September 22nd, 2008 - Games and Summary

Hey Improvisers

Here's a summary of what we did tonight:

Wupong:
- To pass to the left, you say 'Wupong' and point your fist to the left. Reverse for the right.
- Three drips to a drop, and then the person after continues
- Three Arigatoos, and then everyone says Gozaimasu. The person who Gozaimasu landed on continues
- Ping to a person, the two people on the sides of the person say 'Pong' and point above that person's head.

Why did we do it?
- Focus on listening, and paying attention. Accepting offers from other players, even if the offer comes from across the circle (as 'Ping' often does)

Clap Focus:
- Pass the Clap along. Make EYE CONTACT before passing it to the next person.

Why did we do it?
- Focus on paying attention. A metaphor for accepting offers from other people, and being aware of where the energy is travelling in a scene.

Association/Disassociation Circle:
- Association: Start with a word (i.e. Green). Next person says the first word that comes to mind when hearing that word, and so on. Try to go as quickly as you can. Also try it with eyes closed.
- Disassociation: Start with a word (i.e. Green). Next person says the first word completely unrelated to that word that comes to mind. Try to go as quickly as possible. And with eyes closed.

Why did we do it?
- Focus on relying on your impulses (they're more often than not pretty much on the spot). For association, it doesn't matter what you come up with, because it's whatever you think of first. Forces people to be put on the spot while relying on instincts.
- Disassociation focuses on trying not to preconceive your responses. Just feel what the scene needs and go for it. Channel the energy you feel.
- Both: Don't go for the joke. The point here is to go quickly, and think of the first thing you can. Same thing in Improv. It's not the jokes that get the laughs (they often fall completely flat), it's the relationships and the characters that do (which, as a bonus, are more often than not much more reliable and much more universally accessible than simple jokes).

Character Creation:
- Create a character through one of the following means: Either lead with a different part of your body (i.e. elbow, foot, etc), identify animalistic traits that you can give to a human, or do a poor impersonation of someone (poor impersonations will more often than not create more unique characters than good ones. I've heard that Kirk Van Houten's voice was created when Hank Azaria tried to impersonate Pamela Hayden's voice for Milhouse). This will help with your character's physicality and voice.
- Once you have your character, identify the most appropriate job for them. Then, identify the most inappropriate, or ironic job for that character. This will help give your character a little bit of motivation.

Why did we do it?
- It's important to be able to create a character in little time flat. By adopting easily accessible concepts or traits, you can create interesting characters from almost nothing. It's also interesting (and funny) to take the traits from one profession (i.e. Pro wrestler) and apply them to the most opposite job you can think of (i.e. Doctor).
- Remember, it's not the jokes that lead a scene to success: It's the characters and their relationships to each other. Make interesting characters with conflict inherit in their personalities, and bingo bango, you've got a scene.

Character Dinner:
- Four people out at a dinner. At the beginning, everyone creates a unique character. When switch is called, players move to a different seat, and become the character that was sitting there.

Why did we do it?
- It balances creating strong, unique characters with listening. You can't be too focused on one while sacrificing the other. If you're putting too much focus on your own character, you'll forget who everyone else is. If you're putting too much focus on listening to everyone else, your own character won't be defined enough to be repeated by other players.

Here's something to think about for next week: Think of lots of different animals, and try to identify subtleties in their traits.

Impersonations: Do people say that your impersonation of Bill Cosby is bad? Run with it. Even if your friends hate it, the stage will love it.

Also, it's a good idea to have 3 or 4 default names to go to when you're creating characters. That way, if you need a name for your character, you don't need to give it any excess thought: Just go to one of your stock names. For reference, mine are Mac Fleetwood, Les Zeppelin, Carl Vanderkart, Shades McCool and Cidolfus Brecht. They serve me pretty well (Also, Les can become Leslie, and Carl can become Carly, thus enabling me to do a gender switch if necessary). Just something to think about.

I'll see you all next week.

Here comes my name,

Cliff