Visualize – What does this mean? Form a mental image or imagine the state you would like to achieve. If you want to see your novel published or your screenplay made into a film visualize how that might appear to you and to the universe around you. This does two things – it helps you to see and know where you want to be and secondly –- it makes it very clear to you what to ask for. Think of Mikey, he knew exactly what he wanted and because of that he knew what to ask for.
My last comment about working toward “Yes.” I’m going to say something now that is not meant to offend anyone here today. But here goes.
Many of you sitting in this room don’t truly want a “yes” with respect to your writing. Oh no! That can’t be? You are all attending this writer’s conference. You have spent a lot of money to travel here and even more time sitting here listening to me.
But some of you are quite comfortable to do just that. Nothing more. You really don’t want to go the distance and see your work published or made into a film because you are afraid. Afraid of what?
Rejection?
Ridicule by your peers and universe?
And an even greater fear. You don’t believe you know how to do it. You’re afraid you can’t do it at all.
And that fear is like kryptonite to Superman. It takes all the creative mojo away and leaves you empty.
I want you to think about an Eleanor Roosevelt quote:
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by each experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, “I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.” You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
Remember, “yes” is out there. All you have to do is to be open to it and allow it to come to you.
ACTING IT OUT
Improvisational Techniques for Writers
Part 2
SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY
25th Annual Writers Conference
HOW TO ADAPT YOUR NOVEL INTO A SCREENPLAY
BOOK 6
Frank Catalano
37
USING IMPROVISATION TO DEVELOP YOUR CHARACTERS AND STORY
Acting it out
OKAY, NOW THAT we have gotten all of that out of the way. Let’s talk about improvisation. What is improvisation? I mean what is your definition of it, as you understand it?
(Audience member; “When you make something up.”)
What do you actually make up?
(Audience member: “You make up a character and maybe a situation and then you go with it and see where it takes you.”
Right. How many of you have done improvisation before?
(Several audience members raise their hands.)
Great… tell me about what you did.
(Audience member: “It was in college, I took a theatre class.”)
What kind of class was it?
(Audience member: “It was an acting class.”)
Right. Anyone else?
(Audience member: “I was in a comedy troupe back in Indiana. We did children’s theatre type shows where we would makes stories up for small children.”)
Anyone else? So the rest of you are writers and have never improvised at all before.
(Several audience members nod in agreement.)
…and you are probably terrified of getting up here today and want to run out the door.
(Audience laughter.)
Do not fear… this will be painless. We are going to look at improvisation as a writing tool. A writing tool to develop characters and story. Notice I said “tool” which means it’s something you can use that might help you accomplish what you are trying to achieve. It will not replace whatever method you are currently using when you write.
What is improvisation? The Oxford Dictionary defines it this way:
Create and perform (music, drama, or verse) spontaneously or without preparation:
the ability to improvise operatic arias in any given style.
So that’s the scary part – where it says “spontaneously – without preparation.” You’re sitting there and thinking – “I can’t make up things on the spot – especially when a whole bunch of people are looking at me.” But there’s the rub. When we improvise as actors, an audience is required. But when we improvise as writers, it’s an entirely different process. As writers, our end goal is to make choices about character and story within our work. Our goal is not to entertain an audience or be funny. There’s a lot less pressure. Also we can start out with nothing but an idea or word or an already developed concept. So then, how do we do this?
There are two ways we can accomplish this using improvisation as a writer and I will go over both ways before we leave here today.
IMPROVISE OFF OF A DEVELOPED IDEA
One way, you may consider, is when you have a specific concept in mind. You may pick up a newspaper and read an interesting story. You would literally take that concept and put it up in an improvisation with specific characters, setting and story. From that beginning, you develop a scenario and you play it out. The persons performing within the scenario would of course provide the dialogue. What’s your part? You, as the writer, through the process of selection, would choose those elements of the improvisation that would migrate to the page. Once the (more developed) concept is set on the page, you take it from there and fill in the blanks (so to speak) remain in your characters and story.
I had a specific experience with this method of writing. I did a program, one time; it was a funded grant to develop a play based upon a concept to explore spiritual love. I had an idea that was loosely based upon a poem La Vita Nuova (The New Life) written by Dante Alighieri in 1295. The poem is about a spiritual journey and the life long love he had for a beautiful Italian girl named Beatrice. When I wrote the grant, I explained the idea full, but there was no physical property that could be utilized to support it. So, the play had to be written from scratch. I want to add here, that an important part of the grant was to actually put this play (the one I didn’t have) up on the stage. The written play and the creation of the production was the physical application of what was required for the grant. But, I had no play. All I had was the title “Myths and Tangos” and that the subject of this piece would be to explore the concept of spiritual love. I was asked if I had the play… and I always said yes… but that was not entirely true. Actually I had no play at all.
(Audience laughter)
So, a production date was set for a late autumn opening and this conversation was taking place in the late summer. To say the least, time was running out. So, during a family vacation, while my wife and daughters, frolicked at the beach, I sat under the shade of a palm tree and started to create a framework for this play that did not exist. I would have auditions for it upon my return from vacation and I needed some material for the actors to read. I was able to write enough over my vacation, so that I would have materials available for the actors to read at the auditions. Once the play was cast and we went into rehearsals, I had the wonderful opportunity to develop the idea on its feet with a company of actors playing out the parts as I wrote it. Each rehearsal, I would give them a rough scene to work with and they would play it out as I made notes for further development. As the actors developed the characters more fully, I began to feel more like a painter than a writer. I would watch them play the scenes and through their performances and creation of character, I would develop then next scene of the play. I was propelled in my development scene by scene. If you would have asked, what will happen next? I would have told you to come back tomorrow and watch along with me. It was very exciting. This was truly a give and take process where I took the ideas of the actors along with my concept to propel the story and characters within the play. As the rehearsals progressed, the process became more and more formal in that more elements were “set” and not changed further. The hardest part for me as a director was that the actors kept asking me when they could memorize their lines. Often I would tell them not to memoriz
e their lines because new pages would be coming to them the next day. I literally wrote the play as it was put on rehearsing during the day and doing rewrites at night. It was an adventure to say the least and this is one way to do it. Now, one more story.
IMPROVISE WITH NO DEVELOPED IDEA – Creating the Who, What, When and Where
One of my colleagues from NYPD Blue did an amazing project over one weekend. I asked him what he was working on and when he told me, I was astonished. He told me that he had made a movie over one weekend. I asked him, “How can you do that? What you really mean is that you shot a scene?” He smiled and replied: “No, I made a whole movie. We had six cameras and started with a single idea (it could be a word, a sentence or just an idea) and then improvised off of it. We shot the film in a chronological order shooting the whole story as it unfolds.” He further explained that they wouldn’t use every shot, but would utilize most of the footage. Each scene would run continuously until the director stopped it. Once stopped, they could move to another location or change the angle of the shot. Using this method of production, they shot an entire movie. In the following weeks, they edited all of the raw footage then added music and effects. It wasn’t bad. When I viewed it, I was surprised that it actually had a story and characters – all of which evolve as the film progressed. So in this specific example, the creators started out with literally nothing. Then utilizing the actors developed a full story (who, what, when, where, why) and just went with it. The script came after the film in that case. Once the footage was shot and edited, a script was created. In my particular case, writing my play, this method of creation enabled me to develop each scene in a way that I had never done before – it engaged all of my senses as I watched and listened to the actors (as the characters) go through each scene. So we will look at this today, how do we develop a script out of an idea or how can we develop something out of nothing?
Okay, but here’s the question. How do you know what your making up is any good? How do you know if it even fits what you are trying to accomplish? How can we collectively discover what kind of improvisational approach will help you create compelling story lines, vibrant characters and realistic dialogue? So, what kind of techniques can you employ? There are certain frameworks and exercises you can do either on your own or in this public setting. So, today, we will take a look at that.
Lastly, we will do some actual exercises together where I will give you a premise, a line, a character or nothing. Together we can see what you come up with using these techniques. I know I’ve asked this… but really… how many of you have improvised before? Okay, more than a few, this will be a fun group.
(Audience laughter)
BEING FUNNY
For those experienced improvisers here today, did you ever feel the pressure that you had to be funny when you improvised?
(Several audience members raise their hands)
All right, we will let that practice go right out the door. We don’t have to be funny. All we have to do is play the scene we are in. You don’t have to enter in a contest of “who can say the funniest one liner” in each scene. All you have to do is play one moment that will lead into the next and so forth. Just react to what you are given and move the scene forward. We don’t want to play the high pressure “I can be funnier than you” contest because when that occurs the plot and characters suffer. Also, in a workshop situation, like we have today, a normal person – one that is not adept at saying funny quips every thirty seconds is going to refrain from wanting to improvise. They will feel that they are not funny and will hang back. This is a way we do not want to go. We are writers here and the goal is to develop characters and a story – not just to be funny. If your story turns out to be humorous, than that’s great. But your story and characters could also be living within a dramatic situation that is not funny. So, I am not saying you shouldn’t be funny here today. What I am saying is that the most important thing you can do here today is play the scene, listen to what is said and react to what is done. Let your story and characters evolve out of that situation rather than a series of one-line jokes. We want the stories and characters that are inside of you to come out! Some of you here today, may have a story inside of you, that you aren’t even aware of… it’s just sitting there inside you… just below the surface or in your subconscious just waiting to be created. So we definitely want to discuss how to avoid the “improvisation has to be funny” syndrome. If you want to be funny… be funny. But you don’t have to be funny.
Now, why would we want to use improvisation for the creation of a new story or let’s say an existing manuscript? What do you think?
(Audience members: “Fresh Ideas… A new way to look at your story…”)
Yes?
(Audience members: “With improvisation, you don’t have to follow certain rules.
You can do anything you want.”)
Yes, like in the last seminar that we shared together – you know the thing about the page ten… you are obsessed with getting in all in during the first ten pages and suddenly you do an improvisation and it doesn’t follow any of those rules or have any of those expectations and guess what? It’s good!
And other times you improvise and it doesn’t fit, it’s not so good and you explore another way of doing it. So, improvisation helps us explore. On a very rudimentary level it helps us listen to our character’s dialogue. Last session we talked about a slang or particular vernacular for a character or a voice that made it come to life. So even if you have something written down on a page and you improvise off of off that page, it can take that character to a place that you perhaps would not have thought of (in a good way). By listening you get an understanding of the sounds of the character… what they say, if they repeat themselves and whether or not that is effective. Chemistry is also important, improvisation helps us listen and watch our characters interact with other characters with your story. That’s something I want to try today. Two different people come together in a space. Are they a perfect fit? Are they opposites? Which works better for your story? What happens when you get two opposites and put them in a room together? That could be your idea about what you are going into? What if we had a Catholic priest and an atheist stranded on a deserted island? How would that play out? This type of exercise would help a writer discover the meaning in a scene. It might be funny, but that’s not why we would explore it. We want the meaning and so we explore if off the page. Now, I have another question… how many of you have screenplays already written or are you all novelists?
(Audience response – raising their hands)
Okay, we’ve got a couple… and what about novelists? How many of you have existing novels that you want to adapt into a screenplay?
(Larger audience response raising their hands)
Okay, then most of you are novelists. So this is for all of you… have you ever been in a situation when someone says to you, “What’s your book about?” “What’s your screenplay about?” Now you wrote it so you have to answer it right?
(Audience laughter)
You can’t say I don’t know. And you can’t say – “guy gets up in the morning and so on…” and you tell them the plot. No they don’t want to know that. They want to know what your novel or screenplay is about… they don’t want you to tell them the story. Do you see the difference? So, how did you answer that question?
(Audience response)
Did you tell them your story… or that you didn’t know what it was about or both?
(Audience member: “Both.”)
Both? Sometimes we create things… but when asked that simple question, we cannot answer it. Sometimes, we have no idea what our story is about. We just wrote it… but don’t ask what it is all about. You will have to read it to answer that question.
(Audience laughter)
In fairness to you and every other writer in this hotel today, you might be asked to write a segment of a creative idea and not really know what the whole concept is about. Television is often that
way. You only know what you are writing within your particular episode but have a much lesser understanding of the total framework of the television program. They may ask you for a particular outcome within a certain page count… and you start off with that end game in mind and sort of back your way into it. I once had to write about two minutes of dialogue for existing footage of a horse race that was playing on an overhead television in an off track-betting parlor. Now the television hung prominently over the heads of two other characters that were talking about committing a crime, but the horse race had to also be in the space because it was on camera for the whole scene. To make matters worse, specific things had to be written to connect to what was on the screen and then as the scene ended the horses starting off the line in a race… all this and a crime being committed in the foreground of the shot. All I had to concern myself with was the horse race and had to make sure there were sufficient spaces in my dialogue so that the scene below the television set could play out. In my scenario, I didn’t have to know what it meant. All I had to be concerned with was the scene below the television in the shot and the total run time. All of that had to fit together. So, I created my own universe of the horse race with names or horses, owners and jockey’s that played out underneath the scene in the betting parlor. To get to that point, I relied on improvisational techniques.
38
IMPROVISATION AS A CREATIVE JOURNEY
Acting it out
Book to Screen Page 17
