Sprezzatura #11 - A Wave Of Relief For Doing The Minimum
I just spent 10 days in England to visit friends, teach improv, and eat delicious foods. Huge successes all around. I taught five workshops in four cities/towns, 24 hours of teaching total. I got to hang out with friends old and new. And I spent a LOT of time on trains, loving every second of it. The trip was AMAZING from start to finish and I'm grateful to the people who helped me organize it all: Chris Mead, Pip Palmer, David Escobedo, and Ant Griffith. Superstars every last one of them.
You can see pics from my trip on Instagram.
Thank you, as ever, to new subscribers and if you like it, please share it. See it, Share it, Sorted.
[Music] Cory Wong breaks down the production on "Call Me Wild"
Modern music production is so fascinating. Today, every computer (or phone!) is a recording studio but watching how a professionally produced song is put together, seeing every single digital nut and bolt assembled, is riveting. Cory Wong's "Call Me Wild (ft. dodie)" was on my best-of mix from 2023. Yes, this video is nearly 40 mins long and it goes deep into music production but I drank in every second of it.
[Documentary] It's Quieter In The Night
The Voyager probes were launched in 1977 and I've been obsessed with them since I was little. I was born around then so I remember a time when we had NO GOOD IMAGES of these planets until we sent these brave little machines to let us know what's up. And they are still going strong, sending info back to us nearly 50 years later. This documentary follows the present day skeleton crew assigned to keep these incredible machines going. In fact they are still troubleshooting it to this day to keep them sending back data.
[Video] This is exactly my kind of silliness
No comment.
IMPROV TIP
This one is for you object work/mime nerds: build more than you need.
In an improvised scene where there is nothing on stage but what you add, start by creating something in the space. And then work your way over to another space on the stage (or on your Zoom screen) and add something else. Keep adding when the other person is talking. Keep adding when you're talking. Add stuff when no one is talking.
They key is to do it without being distracting. Keep it small and don't pull focus at the wrong time (i.e.: take the audience's attention when it should be on your scene partner). This works great when doing something that has lots of little steps, like making tea or running a science experiment.
Since we start with a blank canvas and there is no budget or reality to respect, the only limit is our own imaginations. Sure, you can stop when you have what you need. But what if you kept going?
EVENTS
New online class alert!
While I was in England, I gave a 2 hour class on narrative improv to some experienced players and I stumbled into a really fun way to teach narrative. I call it Unstructured Narrative in that I allowed the players to decide what would happen next, and we ran that scene. I'd ask questions to help clarify what they were picking next and why, and I'd sidecoach scenes to help navigate if they got a little lost. But what really stood out was that that they were doing narrative without a single thought about a story structure and enjoying it.
So that's what this class is: the players will follow their instincts as to what will happen next in the story and I'll be there to guide the conversation and narrative in a really organic way. No structure, no format, just playing with story while also learning what works and what doesn't work.
An Interesting Wikipedia Page: Saccadic Masking
L8r sk8rs,
Vinny