.net/teaching.html
That or Meghan Duffy, but she very much does her own thing and you'll get a ton of Viewpoints, Spolin, Jo Foresberg, etc in with it.