I'm afraid, if you stop playing the voice of reason, the scenes will become same-y. Doing a mix of straight-absurd, peas in a pod and weird world scenes will give you variety.
It can also easily lead to the kind of play that gives improv the bad rep, when anything at all is accepted.
This will work as an exercise or a temporary thing. But at the end of the day, you just have to learn to play voice of reason well. This is a foundational skill.
Also I have to admit I was HOPING Besser reads/hears about it and wants to debate it. I mean, I'm on the losing side by taking the "no voice of reason ever" side but it's a fun one to argue for.
I've tried coaching groups into scenes where they're not allowed to (explicitly/out loud) justify the unusual behavior, and I've found that makes scenes a lot better! Seems like it forces the voice of reason to react honestly rather than continue pitching/prompting for justifications. Terry Withers also used that same "hand thing" analogy when he subbed for a group games class I was taking and I think about it all the time!
I thought I disagreed with this, but Drew tells me that if I understood it better, then I would know that actually I agree with it. And Drew knows me like REALLY well, so I guess I agree with you. All right, bye Will.
I'm just reading this now, and see an opportunity to point out one of my improv pet peeves, so I'll be damned if I'm not gonna take that opportunity.
That first running of the bulls example is a really good example of a thing people do all the time. They mistake backstory for "justification" or "why." Like, my dad was killed by a bull isn't actually a "why." Presumably, there are lots of people in the world who's dads were killed by bulls (gotta be triple digits at least, right?) And I'd bet they don't all think the running of the bulls is "gross." It's just something that happened to them, but doesn't form a worldview. But people treat backstory and justification as interchangeable, and they very much are not. I think where the mistake happens a lot is immediately AFTER where your example cuts off... too often, the person trying to be the voice of reason just accepts that unconvincing backstory/faux justification, and then the whole scene is built on a foundation of sand, instead of having the VOR help the weird one dig into a real world view/justification.
(Also, more relevant to the topic of your good post here... for VOR to really work they need to have as much cause to justify their OWN world view as the weird one does AND they need to have a goal in the scene. That is more likely to keep things grounded and not improv-y.)
Feel this. Also find that even with the concepts it tends to be a small handful of students who can do voice of reason successfully. Some of it is I think is that VOR is actually harder than given credit, and some of it I think its because voice of reason may need more explicit practice on micro techniques and skills than is typically provided (when I was a student, I was mostly instructed to do VOR with macro-level concepts).
Despite the emphasis given to it, it's just not the thing most people would want to sink time into teaching or learning and I think a lot of curriculums reflect that. When I was doing UCB, I think the best I got from several teachers/coaches was the macro idea of "respond like a real person" (which is open to a lot of interpretation and pretty easy to take and tank the scene with)
Also might be worthwhile breaking VOR into Audience-Substitute responses (the authentic person category of response) and Game-Supporting responses.
Some commonality I've noticed from people who can do successful VOR (improv & sketch), is that a standard audience-substitute response that usually comes down to performance and delivery (which also isn't always strong with people starting out), and for a more supporting-the-game response that then tends to comes down to game-skills and specifics.
I wonder if the bigger issues that make those scenes challenging are a) planning for a future event b) referencing a third party not in the scene and c) hitting the unusual thing right in the premise. Obviously premise initiations are good sometimes, but VOR pops harder when we see their emotional shift realizing they’re with an unhinged character.
IMO voice of reason is trickier when we’re not living in the now. Just be at court with your landlord rather than hypothetically sue them.
What you're suggested are good notes. But they are cerebral notes that ask players to remove themselves from the scene and artificially adjust their instincts. By the way, that's what ALL improv notes ask people to do -- you're saying to "try doing it differently." What I was amazed at was asking people to Weird World scenes evoked a ton of really grounded improv --- WITHOUT ME HAVING TO GIVE ANY CEREBRAL NOTES.
Appreciate the reply. I’ve found it incredibly difficult to bring game teaching into the metro Detroit scene which is super relationship driven. I’ve almost hit a point of only teaching game by reinforcing it when it happens and works well to cement what happened. I’ll give this exercise a shot sometime soon! Thank you!
Teaching game of the scene is easiest (IMO) when teaching good walk-ons and tag-outs. "Heighten the existing game" doesn't really bump with what people call "relationship improv." Maybe. Let me know what you've found, I'm interested!
Bold move, Will. Don't let Besser hear about it.
I'm afraid, if you stop playing the voice of reason, the scenes will become same-y. Doing a mix of straight-absurd, peas in a pod and weird world scenes will give you variety.
It can also easily lead to the kind of play that gives improv the bad rep, when anything at all is accepted.
This will work as an exercise or a temporary thing. But at the end of the day, you just have to learn to play voice of reason well. This is a foundational skill.
Also I have to admit I was HOPING Besser reads/hears about it and wants to debate it. I mean, I'm on the losing side by taking the "no voice of reason ever" side but it's a fun one to argue for.
ban it and let's see the consequences :)
I've tried coaching groups into scenes where they're not allowed to (explicitly/out loud) justify the unusual behavior, and I've found that makes scenes a lot better! Seems like it forces the voice of reason to react honestly rather than continue pitching/prompting for justifications. Terry Withers also used that same "hand thing" analogy when he subbed for a group games class I was taking and I think about it all the time!
The "hand thing" is gold for teachers. Berg is good!
I thought I disagreed with this, but Drew tells me that if I understood it better, then I would know that actually I agree with it. And Drew knows me like REALLY well, so I guess I agree with you. All right, bye Will.
I'm just reading this now, and see an opportunity to point out one of my improv pet peeves, so I'll be damned if I'm not gonna take that opportunity.
That first running of the bulls example is a really good example of a thing people do all the time. They mistake backstory for "justification" or "why." Like, my dad was killed by a bull isn't actually a "why." Presumably, there are lots of people in the world who's dads were killed by bulls (gotta be triple digits at least, right?) And I'd bet they don't all think the running of the bulls is "gross." It's just something that happened to them, but doesn't form a worldview. But people treat backstory and justification as interchangeable, and they very much are not. I think where the mistake happens a lot is immediately AFTER where your example cuts off... too often, the person trying to be the voice of reason just accepts that unconvincing backstory/faux justification, and then the whole scene is built on a foundation of sand, instead of having the VOR help the weird one dig into a real world view/justification.
(Also, more relevant to the topic of your good post here... for VOR to really work they need to have as much cause to justify their OWN world view as the weird one does AND they need to have a goal in the scene. That is more likely to keep things grounded and not improv-y.)
Feel this. Also find that even with the concepts it tends to be a small handful of students who can do voice of reason successfully. Some of it is I think is that VOR is actually harder than given credit, and some of it I think its because voice of reason may need more explicit practice on micro techniques and skills than is typically provided (when I was a student, I was mostly instructed to do VOR with macro-level concepts).
Despite the emphasis given to it, it's just not the thing most people would want to sink time into teaching or learning and I think a lot of curriculums reflect that. When I was doing UCB, I think the best I got from several teachers/coaches was the macro idea of "respond like a real person" (which is open to a lot of interpretation and pretty easy to take and tank the scene with)
Also might be worthwhile breaking VOR into Audience-Substitute responses (the authentic person category of response) and Game-Supporting responses.
Some commonality I've noticed from people who can do successful VOR (improv & sketch), is that a standard audience-substitute response that usually comes down to performance and delivery (which also isn't always strong with people starting out), and for a more supporting-the-game response that then tends to comes down to game-skills and specifics.
Show me the voice of reason in this sketch (admittedly not improv but I suspect it started that way): https://artfina.in/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Photo-to-Sketch-pencil-sketch-order-online-india-2.jpeg
I wonder if the bigger issues that make those scenes challenging are a) planning for a future event b) referencing a third party not in the scene and c) hitting the unusual thing right in the premise. Obviously premise initiations are good sometimes, but VOR pops harder when we see their emotional shift realizing they’re with an unhinged character.
IMO voice of reason is trickier when we’re not living in the now. Just be at court with your landlord rather than hypothetically sue them.
What you're suggested are good notes. But they are cerebral notes that ask players to remove themselves from the scene and artificially adjust their instincts. By the way, that's what ALL improv notes ask people to do -- you're saying to "try doing it differently." What I was amazed at was asking people to Weird World scenes evoked a ton of really grounded improv --- WITHOUT ME HAVING TO GIVE ANY CEREBRAL NOTES.
Appreciate the reply. I’ve found it incredibly difficult to bring game teaching into the metro Detroit scene which is super relationship driven. I’ve almost hit a point of only teaching game by reinforcing it when it happens and works well to cement what happened. I’ll give this exercise a shot sometime soon! Thank you!
Teaching game of the scene is easiest (IMO) when teaching good walk-ons and tag-outs. "Heighten the existing game" doesn't really bump with what people call "relationship improv." Maybe. Let me know what you've found, I'm interested!
Show me the voice of reason in this sketch (admittedly not improv but I suspect it started that way): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt99u_zKpi8
Hahah -- why is this relevant to what we're talking about here?