The very Very VERY Practical Improv Survival Guide: Improv Surival Guide, #1
5/5
()
About this ebook
When I first saw improv on stage I *wanted* it. I had never seen anything or anyone so powerful. Envy, desire, and lust filled me. I was terrified and delighted by the mere *thought* of going on that stage. And boy oh boy I wanted that stage. I was determined. I was hooked.
Related to The very Very VERY Practical Improv Survival Guide
Titles in the series (1)
The very Very VERY Practical Improv Survival Guide: Improv Surival Guide, #1 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related ebooks
Improv for Actors Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Play Your Way Sane: 120 Improv-Inspired Exercises to Help You Calm Down, Stop Spiraling, and Embrace Uncertainty Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFourteen Pearls of Wisdom for Improvisational Actors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Improviser: Concepts, Techniques, and Exercises for Long Form Improvisation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsImprovisation Express: Know How to Improvise and Think Fast on Your Feet Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYes, And!: Harnessing the Power of Improvisation to Transform Your Life and Work Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTop 10 Stand Up Comedy Secrets Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5TIPS II, More Ideas for Actors Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Improv: A Rant Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAct: The Modern Actor’s Handbook Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSo You Want To Be A Theatre Director? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Drama Games for Classrooms and Workshops Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInstant Humor: How to Be Funny Instantly! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Drama Games for Actors: Exploring Self, Character and Text Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMore Golden Rules of Acting: that nobody ever tells you Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Constantin Stanislavsky's An Actor Prepares Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCreating Worlds: How to Make Immersive Theatre Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsActing by Mistake Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Positive Path for Actors: How to Stop Second-Guessing Your Talent & Start Kicking A$$ in Your Career Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Acting That Matters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsActing: Develop Your Voice Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBeing & Doing: A Workbook for Actors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Improv Mindset: How to Make Improvisation Your Superpower for Success Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAt Play: Teaching Teenagers Theater Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow To Be Hilarious and Quick-Witted in Everyday Conversation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Select and Perform Monologues Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Improvise to Success! 16 Simple But Powerful Principles From Improv Comedy That Will Take You to Personal and Professional Success! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShort Scenes for Auditions and Acting Class Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Table Top Roleplaying For You
Fallout: A Tale of Mutation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pojo's Unofficial Big Book of Pokemon Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Ultimate Micro-RPG Book: 40 Fast, Easy, and Fun Tabletop Games Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Big Book of Zelda: The Unofficial Guide to Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Big Book of Five Nights at Freddy's: The Deluxe Unofficial Survival Guide Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Monsters Know What They're Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Legendary World of Zelda Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The No-Prep Gamemaster: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Random Tables Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5MOAR! Monsters Know What They're Doing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Into the Dungeon: A Choose-Your-Own-Path Book Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Random Tables: Quests Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Dungeon Master For Dummies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDungeons and Dragons Cookbook: Feast of Champions: Feast of Champions Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Defend Your Lair Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings101 Tips for Game Masters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dungeons & Drawings: An Illustrated Compendium of Creatures Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rubik’s Cube: How To Solve The Famous Cube In 3 Easy Ways! Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Steampunk User's Manual: An Illustrated Practical and Whimsical Guide to Creating Retro-futurist Dreams Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Dragon Walks Into a Bar: An RPG Joke Book Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Reviews for The very Very VERY Practical Improv Survival Guide
1 rating0 reviews
Book preview
The very Very VERY Practical Improv Survival Guide - Philip Geurin
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
Copying works in everything except improvisation. When I first began, I would watch someone create a fantastic scene, get up there, try it, and fail. In anything else we can watch another do the activity, try to repeat it, adjust, see the difference, and iterate. Watch a tennis serve, try it, watch where it goes, repeat. But in improv and writing how the heck can we do that!? Every scene is different!
This stumped me until I heard a side-coach telling players kinds of things to do: Get closer, look them in the eye, say nothing, tell us how you feel
and doing those things worked. Thats a big deal. There are kinds of things to do? That meant there is a language underneath the surface. Improvisers are communicating things without saying them, and the actual wording doesn't matter much. Every line, every gesture is a repeatable, classifiable move like a layup or pass in basketball.
The moves are hard to see and label at first, but like learning any new word - once you learn it you see it everywhere. Joining, complementing, adding, gifting, landing, denying, dropping, embodying, miming, puppeting, editing, painting, inviting, labeling, othering, offering, bridging, hedging, exploring, heightening, assigning, promising, continuing a pattern, raising status (dominating), lowering status (submitting), shutting down, attacking, and normalizing, changing, reacting, joking, and defining are all types of moves the improvisers do. Then the characters have tactics they can do like seducing, bargaining, arguing, stroking, joking, coaxing, bullying, humiliating, taunting, generating rapport, communing, detaching, redirecting, or relating.
Everything we say and do can be labeled and therefore understood. I cannot overemphasize the power of the label. If you know the word for a kind of action, you can choose to do it or to avoid doing it! Before you know what kind of move you're doing, there's no way to adjust or correct it. It's just 'try again' and you can say or do something that feels completely different, but it could still easily be the same move. Once we can see the language behind each action, we can begin to copy the greats we see.
(By the way, this language is immensely useful in understanding how we interact with others in life, too.)
CHAPTER TWO
The Question
Sometimes a scene looks and feels great, and sometimes it doesn't. It behaves unpredictably, like magic, and many people allow themselves to believe just that, magic. But we know better. History is full of phenomena that were once magic, and then became sciences. The sky, air pressure, fire, electricity, the human body, the human mind, and humor. The goal of research is to understand in order to predict and control. That's the goal of this book. To reliably create great scenes and understand why they worked. Now, many will be appalled by