Chad Moore

In Monday’s Improv 201 class, I had what is likely my best improv performance to date.

The scene setup was a “silent scene”. Jen, our teacher gave us instructions and provided the location. Which was a golf pro-shop. With a silent scene, each performer focuses on “space work” (pantomiming and interacting with physical objects within a space).

Each performer would enter, one at a time, interact with an object they create, and leave the space. Each successive performer would interact with an established object, and “build” one of their own. Repeat until all performers have a go.

It turns out that I entered last, and had to build off a robbery executed by Sarah, a Stranger than Fiction cast member who’s sitting in on our class. She’s absolutely fearless. Then Matt, my former partner from the 101 course, came in and did the detective work. He nailed taking the fingerprints and putting up the police tape over one of the doorways.

I was last in the rotation, just by chance. I chose the role of Shop Owner. I figured that the audience hadn’t seen the results of the previous actors actions. Since most of the objects weren’t the space anymore (Sara stole them). I couldn’t really interact with them. But I knew where everything was, as the shop owner.

So I entered frantically through one of the doors that Matt didn’t put police tape on (again, that was a very nice touch by him) and ran around checking to see if anything was left.

I remembered the cash register and found it empty, as well. I shrank in dejection, walked out and slammed the door.

This was my best performance in improv yet. I think I like this acting thing.

I’m still seeing the parallels to animation and improv. In both mediums one has to exaggerate so that the audience can read the action clearly. Evan, one of my 201 classmates gave some really great examples of this in our class discussions, and it shows in his performances. He always seems to be clearly in character and so effortless.

It’s one of those funny things, on stage you need to push too far, but in the audience it seems totally natural.

• I was on vacation last week and spent really nice time with my immediate family and some friends.
• In reflection of where I was in my life (common to vacation down time) was reminded of the The fisherman and the businessman and The five regrets of the dying.
• Our family put together a 1000 piece puzzle from White Mountain Puzzles while on the break. That was a great way to exercise our minds, spend some time together and be away from the screens.
• I’ve got to find the time and space to commit to the Mastermind call, as I can’t seem to make it stick. It’s important to me and a meeting I shouldn’t move.
• In NHL news, the Islanders beat Toronto handedly this week. It’s the first time their former superstar who left for Toronto in free agency came to play at the Isles home arena. It was a crazy atmosphere. There’s so much backstory about this, the arena the team plays in (half the time). I’m just glad the Isles got the W. Points to make the playoffs are all that’s important.

• I signed up for the Runners Alley Run Club. It’s a 8 week program that meets twice a week. The goal is to prep for a 5k on memorial day weekend.
• Improv class was cancelled due to the weather last Monday. I can’t make the class tomorrow, so I’m bummed to be missing out for a stretch. The next open jam is auction prep for the March 8th auditions. I’ve signed up to audition and I don’t think I am near enough to make it. But I figured I’d try this year to see how the process works. By the next audition, I should be better prepared.
• Super excited for the Rhonecast. Patrick Rhone is someone who’s voice and words I’ve followed for a long time online. He’s so very insightful.
• I started the audiobook of Theft of Swords: Riyria Revelations, Volume 1. I need to remember to look into switching from audible to Libro.fm. That service has DRM free content and shares profits with a local bookstore of your choosing.
• I’ve been thinking about time. How I spend it. It’s the only thing we have no control of, and cannot generate ourselves. Therefore, on what should I apply my limited focus and attention? I’m having a hard time expressing myself, so I’ll keep noodling on this.
• I’m on vacation this coming week and will be focused on spending time with the family, reading a couple books, putting the finishing touches on my MacOS App design (it’s almost done).

• Making good some good choices after last weeks rumpus. Looking forward to getting back into the running habit. I’m signing up for the Casco Brewery 5k.
• Improv 201 started this week and its great to jump into the deeper aspects of performance.
• The mastermind group with Bob is a great success for both of us. I’m appreciating the regular cadence and support from Bob.
• I’m looking to do more experience design work, so this week I thought up of a MacOS app that will help me solve my own problems. I’ve been designing it this past week. I have a friend who may be able to commit to the development. I’ll know more on that this coming week. The app needs a visual design pass, and that I am ill equipped for. So I may solicit some others to help with that.

It’s been a crazy week. I’m still getting back into the swing of things. This week has taught me to further focus on the things that make me happy and engaged. And to put all my eggs in my family and health baskets.

It’s odd that I’ve had a blog for so long and never really talked about myself that much. Maybe that will change now. I had a medical emergency that is now resolved, but was pretty scary for a while there. Deep vein thrombosis is when a blood clot makes it’s way into a major artery. Those are the highways to the heart and lungs, so it’s pretty dangerous.

I spent the better part of a week laying flat and worrying. What would my family do without me? Those kinds of things. Pretty terrible stuff to have on the top and back of the mind.

I’m out of the woods and getting back to normal. I’m taking this as a wake up call to get me health in order.

It feels good to write this. I guess the best part of all this was I was able to read about a couple topics I’m interested in. And I came up with a great joke.

If I were a Cardiologist who played trombone in a jazz band, I’d insist that the band name was Deep Vein Trombonesis

Maybe I shouldn’t work on my stand-up set while dealing with medical issues. Lol.

The focus of 101 was an overall introduction and the laying of the groundwork of the three rules of Improv via game play.

1. “Yes and” - no matter what your partner(s) say, you have to take it as truth (yes) and also build upon it (and).
2. “Make your partner look good” - this really is about giving them something to work with. Don’t put them in a theoretical corner.
3. “Don’t ask questions” - asking your partner a question puts a limit on what they can say, in the moment. It isn’t giving them much to work with and can devolve into yes and no. I suppose this is a subset of #2. But I need to give this its own line item to help clarify it in my head. I ask too many questions in scene.

The games of short form Improv have a structure, focus on being in the moment of the scene, and have humor.

The focus of 201 is on the performance. We learned a handy device, the CROWE:

• Character (naming people, accents, other idiosyncrasies help define the characters)
• Relationship (Who/what are these Characters to each other)
• Objective (What does each Character want?)
• Where (What’s the setting (Time, and/or place))
• Emotion (How are the Characters feeling?)

Remembering to do all this in the moment of the scene is difficult and challenging. It’s fun, but hard work.

It’s just day one, but I can relate the Relationship and Objective, and Emotion aspects of the CROWE to my previous work as an animator. Using the character’s poses, motion, position on screen, and other techniques can inform the audience of each characters status in relation to each other. Same is true for Improv, as far as I can tell.

Transferring status in scene is where the narrative really takes shape, both in Animation and Improv. I’m looking forward to getting better at that.

A suspicion I have about going deeper into the performance of scenes is something I’ve heard Improv actors call “finding the game” in a scene. This is, as far as I can tell, a callback to something that happened earlier in the scene. A hand gesture, a spoken line, an action, etc. Usually funniest if able to be done seamlessly and three times. I think the short games of 101 and Short form in general will add to this.

I’m just learning the 201 performance aspects, but can make the connection to the callbacks in standup and sketch comedy I’ve seen so often. Maybe all that is what 301 is all about. I’ll let you know when I get there.

From somewhere on Micro.blog I came across a link to Alice Bartlett’s Weeknotes. Looks like it’s a weekly post of what she was thinking and experiencing over the past week. Looks like it’s a thing a bunch of people are doing on their own blogs too, and it looks like it fits in with whatever the hell it is I am doing here.

So, this is my first Weeknote. A bunch of stuff that happened last week:

• I went to Boston for work on Thursday, and got to spend all day doing great work with a couple people at Mad*Pow that I wished I worked more often with.
• I’m helping some friends kick off a new project, and they’re getting some good traction. I’ve been doing some web work, and providing some advice. It’s been fun. Once they’re ready to talk I’ll put up a link.
• At Rigging Dojo I’m helping to build a system for people looking to hire Technical Artists. We get a lot of people asking us for to help them find freelancers, contractors and full time employees. We love playing matchmaker, but want to make the process a little more automated. More on that next week.
• I’m watching Killing Eve, and I think it’s pretty great. The performances are fantastic.
• I finished my (late) annual listen to the Gentleman Bastard Sequence on AudioBook. That’s my favorite fantasy series, hands-down, and the narrator is excellent. Can’t wait for book four, hopefully this year.
• I hate the name Mastermind group, but I like the concept. I just started one this week with a very good friend. We’re just starting out and want to use the time to focus on our goals and hold each other accountable to them. He and I can talk for hours, as we’ve known each other since kindergarten, so we’ll need to use an agenda to keep us on-point and not talking about hockey or whatever.
• I was pretty consistent with my Bullet Journaling efforts. I’m happy about this, and the weekly recap here is pulled from a lot of the notes in the notebook.
• I didn’t do a lot of the work I wanted to do from the Napkin Academy, but made a little progress this week. The goals there are to “solve problems with pictures”. This kind of sketching really appeals to my Experience Design and Agile Scrum Master/Coach interests. My goal is to be 50% through the lessons by the next week.
• I’m tinkering with this story I am writing, and was having issues trying to do too much with the protagonist and antagonist. I couldn’t figure out who’s story it was. Both have arcs, and there’s a central physical object that drives the story. Last night I thought of a solution. It’s neither of their stories, really. It’s the story of that physical object. It has a level of awareness and certainly has a goal. I’m rethinking it with that idea. I need to have my first draft next week for the Mastermind group I noted above.
• I deleted my Facebook account a while ago, and am considering starting a newsletter to post the kind of things people usually post there. Like family stuff, which I don’t really post too much of on this site. I believe Jean MacDonald calls hers a “friendsletter”. I like that.
  
• I signed up for Improv 201, and can’t wait to get to practicing and learning more.
• I just found this app called Slowly that looks like a way to find and write to pen pals. Interesting.