Helpful Moments Learning/Working On Game

[WillieBHines]

To the students:

What are moments/exercises/notes in class that were helpful for learning game?
If not a single note, what types of exercises were most helpful?

I have my own opinions on this as a teacher, but I want the perspective of people who have learned this all recently.

Regards,
William Bradford Hines

[jonhess1005]

Hey Will!

Great question. I took 201 a few months ago, so I'd like to think it's still recent. Regardless, I'm still learning.

For me, a moment that really helped me "get" game was in the most recent Matt Besser Workshop.

At the time, the most difficult aspect of game for me was coming up with a good, clear idea for a second beat. Besser explained heightening as such:
"Heightening is not raising the stakes: the second beat isn't always better than the first. Heightening is more of "another good place to play the game." In essence it is another scenario with a potential for placing this 'comedy machine...'"

It was that last part that really resonated with me. I understood a lot of aspects of game (for the most part--I realize that I had only completed 201), but referring to game as a comedy machine: this entity that's sole purpose is to generate material organically based on something that you and your scene partner have landed on together, put it in a new and really interesting perspective. Heightening and thinking of second beat ideas in reference to game became a lot simpler once Matt Besser explained it like that.


On a side note, Besser also explained exploration as the fuel for the comedy machine...I would certainly never undervalue the exploration half of heightening and exploring

[rls446]

In general, one thing that helped me a lot with game was talking about shows. I miss that a lot about my 201 class, because I always felt that was a great way to hash out scenes and what was funny about them, and I feel like I never really got to do that in the proceeding levels.

In terms of exercises, my 201 teacher (Brandon) would have us do a first beat, and then sit down and talk with us about every possible way we could play the same game (in other words, second beats). We would literally talk until no one could think of another idea, just to prove that game could be explored in countless different ways. Even if the exact definition of "game" was different in everyone's heads, going through this exercise ensured that conceptually we were all thinking about the same thing. Brandon would also have us do an exercise where we had to summarize the game in a sentence (like, "someone who should be impersonal being overly-personal," except probably less clunky than that); and when I had you, Will, you had that helpful trick of explaining game as a juxtaposition of two ideas (like, "military + mom," or something), which also helped.

Another mind-blowing exercise with regard to exploring game and how to make game moves in a scene was one Steve Theiss mentioned, where you play out a scene until the game has just been established, then pause it. At that point, the back line comes out and names three sensible objects in the room (if it's a casino, they could say things like a slot machine or an ATM, etc), and then it's the job of the original two players to carry out the rest of the scene, and at some point make game moves using every one of these objects. That was a helpful exercise for knowing that game moves can come from anything, as long as the character's perspective is always the filter through which we behave.

I think these were helpful because they embodied the idea that the previous poster mentioned -- "the comedy machine." For me, it de-mystified game and made it something with a structure and path, and made me feel like I didn't need to just be a natural improviser to understand why scenes are funny, but rather, that I could learn it by just noticing something unusual, crystalizing it, and using it as a lens for the rest of the scene.

[ryansimmons]

Something I heard pretty recently that I thought was succinct. It was basically: if you were to take your scene and put it on YouTube, what would the title be? That is a pretty good label for whatever the game is. Just keep doing that thing.

I think the scene in our exercise was "Impatient People in the Future." So once we clarified that for ourselves it was kinda easier to keep coming back and hitting that.

I heard this from Frank Hejl but I have no idea if he came up with it and I hope I'm not butchering what he intended to convey.

[carlos]

One thing that helped me get a better handle on "game" was to react honestly to unusual behavior or statements from my scene partner. "Honestly", meaning how I would react if this happened in real life. Sometimes this makes me call out the unusual behavior and give it a label , e.g., "Honey, it's inappropriate to ..." I guess this is classic "straight man" work. I was given a couple of notes about this in 301 and 401 and it made perfect sense.

Also, in a DCM workshop with Ryan Karels, we practiced reacting with "What?!" to pretty much anything our scene partner would initiate. That seemed to create "game" out of thin air.

[Dummonger]

Will-

Two exercises:

1. Your sympathetic argument exercise which reduced game to an actionable equation (Game="crazy thing"+point of view-justification over relationship/empathy/world).

2. Russ Armstrong's "Town Hall Problems" exercise which goes like this:

1. Everyone gets in a circle, pretends to be townsmembers at a town hall conference.
2. One person gets in the middle and says "I'm tired of all these.." and someone from the circle tells a specific ("hornets", "Bob Dylans", "Green Suits").
3. The person in the middle completes the sentence with the specific and gives three reasons why they don't like that specific.
4. After each one, everyone on the outside says "Yeah!"
5. New person in, repeat.

This exercise builds group agreement on a thing to make important, plays with point of view and group acceptance of a game. Fun.

Great topic, Will.

[jdee28]

In understanding game, it might be helpful to emphasize more the source of the game. Game is behavior, an unusual pattern of behavior. Behavior has a cause; it comes from something. In scenes, game can either come from the characters themselves, from idiosyncratic personality traits, beliefs, or relationships -- here the characters are unusual; or it can come from the situation that the characters are in -- here the character are not unusual, but the situation they are in causes them to act unusually.

Classes deal with this idea when they talk about the justification of the game. But talking about it in terms of justification approaches game more from the point of view of "effect," after it happens. Talking about game in terms of its source on the other hand approaches it more from its "cause," before it happens. Going from cause to effect is much more easy and clear than going from effect to cause.

I can understand why classes would talk about game from the point of view of its effects; since it's improv, there is no "before," no planning. But I don't think there is a problem going into a scene with a general idea of where you want the game to come from, of having a premise and identifying in your head possible sources of a game, be it the characters or the situation.

Talking about game in terms of its source gives a clearer idea of the concept of game and how to practically apply it in scenes. Being aware of the basic source of the game makes justification and game moves so much easier; it's simple and clear cause to effect. How it's talked about it class, it's more effect to cause, and that can get confusing; it's not as simple and clear.

[jonhess1005]

2. Russ Armstrong's "Town Hall Problems" exercise which goes like this:

1. Everyone gets in a circle, pretends to be townsmembers at a town hall conference.
2. One person gets in the middle and says "I'm tired of all these.." and someone from the circle tells a specific ("hornets", "Bob Dylans", "Green Suits").
3. The person in the middle completes the sentence with the specific and gives three reasons why they don't like that specific.
4. After each one, everyone on the outside says "Yeah!"
5. New person in, repeat.

This exercise builds group agreement on a thing to make important, plays with point of view and group acceptance of a game. Fun.

Nick used this exercise in a coaching session with me. I just want to back up that it's a great exercise!

[WillieBHines]

This is helpful and interesting! Thank you.

[St_Murse]

I like the exercise where a scene is played and the students in the audience raise their hand when they think they see and understand the game. When most of the class has their hands raised, the game is defined as a group and then everyone "beats" the game to exhaustion.

Also, the exercise where once the pair on stage have got it, the scene is paused and they immediately have to do a series of second beats, time-dash and analogous.