Why Questions Kill Your Scene | Second City Improv Week 3

Giovanni: Okay Doki, welcome back to Actor's Notes. This is a podcast, this is a channel where I reflect my time in class. This is a series where I talk majority about my improv journey at the second city in Chicago. Now this isn't perfect, these are my personal thoughts and opinions, and this is just what I'm going through in hopes that maybe someone else has the same thoughts. and opinions and a questions, but maybe they never asked it or they never voiced it, and so this might make you feel heard and connected to in this in this crazy industry. This is episode three. I have twenty two weeks in total with going to these three hour improv class in the second city in Chicago. and each class kind of compounds into the next you'll talk I'll talk about specificity, relationships, listening more and more often as we go. But each class, there's always something new to learn, which I wrote. There's some random thoughts. Like I said, these are just my notes, but I felt like I felt like sharing this with you guys. So for week three, what we learned, and every class is going to be different, but our instructor, Tom. He wrote down on the whiteboard in this classroom just the things that you're going to go over. He talked about the check-ins, you know, checking in with everyone, how everyone's week was. We did warm-up exercises like zip zap. We talked about the games we might be playing that day. And I'm going to talk less about the games we played in improv class, because there are so many different improv games and I mean Truthfully, that's majority of what we did, but I don't remember them, so I'm not gonna talk about the ones that I don't remember. I'm only gonna talk about the ones that I do, like Zip Zab Zop, like Woosh. These are warm-up exercises. There are specific games that I can talk about if I remember them correctly, but I'm going to talk about what you learn from those games and things to keep at the forefront of your mind. So when you're doing these improv games, you're like, right, don't ask questions. Okay, why don't I ask questions? Okay, what's the yes and? How can I improve on that? How can I keep that at the forefront of my mind when I'm doing that? Because truth be told, I remember even giving myself this prompt of, okay, next time I do an improv scene with a partner or a group, I'm not gonna ask questions, I'm gonna say yes and I'm gonna accept the gifts, I'm gonna I'm gonna be specific. And as soon as I start an improv scene, I'm like, what? I forgot. I'm just gonna listen, which that's probably the best thing you can do. Fall back on, actively listen. Now, going to the games that we played, we played a simple yes and game, and that's literally what it was. It was an improv scene, just you and another scene partner, and you would it's almost like three-line scenes. This is a very common game. A three-line scene is exactly what it is. You'd have person A and person B. Person A just Says a suggestion, just starts off a scene. Person B says yes and they add on top of it. They add as much specificity as they can. Of course, don't deliver a whole paragraph. It's a thing that a lot of improvisers do. They they kinda just give you so much information. But just a simple sentence sentence or two is completely enough. So you add on top of that and then it goes back to person A. They deliver their last line. So it's three-line scenes. It goes one, two, and three. And you try to make a scene that establishes the relationship between you and your scene partner. That establishes the environment and what you're doing. So who you are, where you are, and what are you doing? What do you want? What's going on in that scene? Try to establish that in three lines, which is very difficult. And some three-line scenes are very vague and not. specific and interesting, but it's an exercise that really does help. So we played this yes and game that was like three line scenes, but in staying instead of saying yes and we said hell yes and meaning that if person A says Today is a gorgeous day outside. Person B would be like, hell yeah. And look at that. You can see two birds mating Uta there in the tree. Person A then would say, Hell yeah! It's good to see nature doing its job. Boom. Three line scene. I like the way that that went. There's no wrong way to do this. There's just your way in truly listening, being the moment. There's you can't be. I've said some. left field crazy things. I don't know why, but my my go-to goes into this like sexual flirty type of vibe almost all the time. That's just who I am. So my personality really does kick in there during those scenes. But we say yes we say hell yes because something that and my my instructor Tom kind of tailored these games and these exercises to best fit our class. And he noticed that with each of us, including myself, we wouldn't fully accept the gifts that were given to us. So in our scenes, we would, you know, we would be hesitant, you know, if it's a crazy, spontaneous suggestion, a gift. A gift is just what someone says to you. It's a simple way to understand what a gift is, a suggestion. It's what someone just tells you. How do you Take that. That's the gift. How do you accept the gift? How do you take that suggestion? Say yes and and on top and add on top of that. So saying hell yes just fully embraces whatever they say and you add on top of that. And this goes to listening. That was the next step that we had to understand. And in order to accept the gift, we have to accept it wholly with our body with our eyes and ears, you know, not just what they're saying, listening to that. What what is their body language telling you? And that's what I really love about improv. You learn more to listen not just with your eyes, but with no no not just with your ears, but with your eyes, your body language. It's a language for a reason. So listen to how it's being delivered, how it's being said, and of course what's being said. We played a lot of different games and this one was I'll talk about this one because I really enjoyed it. It didn't have any any speaking. It was called Coming Home. And basically this taught us to learn how to face an audience. That's another thing too, being aware of where your audience is, especially since this is improv, this is acting in the TV and film industry, and theater is a little different as well. Theater more I mean you definitely have to know where your audience is. So positioning your body in a way that's not that's helping the audience just see more of you. When you're talking with someone, you're more, you know, straight and head-on, but if there's an audience to your right or left, you would ch kind of cheat towards more to the audience. So we learned more about that during this game, but it was called coming home. And essentially, you didn't say anything. You would go one by one and you would Imitate and mime everything that you would do as if you just got home. So that means getting your keys Uta of your pocket. Maybe you're the person that has like fifty keys on their keychain, so you're scrambling through. You know, every detail that you can think of while you come home, you would mimic and imitate it during the scene. You would get your keys, you would put it in the door lock, you would turn it clockwise, you would open the door, however it opens, you would walk in. Do you have this certain habit of hanging your keys on the hook? Do that, or maybe wiping your feet, taking off your shoes in a specific way. Maybe it's right and left, left and right. You may think that this is being too specific, but the more specific you are, the more interesting a scene is. Because we get to ac you experience it, and so does the audience. They're like, I see exactly what they're doing. Even if they're not interpreting it in a certain way, that's not what matters. It's what matters is you see it. And if you see it, the audience sees it. So as you're opening the door, as you're coming in, do you set your backpack down at a specific place? You know, do you start making breakfast? Do you start making food? Maybe you just sit there and watch TV. So go through that. Get your remote. See those buttons. Click that button that says Netflix, because that's all we're watching nowadays, or YouTube. For me, I listen to a podcast like Actor's Notes. There's a pretty attractive guy named Giovanni who talks about his journey as an Actor's. Anyways, the coming home game talks about specificity. I mean, it just represents specificity. You don't say a word. But you find it so interesting because when you watch these other people playing this game, you don't know what they're doing, but they do. And you they they're painting a picture for you, and that's exactly what you need to be doing in your improv scenes, not just in these games. You're painting a picture for the audience. You're being specific and you can do that with your environment, with actually miming doing things, and that just helps the scene more in d the scene be more interesting. Now we also learn why we d avoid asking questions, and I love his explanation, which is also a book that I've already read and I highly recommend it called Truth in Comedy by Del Close, Charna Halpern, and Kim Howard Johnson. And the reason why we don't ask questions because it's almost like you're a thief. And you're or Tom and Del Close definitions were a little different, but asking questions is like taking. You never want to take from your same partner. You want to give. You want to give these gifts and give suggestions. And Tom's example was Imagine you're putting a spotlight on them. No one wants to be in the spotlight. No one wants to feel under pressure. So when you ask a question, you're telling them, give me an answer right now. So what do you do for a living? What's your name? Why are you here? What's going on right now? You're putting that focus back on them instead of exploring it together. Instead of questions, make assumptions. Instead of asking what the weather is, be like, damn, it's frickin' hot outside. Holy crap, it's 94 degrees outside and I'm wearing a full winter coat. Add whatever you want to that instead of saying, What's your name? You already know who you are. yeah, we'll get to that in further classes, probably Actor's for improv, which is further down, more actor-centered and more understanding about subtext and emotions, but that's later on in the weeks. But you know who you're talking to. One thing about this, and it's like a little snippet of what we learn later on in the weeks. Is that you never want to start a scene right in the beginning. You want to start it in the middle. Like you and your scene partner have known each other for such a long time. It's not like you're meeting someone for the first time and that's how your sh scene should start. The reason is because it's literally the beginning. You're f like, yeah, you are discovering the scene, you don't know where it's gonna go, but it's less interesting. Like let's go let's start off in the middle. Imagine your favorite or think about your favorite TV shows. You know, the first episode of the Big Bang Theory, the first episode of Friends, the first episode of whatever TV show, they already know each other. If they're all learning each other, like character by character, it's just like, let's just pick up the pace a little bit, let's make this a little bit more interesting. Yeah, and it a TV series and all that develops and so does your scene in an improv. But when these characters already know each other, they have a backstory. It's just like, all right, we're in the middle of something right now. That's more interesting. So know your scene partner. You should already know your scene partner. And yeah, avoid asking questions. So don't ask, who are you, how are you, how'd you get here? You already know who they are. That's Mike, that's Tom, that's Emily, it's Natasha. How do you feel about these characters? That establishes your relationship much quicker. Going back to those three line scenes, I mean, if you already know who you're talking to, where you are. What you want Uta that scene in that moment, you're not beginning, you know, to know where you are, you're not beginning to know who your partner is or how you feel about them. You already have an emotion about them. It just makes you get to that, you know, three-line scene, it gets to that point a lot quicker, making it more interesting. Now, we talked you know, classes will go different directions. We talked about Tina Faye, how she also came from Io. The second city is In my opinion, because I only came from the second city, is the best improv sketch comedy school in the country, but they're all there are also improv Olympics that Tina Faye came from. There is the Annoyance. Many different improv theaters in Chicago and New York City and LA, the underground things, upside upright citizens brigade, I believe that's what they're called. we kind of talked about that, and then that was halftime. Halftime is already an hour and a half into class because it is a three hour scene. Three hour class. And we did some scene work after we came back. There are tactics that I've used many times because there will be moments where you blank. And I'll talk about this a lot too. Where there'll be moments where if you're not actively listening, sometimes you think about like daydreaming. It you just kinda zone Uta. You you know, someone might be talking to you in a scene, but you know, a Fey lines are here and there might go over your head. You've you're like, what'd they say? I d I don't think I caught them right. What? Or maybe you just are so in your head that is taking you Uta of the moment. Maybe you have those preconceived ideas and you just gotta get rid of that. And if you don't know what to do, if you blank like I have many of times, one tactic 'cause there are a Fey I realized, one tactic to do is just mirror what the other person's doing. Maybe their arms are crossed. So you cross your arms and you're like, this makes me feel Close off. This makes me feel smug and that's how I'm gonna carry myself for the rest of the scene. So boom, it you You just took yourself Uta of a moment where you didn't know what to do, and then you crossed your arms, you gave yourself more of a personality trait, and now you're walking around. Yeah, take up the space. Figure Uta where you are. But now you're doing it with a demeanor. Now it's you're already one baby step Uta of Uta of that that blankness. Or mirror your yeah, mirror the the scene partner. What are they doing? Are they doing an action? Maybe they're ac digging something. Start digging. Maybe they're looking up. Look up too. You know, there are things and tactics that you can do to get Uta of blanking Uta that I've had to do many times. And I really want to go back to sometimes a little is just enough. This goes more tailored to my classmates because a lot of them would give a lot of information. I said this in episode two, where you'll have some improvisers, maybe you are one yourself. Where you just give so much information, so much specificity, which is great because if you can be specific, and a lot of people have a hard time doing this, and a lot of people have just the natural and easy way to do this, but don't give your scene partner or the group just so much information. Just trust that what you say is enough. Just a little goes a long way. And this kind of gave me an epiphany moment as I was watching these scenes. Because I love Sanford Meisner definition of acting, which is acting is being truthful under imaginary circumstances. And some people say acting is reacting, acting is listening. And this also goes to improv. I mean acting, if you think about it, an improv, improv is being truthful under imaginary circumstances. You create this imaginary environment with an imaginary partner and you live truthfully in that moment, no matter how bizarre left field. You know this person. How do you feel about this person? That's acting. They also say ap improv is acting without a script. I've heard that definition many times. And it didn't really hit me, and it may not hit you until you're actually in that moment in that scene. You're like, this is acting. And it's fun. That's what I love about this. Yes, we learned Annoyance is is an improv school, Improv Olympic, the second city. We played many different games. Ooh, and we just talked about justify. Justify it. This goes back to and I love this because it's called a connection or a callback. With this goes back to the first game we ever played in that in that on that day, which is the yes and, but we turned it to hell yes and meaning fully accept. fully justify what was being said. If someone said there are birds mating in the tree, you're like, Hell yeah. Don't you just love nature at work? Or if someone says my daughter got kidnapped, I'd be like, Huh. Hell yeah. This is the fifth time this month. I think this is a sign. You should just let her go. Alright, see, scenes can go really dark, really fast. But justify it. When you're with your scene partner with their group, you justify what they said. Because sometimes, and I've felt this way, you might have felt this way, you Stella probably have done this, and many experienced improvisers have done this, where you'll say something and you're like, oops, didn't mean to say that, or that sounded so weird, so bizarre. Hope I think I hope that wasn't embarrassing. But if you feel it, They probably feel it too. And so a good improviser will justify whatever you say. And no matter how weird it is, they'll justify what you say, and you justify what they say. And so this just this should free you to just be you. No matter how weird, unique, crazy things can get. You know that they will a hundred percent fully support what you say in the beginning. Like I said, it's important to know. The beginning rules in order to break them, meaning that there will be times where you reject a gift. There will be times where you ask questions many times, or you only ask questions, but in the context of you actually understand how to do that. So that was the last thing that we did. Of course, we played games of week three at my time at the Second City. And I appreciate you listening this far. In case no one has told you yet today, I love you. You matter, you have value. And let me say something I haven't said before. I mentioned how an improv Improv is just like acting's definition of Sanford Meisner definition, which is acting is living truthfully under imaginary circumstances. But if you think about it, that's what life really is. When you think about life, we all have this creative lens, which I love this book. the and this I would recommend this to any Actor's, any content creator, any creative, it's the creative act of way of being. But Rick Rubin's definition is that we're all creatives. We all see the world in a specific lens. Some, you know, you'll take two people, they're having the exact same day. One person could be having the best time of their life. The other person could be thinking this is such a groundhog, mundane day, and it's nothing but boring. You know, it's all how it's all about perspective and how you see the world. So when you think about life, we're all living under imaginary circumstances. We're all living under our circumstances. And we're being truthful to that. So staying self-aware through today is something that I want you to do. Understanding that acting is is just a reflection of life and improv is a reflection of life, and that's why it's so funny. So I'll leave you with that and I'll see you in the next one. Thank you. I love you.