Go Back to the Basics | Second City Improv for Actors 1 Week 5

Giovanni: What's going on, you beautiful blueberries? excuse the hair. Actor's Notes is in the morning most of the time. so this is just some bed head. But Actor's Notes is well it can be any time of the day. I just prefer mornings when I record this podcast, this channel episode. And this this episode is is about my notes. More specifically, it's about my improv journey at the second city in Chicago. It takes me five hours to get there. It's a three hour improv class, then I drive five hours back. So yes. Do I drive a ten hour round trip for an acting class? Yes, yes, I do. And do I regret it? No, I do not. By the way, it's not ten hours. Five hours there, it's only two podcasts. So four podcasts in in in two days? Guys. And these are like long. I usually listen to like Chris Williamson. Sometimes it's more self-development like Chris Williamson with his Modern Wisdom podcast, Mel Robbins, Jay Shetty, or more acting-based. Some that I love is the Hollywood Reporters Actor's Roundtable. That has been like the only one. Or I like Amy Boller's A Good Hang. Speaking of Amy Poehler, she came from the second city in Chicago. So amazing alumni came from there. That's why I've dedicated that much time to this notorious school because of just Not only improv can help you in your acting career as an individual, but it helps you listen. It helps you stay in touch with your inner child. excuse me. There's so many things that go beyond acting and just in life that it will help you with that I highly, highly recommend anyone and everyone to take an improv class. We are in the midst of this journey right now. I've already taken improv one. So if you're just beginning, whether you're an Actor's or not, if you have absolutely no idea what improv is, improv one. If you want to dedicate seven weeks, they do have drop-in classes, you know, once-a-week classes if you want to commit to that. But if you want to commit, commit for seven weeks. Improv one is the way to go. We finished that, and a lot of my past episodes on my podcast and channel cover that. But right now, this is improv for Actor's. One, this one also lasts for seven weeks, and then we take improv for Actor's two, which is another seven weeks, and then you can apply for conservatory. Everything that you do kind of leads to conservatory, the professional improvisers, or then you can start doing shows and get paid to do that. And that would be amazing. Just to do improv. Like if you've ever taken an improv class, you're like, I get to you can get paid to do this. I was like, okay. but first we gotta know you gotta know what improv is, okay? So improv for Actor's one, week number five. So we have two more weeks until the end of this term, and then we go into our last. Think about it in like thirds right now. So we did improv one, which is totally separate. Improv for Actor's one, improv for Actor's two. So we are in that middle right now of our of our improv journey going to the second city. Same thing. My instructor, your instructor will be different, but the same thing happened for me where my instructor will write down warm-up exercises, check-ins, we just check in with the class, how our week was. The warm-ups go from zip zapzop to whoosh to whatever your instructor will give you, but this is just to help us, you know, get you know loosey-goosey, just get our our improv mind going. And so after warm-ups and check-ins, we hopped into some games. Now every game it's gonna be different. You're gonna play a lot of games, short games, improv games, three-line scene games, games that you see often, you're like, I play that too. and sometimes you just play it differently, like freeze tag or scene tag or la Ronde and other things that are different forms of improv. you will all play different games. But the improv, what you will learn, that's what I'm gonna talk on, because that's the most that's just what you have to get those reps in. And that's what I wrote down here, just relationship, relationship, relationship. I I keep writing this down because relationship is key. Relationship is important. And what is relationship? Who are you? Where are you? What do you want? It's funny because these are the same questions that I ask myself when I have a script. Now, the what do you want? Like what's your goal? That can be interchangeable. And this is all personal preference. Maybe your definition of in a relationship is different, but this is just what I learned at the Second City. So who are you? Who are you to the other person? Who's the who are you? Are you astronauts and you are, what is it? mission control? Or are you going through a breakup with you and your partner? Hmm. Who are you? What's your relationship there? And then environment. Who where are you? Okay? Are you on the balcony and you know your your your back porch at home, or you at a grocery store, or are you on Mars? Or are you in the middle of the ocean and somehow you can speak because you're fishes now. You're not bound by anything, okay? Only your imagination. Ooh. and then what do you want? What's your goal? For me this means my goal is my goal will always change, because in an improv scene you don't know what your improv partner or the group is going to give you, so Having a goal of saying, okay, I want this person to love me, or I want this person to apologize. Apologize for what? I don't know. We'll just figure it Uta as we go. So it's okay to have a goal, and this is a preconceived ideal idea, but stay open minded to be w to to know that it just might go Uta the door. You never know where an improv scene will go. So have an idea, because it gives you some kind of direction, a goal. It gives you more specificity going into your scene, how you feel about your scene partner. You know, you give them a name, establishing that relationship. Where are you? You establish your environment. What do you want? Maybe that's the goal that you had preconceived. Or maybe your goal is just to listen to the most interesting thing that they say, say yes and add on top of that. And so that's kind of what the purpose was of find the next interesting thing. is because When you hear yes and and how people talk about improv, that means everything that you say, I'm going to support, say yes and and add on top of it. And that is completely correct. However, support can come from different ways. You can say yes in different ways. And so when your scene partner gives you a gift, gives you a suggestion, that is a simple sentence as in, hey Tyler, I like your gray hoodie. So simple gifts, simple suggestions, and you can take what's most interesting in that sentence. Maybe you don't even have to talk about the gray hoodie. Maybe you want to talk about how you feel about the person that you're talking to. So you're Tyler, he said, hey Tyler, I like your gray hoodie. And maybe you're like, I don't like you. That's like your preconceived goal that you had in mind. So you're like, you know what, Mark? You always compliment me. And I never compliment you. I love you. You're like, what? What the it did had it had nothing to do with the hoodie, but maybe your goal, your preconceived idea, you know, at right off the bat, don't keep this preconceived idea, be willing to just get rid of it. you know, that changed the entire scene in a single line, in a single beat. So whatever is most interesting to you, maybe it is the gray hoodie, maybe it's the compliment, maybe it's how you feel about Mark. Your scene partner, whoever it is, make sure you give them a name too. That was the biggest thing I learned in in Improv for Actor's 2. So the next seven weeks, the last third, just give them a name. My God. I found this to be the f my favorite two ways to begin every improv scene. Going into an improv scene, give them a name. Mark, Susan, Andy, Mandy, Ellie, whatever it is, give them a name. It could be something even more specific. To, ooh, this is interesting. It could be more specific to hint at maybe the relationship. Like, ooh, Professor Gutenberg. It's good to see you. Mm, I feel like already see like ooh, Professor Gutenberg, it gives them a specific like, I'm a I'm a professor, Gutenberg, I'm German. Maybe I can apply an accent. Maybe maybe do something completely left field. It's up to you. But they're giving you a gift, and then you say yes, and on top of that. But the second way is the environment. And it that goes to another game that we play where we don't say anything. To begin the scene, don't say anything. No dialogue. Just start doing things, you know? Pick up a glass, start twirling it, tap your spoon, set it down. Like that level of specificity. Maybe not the spoon. Maybe it's a bit more broad. Maybe you're moving chairs around, imaginary chairs, always mime this stuff. And so set the environment. Those are two ways that I liked approaching scenes. Give them a name or set the environment. and so going back to the first game that we played and understanding that whatever they give you, the gift, the line, take what's most interesting. It doesn't have to be about what they said, it's just about whatever you found interesting. In what you heard and so think it's yeah let's talk about the game of being silent the silent scene game this really helped me this this really helped me because I was trying to figure Uta how do you begin a scene, how do you begin an improv scene. And so my teacher Tom said, okay we're gonna play the silent scene game. Basically you and a scene partner would start off a scene saying absolutely nothing for 30 Second. Within that 30 Second or however long you think 30 Second lasts for you just create your environment. So just start doing object work. Start ma miming, you know, whatever it is. Wherever you want to be. Maybe you're in a park and the other person is at the grocery store. It does not matter, okay? Because it's stay it's staying open-minded to when you start speaking after that 30 Second, you've already established some things around. Maybe you are in a park, they're in a grocery store and their first line of dialogue is gosh. This tomato soup is expired. I have no idea why would they would put this on the shelf. And you're like, Okay, we're definitely not at the park where I had imagined, but I'm staying open minded and I'm gonna be like, you know what? Maybe, maybe I yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's that new Japanese thing that they're doing. They have expired food. It's good for your microbiome. Just go with it. Maybe you were at the park and you were planting flowers, and then when you started Just things turned immediately. But what this did was I feel like a lot of improvisers, including myself, we rush into scenes. And when we rush, we miss the opportunity to listen or to Notes things that that we can find interesting, that we can simply take, say yes and and make a scene about about that. and so we just played this 30 second thing. And also make sure you look at your partner. I remember playing this 30 second silent scene game. And I would not look at my partner at all. I would Notes that they were digging a hole in the ground, and I was painting a wall. Okay? And I just did not look at them. I was so focused on this wall. And as soon as they started talking, they were talking about what they were doing. I don't know what they were digging, maybe it was a body. And they were like, Gosh, I hope we don't get caught. I wasn't even looking at them. I just heard, gosh, I hope we don't get caught. And I was painting in my room. And I was like, Yeah. Mom and dad won't be happy when they see this. So it's just like, look at me, because I'm not doing what you're doing. but it can make it more entertaining. But it's important to check in with your scene partner. A lot of these notes we kind of talked about other things at Chicago, actually, like the annoying the Annoyance Training Center. If you think about the Second City, it's a training center in Chicago. So is the Annoyance, so is Improv Olympic. And you think about other improv training centers across the country, like the Upright Citizens Brigade or the Groundlings. I'm not sure if they Stella provide improv classes, but those are very notorious classes as well. This one's gonna be a quick one because we didn't really learn anything new, but I think that's that's the good thing. There's a point to in your improv career, acting career, maybe it's just self-development your career in general. It's more important to go back to the basics than it is to try to learn something new. And sometimes going back to the basics, you do learn something new. You know, it's always important to say to go back regardless of if you're four years, four months, four days into your improv acting journey, whatever it is, as a creative, you can be a content creator. And it's going back to how do you edit? How do you punch in? How do you zoom Uta? How do I actually know how to use my editing software? Or, you know, as an improviser, as a creative. It's just why do we say yes and? Why do we how do you how do you start a scene? Ooh, maybe I should just start it something different like a different way, because this is this is the actual truth. yeah. Improv isn't about being funny. It's just about being true to the scene. Listen to what you hear. Say yes and support. Be a good team player. This is what improv is about. Having fun. Goodness gracious. Sometimes you get so so Consumed with the work and it is enjoyable, but maybe it's not as fun as it was. And you're like, why did I how did I lose the fun? So going back to the roots, going back to the why we asked the questions, why we establish the relationship reminds us, yeah, that's why I found it fun, because we were Stella discovering things. maybe I just need to be open to discover things in my scenes again, and that will help me. Have a better time, have more fun. This game, the first game that we played, well we had a preconceived idea. We had a goal in mind, and that could help you, but obviously be open-minded, be willing to get rid of it. But this this helped. I kept it broad as an I would I I think I would say that there were three ways that I would approach every improv scene. Some had all three, some just had one. The first way was always giving them a name. Don't know where it would go, but I would give them a name. And if you want to be specific and call them Dr. Rhonda. Or maybe, ooh, Captain Sparrow. Giving them a name, giving it speci specificity, it would just help make the scene more interesting. Or I would say nothing and start doing object work. Establish the environment, and that would affect the next piece of dialogue. Or third, I would have an idea. You know, I'm like, ooh, I love this person. Or I want them to call me beautiful. Mm. It's an interesting thing. so you go into that scene, excuse me. You go into that scene, maybe twirling your hair like a girl or guy. Doesn't matter, you twirl your hair, you want them to call you beautiful, or you're they're fishing for a compliment. You're like, I woke up today and I just I don't know if I look pretty enough. Makes it interesting. It makes it unique. But you have this goal, like I want them to call me pretty. And maybe they don't. They're like, yeah, you look pretty rough. You're like, that's not what at all. So it like it just it gave it gave a suggestion to them. It gave them a gift. so that was always nice. So that's how I would start off three different scenes. And I think this is a great way to end. So why why am I speaking about all this? About how do you begin your scene and why you're saying all these things? It's because relationship gives specificity. And specificity makes things more interesting. makes the makes the scene more interesting, makes the audience actually believe what's going on. And it's like the more v the more broad you are, you're not really speaking to the audience. The more specific you are. It's like, that one person in the audience, they feel like, damn, they're really s speaking right to me, or I can relate to that. So in case no one has told you today, I love you. You matter you have value. And let me say something I haven't said before, which is just a continuation on what I just said, where We want relationship because we want to be specific. We want to be specific because it's more interesting. I really want to I want you to take that beyond improv, beyond acting, but apply it to your life where and I have to reflect on this tons of times. I'm writing on my whiteboard a lot. I have another one in front of me where I have to write down goals, but I don't just write down, let's make more money with content or let's try to book more auditions or in my self tapes. let's try to do this under three takes and just trust that first two takes, that was the one. Whatever it is. It's just like, okay, these are great goals and it's good to have a direction, but let's make it more specific. Because the more specific you can get, the more The more I feel like it will come to be because I'm looking for a specific thing. Like whenever you go into a a store and you're looking for a shirt, you know, I want a blue shirt that's a polo with no logos that's a size medium. You go into that store and you're looking only for one thing and one thing alone. You're not distracted by all these other options that you would probably get distracted by if you were looking in for like, I'm looking for a polo. Yeah. So you're You're open minded to different colors and different textures and maybe you're distracted by other shirts because you're open up to a polo, so you want something with a button, and you're like, that's a button, but it's a long sleeve, and then now you're distracted by so many other things. What I'm trying to get at is when you're specific with your goals, and I mean specific, to the Tina detail, the more specific you are, the better, and I truly feel the more interesting your life will be. Thank you for watching. I'll see you guys in the next one.