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Why Improv? (why not Improv?)

Posted on by amcmaste
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“Why Improv?” Or my favorite question of any talkback after a performance “so, which part was improvised and which part was scripted .” (answer: ALL of it was improvised…)

But to the point; why improv? I will refer to the title. Why not Improv?

When I began this journey 28 years ago  – playing improv games for theater classes and then working as a character in Atlantic City Casinos (yeah, I was a clown, wanna make something of it?) –  i realized I liked jumping off cliffs. Even as I worked professionally after college and moved to Seattle in 1989, I still found myself trying and doing the thing that was a challenge.

And this is unusual since I am typically a person that tries to do the least amount possible to have a the desired effect. Really. My main motion is to a point of stasis.

But one thing about Improv that always excited me was the chance to make something not just from my brain, but from a shared experience. Shared with the audiences suggestions the other actors offers and motions and my additions to the action. Form that crazy stew of personal interactions came this wonderfully joyous and beautiful output. That is what drew me in at first.

But then the question becomes; what keeps you? Why is it STILL Improv? (again… Why not Improv?) What keeps me is the continued lesson of Improv; What it is like to accept and add to offers daily – The fun of watching character interaction in everyday life – the narrative unfolding as you get older. It all feels connected to me. The journey being a shared experience, with suggestions and offers from others and my additions to the action. To me, there is not a question of ‘why Improv?’ Since I think it is everywhere. We can’t plan our lives, but we can prepare and be ready for what comes.

Plus – I love to make people laugh. Joy. It’s a good thing.

 

 

Stop Trying To Make Me Cry

Posted on by Elicia Wickstead
1

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how hard improvisers will sometimes work to make their scenes “meaningful” while completely missing the potential meaning in everything that’s happening around them. When players shoe-horn drama into scenes in a specific effort to try and be profound it generally reeks of the effort and loses the point of improv entirely.

The same is true of forcing a joke. If you’ve been improvising for awhile, I’m sure you’ve experienced that empty feeling when you threw a gag into a scene at an ill-timed moment and had it go over like a lead balloon. However, I think we tend to  talk openly about a comedic move not working when we’re chatting post-show whereas we applaud the effort when a dramatic move bombs because we want to reward improvisers working to expand beyond the funny even when that effort stinks to high heaven.

This sort of thing does happen in short form but comes up more frequently in long form. A common trap when improvisers move from short form to long form is that they start to over-think that hell out of everything because they are determined to be profound.  As a result, rather than being open to the story and their fellow improvisers they get distracted by goals they’ve set for themselves to try “dramatic” or “meaningful” things and end up doing banal & sometimes flat-out masturbatory scenes.

I greatly prefer not forcing anything in scene work. There is amazing potential in every scene for the story to go a thousand different ways but you have to be open to it. If you’re forcing a scene in a certain direction, whether it be comedy or drama , it’s going to come across as just that – forced.  You have to earn it.

How do you earn it? Moments where emotions are running high & the subject matter is intense have to come out of the scene organically & you have to respond to them honestly (in character).  Above all – you have to be willing to be VULNERABLE (in character). Why do I put VULNERABLE in all caps? Because I think that emotional vulnerability (in character) is really really important to good scene work and I don’t see it nearly enough on the improv stage. Allow your characters to have something to lose and then, allow them to lose it now & then. Too often improvisers interpret arguing as drama which is just about the most boring thing to watch ever for longer than a couple of minutes. Two people fighting onstage without either of them being affected or being willing to lose is not interesting or compelling, it’s annoying. At some point one of them has to change and allow their character to be surprised, hurt or perhaps concede a point and find a connection.

Why do I keep writing (in character)? Because I’m talking about acting – not catharsis. All of your life experiences give you a wealth of information from which to draw onstage but you have to keep it relevant to the story & the character you’re playing in a particular scene. I know this is pretty basic stuff for most folks but I think it bears repeating once in awhile.

Why is all of this important to me? Because I’ve been in some really wonderful, connected and meaningful scenes over the years. When you stop forcing and just let the scene play out using what’s right in front of you, it’s so satisfying for the players and the audience. I want all improvisers to experience that feeling. Those moments can happen in short form scenes as well as long form plays and when they do happen it’s like a jolt of electricity that courses not only through the players but also out into the house. You can feel it when you have an audience on the edge of their seats.  It’s one of my favorite things about what we do. But I submit that the harder you try to force it – the less likely you are to ever experience it.

Be open. Listen. Play. Respond. Use what’s already in the scene. Those “meaningful” moments will find you when you least expect them.

Getting To Know You: Elicia Wickstead

Posted on by Elicia Wickstead
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I’ve been improvising for half my life. It’s become second-nature. Most of my friends are improvisers. My husband is an improviser. It’s a rare day that the improv world is not in my face in some way.

I was a really shy kid without much direction until high school. At the encouragement of my father, I got into choir which I enjoyed very much because I love to sing. At the encouragement of my choir director, I decided to try drama as well and the rest is history. There is a special thrill & a sort of homecoming when you finally find your brand of nerd. It was my drama buddies that took me to see my first improv show at UP in Seattle.

Whenever anyone asks why I got into improvisational theatre specifically, I always tell the same story. The first time I ever went to a show, my friends had to convince me that it was improvised. Not because it was spectacularly funny (it was) or because it was totally seamless (it wasn’t) but because the performers were so well connected, displayed so much trust & such good listening skills that I was sure there was some sort of secret language I was missing.

That connection between performers is what keeps me invested above all else. I love getting a great laugh from an audience, surprising them and of course the occasional awww moment, but above all trust & support are my favorite things about a great improv scene.  In order to build that trust & support, you have to be trustful & supportive and that’s what I try to be. I don’t always succeed, but I try. I suppose my improv philosophy in a nutshell is – be the kind of player with whom you would like to play. When it works, it’s a wonderful thing.

I’m happy to be a part of this group of wonderful Seattle improv bloggers – geeking out about a subject dear to our hearts.  Thank you all for reading.

Getting to Know You: Dave Clapper

Posted on by Dave Clapper
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Hello! My name is Dave Clapper, and I’m honored to be part of this collective of improvisers.

I’m finding it surprisingly difficult to write this post. It’s not a bio, per se—that can be found on the About Us page. And I don’t think it’s exactly a mission statement, either. Or maybe it’s partially that? Maybe it’s a bit of both. And some other stuff, too.

The 1996 Mee-Ow Show

flier from Edinburgh Fringe Festival production of the 1986 Mee-Ow Show, “Oedipuss ‘N’ Boots”

So, a little bit of bio from the top: my first introduction to doing improv came early, thanks to a wonderful junior high school teacher named Mrs. Dewyze. I loved improv from the moment I knew it, but didn’t always pursue it, usually due to pursuit of other forms of theater. The early pinnacle of my improv experience would have been my sophomore year at Northwestern University, when I was cast in its 1986 Mee-Ow Show, under the direction of grad student Dan Patterson, who went on to create “Whose Line Is It Anyway” for BBC Radio, BBC TV, and ABC. That show was the first Chicago-based improv show to play at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and was also the last improv (aside from exercises to generate material for scripted shows) that I did until 2009.

But there’s probably a better indicator from my time at NU of the philosophy I bring to improv: I initially started as a Theater major, but graduated with a degree in Interdepartmental Studies in Speech, which is another way of saying that my academic pursuits were unfocused. While at NU, I was also a member of a dance company for three years, did a great deal of “traditional” theater, a little bit of performance art, and a ton of adaptive work (much in the same vein as what Book-It does). I also wrote a fair amount (something I’ve loved since early, early, early in life).

One of the things I loved especially about the adaptive work was that it was almost always a highly generative and ensemble-based process. The sizes of the roles rarely mattered to the part one had in the process—in almost every case, ensemble members brought in a great deal of source material themselves beyond the text itself. And although the work was far more structured than even a traditional scripted work (because of the style’s insistence on keeping the narrative voice of the author intact), the creative process was closer in its way to improv’s rehearsal structures than to rehearsals for more “traditional” theater.

SmokeLong Quarterly Issue 36

SmokeLong Quarterly Issue 36, cover art by Tuyen Tran

I think, because of how much I learned to love the group-based generation of art (and a host of psychological reasons as well), my passion for the arts in adulthood has been an entrepreneurial one. I was a founding member of Northwest Passage Theater in 1990 (which is what moved me, along with seven classmates, to Seattle). And within a year was on the boards of both the League of Fringe Theaters and the Seattle Fringe Festival (and I can’t tell you how excited I am to see the Festival’s return). I also worked as a stringer for two different start-up Seattle theater publications, Northwest On Stage and Intermission. And when I was parenting two young children and consequently away from the stage, my fiction was published in dozens of literary magazines, which in turn led to my founding my own literary magazine, SmokeLong Quarterly. Since returning to the stage, I’ve been a founding member of two different improv groups in town: the long-form group Interrobang Improv and the Seattle franchise of ComedySportz. And the only scripted work I’ve done has been the uber-generative ensemble pressure cooker that is 14/48.

I kind of hate everything that I’ve written above, because it sounds to my ear like a litany of “Look at me.” Ugh. In laying out some of the things I’ve done (and hopefully why I did them), I’m hoping to get across some idea of the foundations of my improv philosophy, and why I want to be part of the grand experiment of Around the Block. For me, improv is open to every possibility, and we’ve only just begun to nurture its potential. I see it as the cauldron inside of which any of the arts can be mixed, steeped, cooked, and from which the audience can directly be served, even as the mixing, steeping, and cooking is occurring. Jesus, what a terrible metaphor. But does it make sense? Does it?

Show me improv that incorporates commedia dell’arte and modern dance; poetry and aerialism; punk rock and graffiti. Better still, join me in figuring out how to make that improv, and then let’s make it.

Getting to Know You: Phill Arensberg

Posted on by parensbe
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So long, Any Elected Office Ever.

Trust me.

Hey, nice to see you. This being the introductory post, it seems like I should lay a few facts on you; experience being the best form of credentials. I started improvising in Mr. Ellington’s drama 1 class in 1984 when I was a mere lad of fourteen. I pursued improv and comedy in general as a passion and hobby and a maybe avocation through college with the Conn College improv group, Comedaevs Interrvptvs. Ah youth. Nothing seems so muffinly fresh faced as thinking you invented a pun.

After college though, things got serious. I decided to actually do comedy, be an actor. So onto Chicago for me via the sleeper train to study first at Jo Forsberg’s Players’ Workshop and then onto the training center at Second City. Since then I’ve been with improv mainstays like Comedy Sportz and Boom Chicago as well as been part of amazing little quantum miracles – those small, incredible moments of theater that supernova briefly but are lost in all the other stars.

Wow, this went to a lyrical place quickly. In any event, I’ve been improvising for about 28 years. Unsurprisingly, I have developed a few opinions on the ‘prov in it’s forms, philosophies and expressions. Also present are a number of questions and ideas that I’ve never been able to comprehend to my liking.

Currently in my conceptual improv thinking is all about blurring the line between audience and performer and how to move improv into a more immersive experience. What I’d like to create is a theatrical equivalent to Virtual Reality as portrayed in the higher budget species of science fiction film. So much of the baggage encumbering improvisation has to do with it’s attachement to the forms and structures, literally, of traditional theater: stage, audience, proscenium, etc. And none of it gets any better when shoe-horned into a stand-up venue. The point is that I feel the potential for improvisation as kick-ass, transformative entertainment is full of bravura and spectacle barely hinted at by the great work being done now and by the giants upon whose shoulders we stand. The best is yet to come…

Getting to Know You: Ian Schempp

Posted on by ischempp
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Hi! My name is Ian Schempp and I am an improviser.

I started improvising in 1997 in high school. As a full-fledged drama nerd, I was part of an after-school drama club. This was back in the days when Comedy Central only had about 4 shows and one of them was the British version of Whose Line Is It Anyway? A few like-minded friends and I decided to create and after-after-school-drama-club-improv-club where we emulated the things we saw on that show. In retrospect, it was probably some of the most toe-curlingly awful improv humans could have done. In the moment, however, we were improvisational geniuses, cracking each other up and loving every second of it.

Sisters of Sal group photo

Sisters of Sal, 2006 – photo by David Wahl

Soon after, I headed off to college to pursue a degree in mathematics. Luckily for me, the local improv group performed at our orientation and happened to mention that they were having auditions. On a whim, I tried out and made it in. In all likelihood, this will be one of the most important moments in my life, as I’m sure it changed pretty much everything from here on out. I fell absolutely in love with improv and spent as much time as possible doing it, much to the chagrin of my GPA. My sophomore year, the new director of the group (we had a new one each year) decided the gloves were going to come off. We pushed ourselves much harder than apparently the group ever had: going to shows at The Groundlings and even hiring improvisers from The Groundlings and iO West to come do workshops for us. My senior year, I ended up not only directing the group, but doing an independent study course that involved teaching a class in improv and writing a rudimentary textbook on the subject.

After college, I moved here to Seattle, naively thinking I would pursue higher education in mathematics. That lasted for almost exactly one year. After getting out of the grad school game, a friend from college took me to a Monday night improv free-for-all, co-quasi-lead by our own Joel Dale. I met a lot of great improvisers there, and ended up joining a group called Sisters of Sal. We did montage-y long form stuff, mostly at Seattle’s now-defunct Cage Match. About this time I also auditioned for and got in to Jet City Improv, which has been my improv home ever since. Sisters of Sal whittled itself down into a duo (doing some of my favorite work) and eventually stopped, but JCI continues strong. That’s where I teach, where I rehearse, and where I do 90% of my improv now.

Unspeakable Horrors poster illustration

Poster art for Unspeakable Horrors by Sean Patella-Buckley

While at Jet City, I’ve had the opportunity to create and direct several great shows: Shades of Gray, This Improvised Life, Unspeakable Horrors, Explorer’s Club, and most notably (at least for me) Funbucket. I’ve also had the opportunity to teach many classes and a couple workshops through the theater. I’ve studied a lot under a lot of great improvisers, but a lot of who I am as an improviser is due in large part to three great teachers: Jill Bernard, Joe Bill, and Asaf Ronen. Go buy their books. I hear Joe will have one eventually.

And now, here I am: writing about improv, the non-human love of my life, for this blog. I really do hope we get a chance to argue and agree loudly about things in the surprisingly-for-the-internet civil and intelligent comments section here. Thank you for reading and hopefully for writing as well.

Getting to Know You: Andrew McMasters

Posted on by amcmaste
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Hi all!

Here’s my getting to know you post; My name is Andrew McMasters. I started doing improv about 25 years ago. I am one of the founders of Jet City Improv. I like theater management and nachos.

Additionally, I love pointing out that I have never had what people consider ‘formal’ improv training. I didn’t go to Second City. I didn’t work with Del Close. My life hasn’t been altered by the previous teachings of the masters. What I like is… well… providing a meaningful comedic experience for an audience.

Let me say that again; providing a meaningful comedic experience for an audience. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE doing this work – but the truth is, we do it for the audience. Without them, we don’t have a reason to do this. This isn’t an art form that exists in a vacuum. It is a conversation – a DIRECT conversation with an audience, in a way that a lot of scripted theater cannot invite or explore.

That is what I love. Not just the thrill of doing it – but the desire to make contact with an entire roomful of people and create laughter that can last well beyond the evenings festivities.

A number of years ago, back when i was bar tending, I had a chef i worked with that was going through a tough time. His wife left him, he was having financial troubles, and close to being fired. He came in and asked me “how can you always be so happy?” I thought about it and replied ‘every weekend I get on stage and hear people’s laughter. I play. Others play with me. Audiences love it. It’s hard not to be happy when you do that every weekend.’

I still believe that to be true.

 

A Touchy Subject (originally posted on stillnotelicia.tumblr.com)

Posted on by Elicia Wickstead
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Have you ever noticed that when you watch improv (and I’m primarily talking about comedic improv), physical contact between performers is often the exception and not the rule? I think this happens for many reasons and probably for many more reasons that I can’t think of. Here are some random and somewhat rambly thoughts about some of my own personal experiences & preferences, for what it’s worth. This post may be more relevant to those that haven’t been improvising for too long and additionally may be more applicable to short-form work within large ensembles or when playing with people you haven’t worked with before.

Some people come straight to improv without any traditional theatrical training and some improv schools don’t spend a lot of time working on basic stagecraft. I have only the slightest of scripted theatre backgrounds but I did learn early on that in scripted theatre, fight scenes and love scenes were best approached with respect for personal boundaries, safety, caution and above all that it was important to take time to establish a level of comfort and trust between performers. If you’re doing a long-form improv show that’s had a rehearsal process there is more time to delve into these issues but in short-form it often comes down to evaluating all of these things in the moment. If an improviser doesn’t immediately know whether physical contact with their scene partner will be outside of their comfort zone, the impulse is often abandoned. Generally speaking I think we sometimes favor caution out of respect which is not a bad thing. The more people work together the stronger the communication and then you don’t have to second-guess those moments.

Offstage, I’m a hugger but I try to be sensitive to people who may not be so keen on hugging. The same is true onstage. If I’m in a scene that turns romantic and I’m with someone I haven’t improvised with very much, I tend to hang back and let them initiate physical contact if they want to. Once in a great while I’ve been known to plant one on somebody but usually it’s only if I have a sense, based on past experience, that they’ll be cool with it and then only if it’s appropriate for that particular scene.

Occasionally there is a concern that if an improviser is in a romantic scene involving a kiss or other physical contact onstage it may not sit well with a significant other. As someone’s wife I can understand that even though I don’t feel the same way (but then again we are both improvisers). As a performer, I have been kissed onstage by plenty of people that I’m not attracted to and to me it’s no different than say, shaking someone’s hand onstage or playing their arms. It’s acting which is not the same as dating. But I respect that for someone in the audience (especially if they’re not a performer) it might feel a little weird to them to watch their girlfriend, husband, etc… kiss someone else onstage. For performers who know that their significant other isn’t cool with it (whether they’re in the audience that night or not) sometimes this causes them to refrain from physical contact onstage and that’s their choice which is valid.

The creepy factor. Ok let’s face it – if you’ve been improvising for a while you’ve probably had it happen at least once that you’ve played with someone who seems to always find a way to make a scene sexual even though it’s not necessarily relevant to the narrative. That is straight-up Creeproviser behavior and not cool. If you feel like someone is frequently touchy-feely onstage in a way that makes you uncomfortable, see if you can talk to them about it. I think some people are just physical in general and would be mortified if they thought they were making others uncomfortable because it’s not their intention. I’m talking about improvisers who are making a character choice and don’t realize you’re not on the same page… which I think is very different from what is basically the stage version of continually making unwelcome passes at people. Give people the benefit of the doubt but again, improvising is not dating. If it’s an ongoing issue with a specific person then the leader/Artistic Director of your group should be made aware of it and handle it. Also and most important, remember that you can always side-step physical contact onstage & justify your move in character if you prefer.

Also a thought about stage-combat. Never hit, slap, kick, throttle, pull the hair of or in anyway jump on another performer in an improvised scene onstage without some prior communication ever. Ever ever ever. If you see an actual open-handed slap (for example) onstage in a scripted show, unless it was an accident, it is likely to be something the performers worked out in advance so that no one was hurt because it was choreographed in a very specific way. If someone hurts you onstage, talk to them. If it’s an ongoing issue with a specific person then the leader/Artistic Director of your group should be made aware of it and handle it. Even if you are a very physical performer it is important to be careful of moving erratically and avoid putting yourself in a position where the audience or your fellow performers might worry that you could do harm to yourself or others. Above all – being out of control physically & straight-up physical violence are never ok.

So, you’ve decided to try kissing! Well, kiss or don’t kiss. This is just a personal preference. The put-your-hand-over-the-other-improviser’s-mouth thing has always bothered me. My preference is that if you don’t feel comfortable actually kissing someone onstage or you think they wouldn’t feel comfortable being kissed or you’re just not sure – don’t go for it. Perhaps the lack of a kiss will propel the scene in another direction emotionally which could be equally interesting? Putting your hand over somebody’s mouth is just weird for the person who is under your hand and also is totally obvious to the audience so it’s kind of funky all around.

What I mean by a “kiss”: I mean a “stage kiss” which is lips closed, no tongue, no slobbering and no coping-a-feel. If you’ve been improvising with someone for years and you are both totally cool with being a little over the top or playing it up for the sake of comedy I say go for it. It can also be equally fun/funny to do some cheesy-makeout-mime where you sort of simulate making out but have some obvious physical distance (as opposed to dry-humping). But again all of those things depend on the level of comfort between performers.

I personally love it when I see improvisers who are comfortable with each other get physical onstage. I mean this both romantically and otherwise. I’ve had fellow performers stick a hand or head up my shirt to simulate childbirth or alien impregnation (you know, like you do). This is the sort of thing you can only do when you’re REALLY COMFORTABLE WITH SOMEONE so for the love of all that’s holy please don’t go out and try that tonight in a show for the first time. If this subject is something that you’ve thought about in regard to your own group I think it’s nice to bring in up in a workshop setting. I’ve done long-form shows in which, given the style of show, it was likely that romantic scenes were going to happen and in rehearsal we’ve had a show of hands to indicate who was cool with kissing and who was not and those boundaries were respected. It’s just as valid to say “I’m not really comfortable being kissed onstage” as it is to say “Go for it! In fact, breath mints all around!” As with anything else in improv, I think good communication always helps.

The Tao of Improv: Better to Stop Pouring

Posted on by ischempp
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(NOTE: Originally posted at Seattle Comedy Nerd)

Overfilled, the cupped hands drip.
Better to stop pouring.

One over-sharpens the well-forged blade,
and it won’t last long.

With gold and jade in the hall,
the house isn’t safer.

Wealth and pride
are the authors of error.

When the work is completed,
it’s time to retire.

That is the Tao of Heaven

Tao Te Ching; 9 Heaven

To me, this passage relates to improv in that it is all about knowing when NOT to do things.

Let us start at the beginning. In the beginning, as an improviser, most likely we find getting on stage to be terrifying. Either we have no acting background and so stage fright begins to seep into our minds, or we do have an acting background and not having the safety of lines/blocking/character is almost mind-boggling. Either way, entering (or worse, starting) a scene is something that we must be forced to do. Soon after, however, we realize that we can improvise on stage without actually dying. We look forward to spending time playing with our fellow improvisers and spending time on stage with them. This is when the lessons I see in this passage can begin to be taught because most likely, our hypothetical beginning improviser is eagerly starting scenes and finding reasons to be in each and every scene, hungry for more experience.

So now we must break it to them that more improvisers is not always better, and knowing when to stay out of a scene is at least as important as knowing when to enter one. Our beginning improviser probably already knows this. Some basic pattern recognition and analysis will reveal that the scenes that involve ALL the improvisers often line up with those scenes that, in retrospect, could charitably be called clusterfucks. No need to overfill the stage with potential main characters, better to identify the protagonist of our scene early and let the scene flow around her.

Parallel to the idea of overfilling the stage with actors is overfilling the scene with offers. In reality, they are the same problem: information glut. With too many actors, there are offers coming from each, so some will almost inevitably be dropped. But even with only two (or heck, one) actor on stage, it is important to know when to stop pouring information into the scene, lest it overflow, spilling those offers onto the desert sands, never to be seen again. Better to stop pouring and start drinking, following the offers you have and seeing where they lead you.

Jill Bernard (whose name, if you do not already know, you will quickly become familiar with by reading anything I write) made a wonderful drawing about precisely this. I do not have a photo of it at the moment, but I will post it later if I take one/find one. The gist is this: why spend your precious scene time searching for what the scene is about when you can just MAKE the scene about the first offer you get? There is no “best offer” that will make your scene amazing, your scene will be amazing by taking the first offer and making it the best, by which I mean make it affect your character and his relationships. After all, that’s what all the great offers do, isn’t it? So why not make the offer you got a great one?

I also wanted to touch on the second to last stanza, knowing when to retire. This stanza is all about endings, a very important part of improv that gets little attention. Endings are hard, especially in an art form whose very foundation is built on the idea of “Yes, and,” reminding us that there is always a next line, always a next move.

I’ve noticed as a teacher that many improvisers I teach are incredibly reluctant to leave the stage, even when that is the strongest move they could make. In fact, I’d say most of those students have their minds a little blown when they admit they had completed their objective and I ask them why they didn’t leave. When the work is done, it is time to retire, and if you have no objective, then it is time to leave the stage. Your fellow improvisers will fill the now-empty stage; that’s their job.

In the short form world, we tend to focus our endings on laugh lines. Regardless of where we are in the story arc of the scene, if you get a big laugh (or any other big emotional response, really), there is a very real possibility that the scene is about to be called. Speaking from personal experience, in short form we tend to more often run into the opposite problem: cutting scenes before they are “over.” I think this comes from how most short form shows are structured: a preference for many scenes with a focus on high-energy performance. Again from personal experience, I would say that while many scenes do get big laughs, the ones that get applause are the ones wherein everything is tied up neatly when the scene is called. So now the question becomes which is more important: striving for the completed story, or cutting early and leaving the audience wanting more. I’d say the former leads to more volatility in the overall quality of the show, while the latter is the safer, more traditional choice. I’d also say the former is my preference. Also, as a bonus, striving for the completed story will force you to realize when you are overfilling the scene with information, thus sharpening your storytelling.

When we move into the world of long form, endings become more ambiguous, but I think the goal remains the same: neatly wrapped packages of scenes with clear beginnings, middles, and ends. It’s just that now the packages need not necessarily be the entire arc of a story, but rather a single beat in that story.

I am rapidly losing my focus and this post is getting much longer than I thought it would. Perhaps another post on this topic will happen, but right now I need to stop typing and hit the Publish button. I’ll say that this got very Tao/Zen very fast, speaking to the importance of that which does not happen. I’m happy about that.