I'd Like to Have An Argument

Conflict - the essence of drama and the scourge of improv comedy.

Take a random sample of 10 average improv scenes and 7 of them will consist of sort of argument. One character will be yelling at another to stop doing something. Two characters will be fighting over what they should be doing. A whole group of people shouting about how they don't like what they're doing or who they're doing it with. Sometimes these scenes really work. Sometimes they're almost unwatchable.

What makes the success rate of argument scenes so inconsistent? Can they be avoided or are they inevitable? If we happen to find ourselves arguing in a scene, what are some ways we can increase our chances of success?

First let's pinpoint when argument happens in a scene. An argument occurs when one character takes issue with the behavior of another character, confronts them about it, and the second character chooses to defend that behavior. An argument is never forced by only one character. It's a deliberate shared choice to engage on an issue. It takes two to tango, so to speak.

There are essentially three types of argument scenes based on where the problem behavior occurs in time: Past, Present, & Future. 

PAST PROBLEM: One character blames another for causing their current (negative) circumstances.
Ex: "Ugh, we're lost! I can't believe you said we didn't need a map!"

PRESENT PROBLEM: One character doesn't like what the other is currently doing.
Ex: "Stop driving so fast! I'm going to throw up!"

FUTURE PROBLEM: One character wants to do something the other character doesn't want them to do OR one character wants the other to do something that character doesn't want to do.
Ex: "Jump the fence of the enclosure so I can take a picture of you with the lion."

Note that all of these examples are not yet arguments. They've fulfilled the first two steps so they're well on their way, but they require a defensive response in order to really get going. 

That defensive response, the desire to push back against an accusation or command, is quite natural, especially when we aren't entirely comfortable with our own abilities or the space we're in or who we're improvising with. When we're uncomfortable we tend to resort to some of our baseline instincts, mainly the Fight or Flight response. When Flight is winning we find ourselves avoiding going out onstage or playing only supporting roles or finding an excuse to leave a scene. When Fight is winning we often try to control the behavior of our scene partner or get defensive and stubborn about our own. Recognize when we're uncomfortable and we'll be more aware of these responses. Become aware of how we're responding and we might be able to prevent ourselves from going down a panic-driven path we'd prefer to not go down.

If our preferred path is avoiding an argument completely, they are relatively simple to evade. As mentioned above, an argument requires a confrontation followed by a defensive response. We can avoid the first step by choosing to not have a problem with the behavior of our scene partner, or if we do have a problem, we can choose to not confront them about it. We can either keep it to ourselves or express our displeasure in other more indirect ways. If we are the ones being confronted, we can avoid arguing by conceding that our behavior was indeed problematic. Nothing stops a fight faster than "you're right". 

However, knowing that it's perfectly possible to have a successfully entertaining argument in a scene, we might not always want to avoid them. How, then, do we argue effectively?

Let's find out by taking a deeper look at each type of argument scene. 

PAST PROBLEM

One character blames another for causing their current (negative) circumstances.
Ex: "Ugh, we're lost! I can't believe you said we didn't need a map!"

The accuser is this example is rightfully upset at being lost, but simply confronting their scene partner for causing it doesn't make it an argument. It only becomes one when the second character gets defensive. In a Past Problem scene this usually means they attempt to either deflect blame ("Well I didn't know there was going to be an accident that closed the highway!") or reflect it ("Well you're the one who wanted to see what downtown looked like."). This is the sort of move that leads to what Alex Berg calls a "Wizard Battle" - an improviser duel where each line adds additional information that twists the circumstances that functions to paint each character in a more sympathetic light.

We do it because we have strong natural tendencies to defend ourselves from perceived attacks. It's the Fight in Fight or Flight. We don't like the feeling of blame, so we deflect or reflect it. In improv, because the past is unknown, we can essentially conjure it away. It's an easy trap to fall into. What usually happens next is that the accuser (who would have known about the accident or wanting to see downtown if this were real life, but just got surprised by this new information) feels the need to double down on their accusation. They know their character would be aware of those things before making the accusation, so they can't take it back. The rest of the scene ends up being about each character maneuvering their way around the other so they can be right.

The reason it's such a big trap is that the improvisers in a Wizard Battle feel like the scene is moving when it's not. Because they're adding new information, it feels like there's momentum, but generally all the information being added is historical ("This is just like that time you...", "Well it's not as bad as when you...", "If we hadn't stopped to get you a snack...", etc). The scene isn't actually going anywhere because all the attention is on all the things that led up to how the characters got to this moment. They're living in the past. The audience doesn't care how we got lost; they care how our characters behave now that we are. Do we panic and start crashing into things? Do we try to make the most of it and use it as an excuse to try some local cuisine? What happens if one of the characters panics and the other enjoys it? How do those viewpoints continually clash as we do more "being lost" things?

A commonly taught trick to escape the Past Problem is "you always", which is well-meaning but has varying levels of effectiveness. It's meant to gift a Point Of View onto our scene partner so that they know what to do for the rest of the scene, but it also relies on our ability to cleanly turn a single example of behavior into a broader personality trait. Something like "You always think we don't need the map when we go on road trips" attempts the trick but falls short because all it tells us is that this exact scenario has happened before. It's too specific to be of any help. It's not a POV because it requires a specific set of circumstances (road trip) and a one-time decision (do we need the map?). On the other hand, something like "You're always underprepared" or "You always assume nothing will go wrong" is perfect because it can be applied to any set of circumstances and infinite decisions. It gives us something to play with. So if our scene partner hits us with "you're always underprepared" when we find ourselves lost, it gives us so much more to do. Now if our car gets a flat tire while we're driving around being lost we can suddenly remember we didn't bring the spare because we didn't think we'd need it.

"You always" is a decent way of escape once you're in it, but the best way to avoid a Past Problem starts when we set aside our egos and embrace our mistakes. 

It's okay to have been wrong.

When we understand this and stop needing to be right all the time, we can move on and focus on the present moment. The circumstances that got us to where we are do not matter. The only thing that matters is what we do now.

So what can we do if we find ourselves focusing on a Past Problem in a scene?

• If we are the character doing the blaming...
  • forgive and forget. Avoid harping on the character that messed up.
  • try to work together to fix it.
• If we are the character being blamed...
  • embrace the mistake. Admit that we messed up.
  • repeat the mistake. 
  • make things worse.

PRESENT PROBLEM

One character doesn't like what the other is currently doing.
Ex: "Stop driving so fast! I'm going to throw up!"

A general improv rule is that the word "stop" means "keep doing that". "Stop" usually comes from the character playing the Voice of Reason (aka Straight Man), who serves to establish the norms of behavior in the world that's currently being explored. Often, but not always, those norms mirror those of our real lives, which is why the Voice of Reason is considered to be a representative of the audience. It's a crucial role in comedy, and one that has to be handled with a significant amount of finesse.

If the scene is an airplane, the Unusual Character controls the stick. Their choices dictate which direction the scene will go. The Voice of Reason controls the throttle. The amount they tolerate the behavior of the Unusual Character determines how fast or slow the scene moves. Let the Unusual Character do whatever they want and the scene either burns through fuel too quickly or spins out of control. Stop the Unusual Character completely and the scene stalls and crashes. A good Voice of Reason finds a middle ground where they alternate allowing and reigning in the behavior of the Unusual Character to match the pace of the show and the energy of the room.

In the driving too fast example, the Voice of Reason fulfills the important task of creating stakes. It's not enough to simply name the Unusual Character's driving speed as abnormal and therefore unacceptable, there have to be specific consequences for that abnormal behavior. This creates a setup/payoff pattern that can be explored and heightened. However, it's immensely important that the improviser playing the Voice of Reason recognizes that they have to follow through on the stakes they set up. They might start the scene by saying "stop" and making a couple attempts to get the driver to slow down, but they eventually have to find a way to lose. They eventually have to vomit.

Perhaps the most important requirement for playing an effective Voice of Reason is the ability to separate the needs of our character from the needs of the scene. As improvisers, our loyalties lie with the scene as a whole. A lot of times, what the scene needs is for bad stuff to happen to our character. This can be difficult to do. If we are fully committing to our character emotionally, as we should, we will often actually be feeling the things they feel. If our character really doesn't want to vomit in the car, we might let that cloud our idea of what should happen in the scene. But if the scene is to avoid stalling and crashing, it needs to happen.

We are not our character.

They aren't real. Their existence is temporary. Who cares what happens to them? Put them through something. See how they respond.

So what can we do if we find ourselves focusing on a Present Problem in a scene?

• If we are the character not liking the action...
  • establish stakes/consequences.
  • allow the action to proceed.
  • explore the consequences.
  • repeat.
• If we are the character whose actions are disliked...
  • ignore "stop" or only stop temporarily.
  • find ways to either heighten the action or repeat it from a new angle.

FUTURE PROBLEM

One character wants to do something the other character doesn't want them to do OR one character wants the other to do something that character doesn't want to do.
Ex: "Jump the fence of the enclosure so I can take a picture of you with the lion."

The Future Problem shares a lot of similarities with the Past Problem and Present Problem, because a Future Problem is simply a Past Problem or Present Problem waiting to happen. The big trap of the Future Problem is when we get so bogged down in debating the various hypothetical consequences of a scenario that does not yet exist that we never actually get to see the scenario play out. The goal then, much like the Present Problem, is to predict the consequences of the future action, then let the action happen to see if we were right or wrong. The character being urged to enter the lion enclosure might rightly argue that they don't want to do it because they'll get attacked by the lion. But once they've set up those potential consequences, we need to see how accurate that prediction is. 

Again, we are not our character. Don't let our desire for self-preservation overpower the needs of the scene.

Action should always win.

That's not to say there can be no debate beforehand, but the debate shouldn't be the entire scene. We learn a lot about our characters when they expand upon their opinions. Why does the photographer need the photo of their companion next to the lion? Are they trying to become a nature photographer and this is the best they can do? Are they trying to set up an incident so they can sue the zoo? Both of these rationales tell us a ton about how they think and what their values are.

The same goes for the character being photographed. Do they not want to get in because they're allergic to cats? Are they concerned about getting attacked because they're out of sick days? We learn a lot about who they are based on what they bring up in their protest. But the protest should only last as long as it takes to establish a Point of View. Eventually, the scene will demand action. Eventually they should be willing to suck up the allergy symptoms to help their friend's career. Eventually they should absorb the attack to make enough money from the lawsuit to quit their job with poor benefits. 

This is not intuitive, especially if we're not entirely comfortable. "React honestly" is a popular improv note that prevents a lot of people from letting action win in scenarios like this. Coming up we hear "What would you do in this situation? Do that." so much we think we think that's how we should be thinking at all times. But often the most effective thing we can do is something that we would never in a million years do if we found ourselves in that situation in real life. "React honestly" in this case means being just as afraid of the lion as we really would be, but choosing to hop the fence anyway.

So what can we do if we find ourselves focusing on a Future Problem in a scene?

• If we are the character preventing the action...
  • establish stakes/consequences.
  • allow the action to proceed.
  • explore the consequences.
  • repeat.
• If we are the character creating the action...
  • justify the action.
  • find ways to either heighten the action or repeat it from a new angle.

It's okay to have been wrong. We are not our character. Action should always win. An argument will be much more effective if it is focused on what is currently happening or what is imminent. It will be much more entertaining if we are willing to put our characters through things we wouldn't put ourselves through normally. If we can manage to keep our arguments focused on the present and constantly moving forward, they'll be a lot more successful and a lot more fun.

Better, Faster

"By improvising you reshape the brain, and when you reshape the brain your consciousness changes, and it changes the way you see the world. And so the way you see the world and the way you interact with everything changes because of the act of doing improvisation. That's why people are addicted to it." - Anthony Atamanuik 

Improv is addicting. People fall in love. Hard. For life.

It's addicting for the same reason video games and sports are addicting - the practice of honing the skill over time mirrors the human experience without any of the real serious consequences. Just as in life, progress is inconsistent and variable and frustrating. There are highs and lows of triumph and disappointment. Some concepts are easy to grasp. Others seem completely incomprehensible. There are days where we coast through with ease and then the next will seem impossible to get through. At times it feels pointless. At others it feels like the only thing that matters. But unlike life we can take risks more easily in improv and video games and sports because any potential failure is impermanent. There can always be another scene, another game, another season. We can always try again.

It's addicting because the risks we take are rewarded. It constantly finds ways to surprise us when we thought we had seen it all. It's impossible to perfect, which means we can always find ways to get better. It challenges us and forces us to grow. It teaches us to be decisive, to be active, to listen, to collaborate. It teaches us to be honest, to be fearless, to commit to our choices without judging them or the choices of others. It teaches us empathy. It teaches us trust. These onstage lessons start to seep into our offstage lives and we come to find they work just as well there. "It changes the way you see the world."

Most importantly, it's addicting because it forces us to be fully present. It places us in intensely focused moments where we feel completely connected to ourselves and our scene partners and the audience, and we are so in sync with the energy of the space that we know whatever we do is the right thing to do and whatever happens was supposed to happen. It makes us understand that we're all here together, that none of us have any idea where we're going, that we're fine with that, and we're enjoying the hell out of the ride. 

With addiction comes an insatiable hunger for more, and with improv that means wanting to get better as fast as possible. So how do we feed that hunger? How do we get better, faster?

Here's the short answer:

The #1 way to get better is massive amounts of stage time.

Not classes. Not workshops. Not practice groups. The best way to get better is by getting up on stage in front of an audience of 1 to 100 people and improvising without the safety net of a coach or teacher or director to nudge us in the right direction if we panic. Classes, workshops, and practice groups are great ways to train skills and raise our baseline of competence, but nothing accelerates ability more than putting ourselves in front people who expect to be entertained and trying to entertain them.

Do it a lot. Do a lot of indie shows. Do a lot of jams. Do it before you think you're ready. Do it when you're afraid to do it, especially when you're afraid to do it. Put yourself in a position to fail and keep failing until failure stops being a bad thing. The goal is to get to a point where a bad set doesn't touch your confidence, it just makes you frustrated that you didn't quite execute. So instead of "I had a bad show and I suck at this." it's "I had a bad show and I can't believe I have to wait two weeks to try again." And the only way to get to that point is to fail so much you become numb to it.

Do it over and over and over. 

And don't just do it with a team or a form you're comfortable with. Try a duo, or a musical, or a monoscene, or a solo character. Find ways to put yourself in uncomfortable positions and then follow through. You don't have to do it forever, you don't even have to like it, but getting in the habit of taking risks and challenging yourself will pay off in courage and confidence. Along the way you'll learn some new skills and tricks and develop your own ideas of what works and what doesn't. You'll develop your own personal style and voice. You'll get better, faster.

Now for the long answer. Although first let's clarify the question.

How do we get better, faster?

Well what does it mean to be better? In video games and sports, quality is quantified. We get more wins or more points or a faster time or higher stats. But there aren't any improv stats*. So what is it we're actually looking to improve upon? What is the actual goal we're shooting for? Is to be funnier? Think faster? A better listener? More supportive? A more convincing actor?

Yes. All the above and so much more. There are a million little improv skills that need to be nurtured and exercised that it seems impossible to keep track of them all. And it is. Because the ultimate goal isn't to keep track of all the skills we have and pull them out under the appropriate circumstances.

The ultimate goal is to be able to access a state of mind where we act honestly without thinking.

It's saying something funny not because we were trying to be but because it was what we wanted to say. It's mirroring our scene partner not because it was a good improv move, but because it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. It's reacting with a strong emotion not because we were intentionally adding emotional depth to the scene, but because we actually felt strongly about something and couldn't help but express it.

Here's Anthony Atamanuik again, this time in audio form:

"Spacial reference, mental reference, emotional reference - all those things happening at the same time." This is the state of mind we're shooting for. It's being able to access multiple levels of awareness simultaneously and immediately. To get to a point in the practice of improvisation where we completely stop thinking. To get to a point where we act entirely on impulse.

This state of mind is not unique to improv, but it's very hard to access intentionally and consistently. Here's Bruce Lee talking about the same thing in martial arts:

The method is different but the goal is the same - "honestly expressing yourself". So how do we get there, or at least headed in that direction?

If honest expression is the end goal, it makes sense that the way to get there is by practicing being honest with ourselves; more importantly, practicing being honest with ourselves while being completely free of judgement.

This is not something we are ever taught to do. From the day we are born we are bombarded with societal and cultural ideas about who we are, the type of person we should be, how we should behave, and how we should think about ourselves. As a result we develop masks we wear to fulfill the expectations of various societal roles. We conform to traditional behavior because unorthodoxy is often shunned or punished. These expectations become so ingrained in us that we force them upon ourselves and stop being honest about who we really are. We do things not because we want to do them but because we feel like we should. We judge ourselves for our perceived faults and hide from them, overcompensating with fabricated personas in the hopes that no one will notice who we really are. We hide from ourselves because we fear being judged. We judge ourselves so others won't.

But improv has an amazing ability to force us to confront the things we judge about ourselves whether we want to or not. Whatever we've been hiding from, even if we aren't consciously aware of it, it will eventually find and bring to the surface for us to face. If we want to get better, we will have to acknowledge it, embrace it, and work through it. And it will do this over and over again with everything we've been hiding from until we reach the ultimate goal.

For me, as it is for a lot of people, the first thing I had to face was my lack of confidence. This was something I was well aware of going in. I could fake confidence pretty well, but it was a lie, and I knew it. On the inside I was a terrified ball of anxiety, constantly worried about doing or saying the wrong thing. I would freeze up on stage because I was so worried about making a wrong move. I wouldn't go out in scenes because I was afraid to screw up. But I knew if I wanted to be good I'd have to overcome those fears. So I kept forcing myself to do everything I was scared to do. I would leave scenes feeling embarrassed for making what I felt were stupid choices, but I kept going out and making them, and eventually I stopped judging them. And the odd thing was that when I stopped thinking they were bad choices, they stopped being bad choices. The same weird choices that didn't work before were suddenly working. Confidence was everything, and improv had forced me to find it. But in order to do that I had to first stop hating myself for not having it.

That took 2 years.

Then there was listening. This was the first time I was forced to face a weakness I didn't already know about. It turns out my newfound confidence had turned me into a blabbermouth steamrolling monster. I would go into every scene force-feeding my ideas instead of building them with other people. I would try to "win" the scene. I would try to make a joke where it was more important to respond earnestly. The first few times I got the note "you aren't listening" it didn't stick. "Work on your confidence" - that had made sense to me. I knew that was a weakness. But listening? I thought I listened great. But the longer I ignored the note the slower my progress got. Eventually I couldn't ignore it anymore. I had to admit I was a bad listener, even if I didn't quite know what that meant. So I decided to work on it without knowing exactly what I was doing. I came to find that for me listening meant a lot more eye contact, reading body language, and looking for the meaning behind the words. It meant understanding and responding to the deeper message my scene partner was trying to send instead of responding only to what they were saying. For me, listening meant being able to recognize when my ideas were hurting more than they were helping, and being able to drop them when my scene partner needed other things from me. 

That took another year.

What I'm currently confronting is emotion, and it hasn't been easy. I've always had a hard time accessing, understanding, and sharing my emotions, and I am not at all unique in this sense. A lot of it is societal. Men are trained through entertainment and socialization from a young age to hide their emotions - that appearing tough and unflappable is more important than how you feel. I'm sure there are a ton of little moments that added up to get me there, but the big one I remember was when in 7th grade when I cried in math class when I realized I had done the wrong homework assignment. My math teacher pulled me out of my next class to talk to me about it privately, and while I don't remember specifically what he said, I do remember the message - expressing my emotions makes other people uncomfortable. I took the note. At first if I felt anything welling up inside I would isolate myself so others couldn't see. Later I learned that if I started to feel something I could push it back down and ignore it. Eventually I rarely felt anything at all. I had made myself an expert in suppression. I didn't completely stop having emotional moments, but they were unusual, deeply private, and I was enormously embarrassed by them. 

"Emote" was the improv note I fought the hardest for the longest amount of time. I had been able to deflect emotional moments with jokes for years, didn't it make sense to keep doing it if I was making comedy? But coaches kept saying it was my biggest weakness. They kept trying to get me to confront it and I kept refusing or faking it. I'm not sure what the tipping point was, maybe I just had some sense of slowing progress and realized I couldn't hide from it anymore. If I wanted to get better, I needed to confront it and work through it whether I wanted to or not.

If you've seen me perform at all in the last year, I've been actively using that time to slowly undo my avoidance tendencies so I can emote more honestly on stage. Some attempts are more successful than others. In fact most attempts are unsuccessful because it still, mostly, feels inauthentic. I still intellectualize too much. I still often think "is it useful to feel this way?" before expressing myself. But since deciding to get better at it I've been doing this less and less, opting instead to embrace whatever pops up and follow it. I'm still not a very emotional player, but I'm working my way toward it. As a result my characters have felt much more like real people and less like cartoons. I've started following the emotional path in scenes instead of trying to think of the funniest thing to do or say. It's still a struggle. Progress ebbs and flows. But I recognize that I'm attempting to reform a habit built up over many years, so it's going to take a long time to get there. 

Positive change requires honesty, commitment, and patience.

It's important to note that everyone's path is different. Not everyone has the same strengths and weaknesses. Not everyone jumps the same artistic hurdles in the same order or the same timeframe. Maybe your current hurdle is taking charge. Maybe it's letting go of control. Maybe it's fully committing to scenes. Maybe it's simply finding enough stage time. As much as improv is a team activity, the journey is ultimately an individual one. What takes you one year might take me five. As difficult as it is, try not to compare your path to anyone else's. It may be hard to look up and see that our peers are getting more or "better" opportunities, but all that means is their path took them that way and ours didn't. Ultimately we're all working toward the same goal, and with enough time and effort and as little judgment as possible, we'll get there. Embrace your personal journey and you'll get better, faster.

Because improv is such a mental art form, one of the best ways to improve our skills is by expanding our frame of reference. There are infinite scenarios in which we can find ourselves onstage, and the more these scenarios resonate with us, the easier it will be to respond to them honestly.

The best way to do this is by pursuing activities that would normally be outside of our comfort zones. What is a white water rafting trip really like? What actually happens at a reality tv show audition? What is the actual layout of a sailboat? These are all things we are perfectly capable of finding out first-hand. Seek out unusual adventures, or at the very least say yes to opportunities you'd normally turn down. Even if you have a terrible time on your white water rafting trip, at least you know what that feels like. If it ever comes up in a scene, you'll have a better frame of reference for the process, terminology, and general horrible feeling of being wet and cold while trying not to crash into rocks. Supplement real life adventures with media that portray things we can't experience ourselves like life in medieval monarchies or deep space exploration. Feed your brain as much information as it can handle - it's surprising how often a seemingly obscure reference will suddenly become relevant in a scene.

Just as important as a wide experiential reference is a wide cultural reference. Keep an eye on what shows people are watching, what events are happening in the news, what new app is popular. I have a general rule that if three people independently recommend something to me I'll give it a shot. That's what got me watching Stranger Things and why I'm still playing Pokemon Go. Improv as an art form is unique in its ability to respond to culture immediately as it happens. I've seen shows that referenced news events that happened just hours before. Stay in touch with what's going on around you to keep your frame of reference up to date.

Expand your character reference by talking to people, or more importantly, by listening to people. Go on blind dates. See if your Lyft driver will tell you a story. Eavesdrop on the group at the next table over. Indulge the chatty old woman at the laundromat longer than you normally would. What has she been dealing with recently? How does she see the world? The more people we interact with and the more world views we encounter, the easier it will be for us to play characters with points of view that differ from ours. What is important to real people? What are they passionate about? What worries them? How do they spend their time? Take real details from real people and infuse them into your characters to make them seem more real, more grounded. Get to know a wide variety of people and you'll be able to play a wide variety of characters.

Finally, expand your performance reference. See other theater. See live music. Traditional theater often uses space and sound in interesting ways. What elements might we be able to borrow to make our improv more theatrical or unique? What scene editing tools did this play use that we might want to bring back to our indie team? How does the lead singer of our favorite band interact with the crowd to create the energy they want? How did that burlesque dancer use timing and suspense to make their act more compelling?

In short:

Try new things.

Yes, the easiest way to get better at improv is by doing it a lot, but we don't have to limit learning to the stage. By practicing being honest with ourselves, by pushing our own limits, and by expanding our frame of reference we can get better, faster.

*yet. There weren't grades a few years ago.

Will Ferrell & The Music of Emotion

In Into the Pensieve: Going Meta we explored how important it is to commit fully to the scene in order to create and maintain audience immersion. But once we've managed to immerse the audience, how can we bring them from a level of simply watching a show to feeling like they are experiencing the show along with the performer, just like a good movie can take us along for the ride with the protagonist? How do we turn witnesses into participants?

First we have to understand that almost everything that happens in improv is invisible. The objects we use, the backstories we conjure, the appearance of our characters and their surroundings - all of these require the audience to be significantly engaged and sufficiently willing to suspend their disbelief in order to fill in the blanks with their imaginations.

Because so much is invisible and thus reliant on our individual imaginations, neither the performers nor the audience are functionally "seeing" the same thing. The coffee cup that I imagine will never be the exact same coffee cup that you imagine, no matter how specifically it is described. When a performer opens a refrigerator and looks inside, dozens of different refrigerators of various styles and colors are placed in that spot simultaneously by every person in the room. In moments like these our collective consciousness is slightly fractured. Our shared experience, though extremely similar, isn't quite perfect.

Standing alone, these inconsistencies are fairly trivial; how important is it really that we are seeing the same refrigerator? Maybe not much. But if we let incongruence compound for too long without balancing it with harmony, it eventually magnifies to a point of creating discomfort. Think of it like consonance and dissonance in music:

In Western music, dissonance is the quality of sounds that seems unstable and has an aural need to resolve to a stable consonance... Dissonance being the complement of consonance it may be defined, as above, as non-coincidence of partials, lack of fusion or pattern matching, or as complexity... The buildup and release of tension (dissonance and resolution), which can occur on every level from the subtle to the crass, is partially responsible for what listeners perceive as beauty, emotion, and expressiveness in music.

Too much focus on the invisible, or dissonant, and the audience starts to get uncomfortable and lean away. This is why "talking heads" scenes generally tend to lose steam over time. They rely too much on imagination, which eventually creates a scenario in which everyone in the room is watching a different version of the scene and knows for sure that everyone else doesn't quite see the scene the same way they do. There is only the slow building of group tension with no resolution. A truly engaging scene, like a truly engaging song, should have a good balance of tension and resolution.

So where does that resolution come from?

If the invisible creates dissonance, consonance comes from the visible, and the only things in improv we can all see in the exact same way are body language and facial expression. 

Outwardly these can be used convey meaning about relationship and attitude. Inwardly they can inform our point of view and help establish character. Most importantly, they are the common ground on which everyone in the room can stand; the relief of tension from our dissonant imaginations. We might not all see the same refrigerator, but we all see the same evil grin on a character's face - a shared observation that acts as a welcome visible comfort in a mostly invisible world.

However, to continue with the music analogy, one consonant note is not enough to sustain an entire song. Body language and facial expression, if they remain static, either fade from effectiveness or become repetitive and boring (or even worse, annoying). A scene will only remain interesting and engaging throughout if its consonance is dynamic. When it comes to body language and facial expression, that means variance and amplification. It means emotion.

Using the four main emotions - Happy, Sad, Angry, Afraid - and their various flavors are the only way to create shared experience that is consistently engaging. They are the only thing truly visible, which means every detail of their expression can be observed in a way our object work and character appearance cannot. Thus, they allow more room for precise subtlety that the invisible world does not. An evil grin that turns into a fake smile shares more information subtextually than any object work possibly could, and without explanation. If we want to show we hate another character, it's a lot easier to glare at them than cut up a picture of their face. The former sends the message quickly and accurately. The latter requires a dialogue addendum for clarification.

Emoting visually is the most efficient way to share information about a character's point of view.

In fact it's not enough, and even less efficient to say "I feel..." than to show it. If we open a refrigerator and say "there's nothing inside" while emoting sadness, it not only saves us half the time over "there's nothing inside and it makes me sad", the level at which we emote as we deliver the line indicates how important it is for our character that there was something in the refrigerator. Emotion allows us to share 3x more information in half the time. 

One thing I used to believe was that emotion was the packaging in which specifics were delivered, and it was the specifics that created the comedy. Emotions were a nice touch, but not necessary.

I've since amended this view.

Here's an example from Anchorman of high emotion in a scene driving the comedy.

Paul Rudd and David Koechner start things off by setting the emotional tone of the scene - anger. Steve Carrell applies comedic twist - "I don't know what we're yelling about." On paper this isn't an inherently funny line, but delivered through the same high level anger that his peers were exuding it becomes comedic. Coupled with the glance at his friends to see if he did the right thing, his point of view is clear - based on how his friends are acting he knows he's supposed to be mad, but he's not sure why, so he's pretending to be mad for show. It's not the anger that's funny, nor is it the dialogue. What's funny is the character's point of view revealed by the combination of the two.

Will Ferrell keeps the pattern going by angrily shouting "It's terrible, she has beautiful eyes and her hair smells like cinnamon." Again, it's the contrast between the emotion he's portraying and the words he's saying that makes the comedy. He's doing the same thing Carrell is doing (acting mad for show) but for different reasons. He knows exactly why everyone is mad, but he isn't and he doesn't want them to know.

In both cases the contrast between the words and the delivery is what is initially comedic, but what's even funnier is that the ruse works. Despite the transparency of the dialogue, Koechner and Rudd are completely convinced, all because of the emotion behind the words.

Will Ferrell's mastery of playing high emotions comedically isn't limited to Anchorman. Let's take a look at some examples of the four major emotions from a few of his other films and unpack what makes each of them work.

Happy

The first thing that sticks out in this clip is that Ferrell's Happy accelerates to a peak instantly. It doesn't build slowly over time, it explodes out of nowhere as soon as he hears the good news. It's also uncontainable - it needs to be shared physically in the form of a hug or a high five ("gimme ten Norton!") or used as a weapon ("everyone can eat shit!"). Because it accelerates so rapidly, it also has a lot of momentum. It doesn't stop when the moment has passed and David Koechner tries to move the meeting along. It keeps barreling ahead, destroying everything in its path. It's so out of control it has physical ramifications for Ferrell ("I'm so happy I can't even feel my arms!") and those nearby who have to dodge his flailing limbs. The momentum of his Happy is so strong that even as it fades it prevents him from absorbing bad news right away. It doesn't stop it altogether, just it slows the reaction time. He's basically so Happy he's drunk.

Sad

Much like his Happy, Ferrell's Sad here is abrupt and explosive. While it's seemingly under control as he relays his story to Paul Rudd, it rapidly builds as the story progresses. The comedy here comes from the fact that the emotion continues to heighten when it doesn't seem like it could possibly heighten any further. The level of Sad he can reach about a ridiculous scenario (his dog getting punted off a bridge) continues to surprise us. Only when it peaks does it finally become uncontrollable, rendering him incapable of speaking. Finally, just as what happened with Happy, it heightens to a point where it can no longer be contained. The phone call is forgotten and the emotion can only be released with flailing wildly at his surroundings.

Angry

Extreme anger is a tough emotion to make comedic because when anger becomes uncontrollable it can be dangerous. Whereas Ferrell heightened both Happy and Sad to a point of outward physical expression, doing the same thing with Angry would mean intentionally causing harm to other people, which under most circumstances isn't comedic.

Ferrell avoids this problem in two ways. The first is by creating elaborate hypothetical scenarios and verbally attacking the scenario instead of whomever he's really angry at. So instead of "I hope you lose your legs", it's "I hope one day you have sons who grow up to be star athletes and they lose their legs". Expressing Angry in this manner creates distance between himself and his target, thus softening the legitimacy and seriousness of the threat. Wishing for his friends to lose their legs is serious. Wishing for them to have sons who grow up to be star athletes and then lose their legs is ridiculous. Because the threat is both invented and would take years to fulfill, it is weak and therefore comedic. Tragedy + time = comedy.

Here's another clip from The Other Guys where he employs the same tactic.

Ferrell is clearly mad at Mark Wahlberg here, but instead of yelling at him directly he conjures an image of him as a little boy pretending to be an adult and screams at that. Again, he creates distance by directing his Angry at a hypothetical person who is separated from the moment by a significant amount of time. Notice that when he moves the target away from imaginary little boy Wahlberg back to the real version standing in front of him, his voice softens. He becomes sincere. He knows that screaming "I'm so tired of you yelling all the time and getting angry" in Wahlberg's face is too much of a direct attack to be comedic, so he reduces the emotion behind the words in order to lower the threat.

The second way Ferrell avoids getting too aggressive with his Angry is by making sure that any physical violence is similarly misdirected. In the clip from Talladega Nights, he's so enraged that he stabs himself in leg. In the clip from The Other Guys he stomps on Mark Wahlberg's computer. Here's another example from that same movie:

Although Ferrell's aggression is initially directed at Steve Coogan, as his Angry heightens he quickly loses sight of the target and starts smashing up the office. He gets so carried away with his rampage that he loses track of the guy he's actually supposed to be attacking ("where is he?!"). It's this combination of lack of control and (mostly) misdirected violence that makes the physical threat a lot less serious and a lot more funny.

Afraid

Just as explosive and uncontrollable as his other emotions, the biggest thing that stands out about Ferrell's Afraid is how stubborn it is. Despite no evidence of fire and multiple people telling him he's not, he's convinced he's engulfed in flames. He consistently refuses help from those who could actually give it (so far as actively attacking those trying to offer it), instead opting to beg the gods of religion and entertainment to come down from heaven or Hollywood to save him. The fear is so great that it needs supernatural intervention - anything less is too weak to stop it. 

The biggest takeaway from all of these clips is that emotions are funniest when they accelerate rapidly and carry a lot of momentum. Ferrell doesn't doesn't express Happy, Sad, Angry, and Afraid so much as they take control of him and he's along for the ride. They heighten well past the point of being containable and must be shared with those around him both verbally and physically. When coupled with a context where such explosive emotion is uncalled for and quality straight players to point that out, it makes for some great comedy.

We can use these same tools in improv when we need to create moments that everyone can see in the exact same way. The emotion will create the consonance we need to keep the audience engaged and feeling like participants in something that matters. The dissonance we create with our specifics and object work will feel less alienating and more like satisfying complexity. Having strong dynamic emotions greatly increases our chances of creating engaging, funny scenes in which our characters have clear points of view.

An exercise...

Pass The Pen
Do a two-person scene in which after establishing context (location & relationship) one improviser hands the other a pen upon delivering an innocuous line. The receiver of the pen must give a strong emotional reaction to that line. Play the rest of the scene out, passing the pen back and forth a few more times.

This works both playing high emotions and justifying retroactively. The pen forces the receiver to react without knowing why they're reacting, and their justification of that reaction informs their character's point of view.

A tip...

Find a way to practice emoting when there is no expectation of comedy. Take an acting class to work on showing and feeling grounded, honest emotions. On your own, exercise heightening these emotions until they feel ridiculous. Try to get comfortable with emoting at that level.

Predicting the Future & Letting it Go

We are constantly predicting the future.

We plan our road trips around avoiding traffic. We run conversations in our heads before they happen. We bet on sports or cards or celebrity deaths. We coerce two of our single friends into coming to the same party because we know for sure they'll hit it off.

Interestingly enough, we're pretty good at it. We're experts at examining the facts of the past, comparing it to the present situation, and drawing a line of trajectory through those two points and into the future to see where we'll end up if we stay on the current path. We might not get the specifics of the outcome exactly right, but things often end up in the general vicinity of our prediction.

We're so good at predicting the future that we can plot the course of several futures in our minds in order to set the most beneficial course of action for the present. Should we stay on course or make some choices that adjust the angle of our trajectory in order to land where we want to land? How much should we adjust and in what direction?

Here's a simple chart to demonstrate. If we make adjustment A1, A2 will happen. If we do nothing, B2 will happen. If we make adjustment C1, C2 will happen. We prefer the outcome C2, so we will make adjustment C1.

We do this every time we make a decision.

The best thing we can do for our improv is learn how to stop.

In Thinking Backwards for Good Reason we examined how improv operates differently than real life, which means we have to approach it differently.

At the very top of a scene there is only the present. The first move creates the dot.

At this point there is no shared past. We haven't discovered it yet. Because of this, there is no trajectory that can be traced into the future. A dot alone is not a line.

If the first move creates the dot, the reaction to that move defines the angle, setting the path for the rest of the scene. Now we have our trajectory.

This is great if we are being fully present and went into the scene with zero expectations, but we can get into some trouble if we tried to predict the future.

This often happens when we initiate with a preloaded line. When we have time to dwell on the scene before it starts we can't help but try to prepare for whatever might come next. We begin to invent a past, making assumptions about location and relationship and character that fit our initiation. These assumptions turn into projections of the future and expectations of behavior from our scene partner. "I'll initiate with this line, then they'll react this way, then I'll do this..." etc etc. 

When we finally do initiate and our scene partner responds, we often end up with something like this:

In this instance our scene partner did exactly the right thing - they reacted to our initiation and set the angle of the scene. The problem is their reaction is a massive left turn away from our predicted trajectory. We were trying to get a head start on the scene and their move is so disparate from that plan that it throws us for a loop.

At this point it's very common to have the urge to reconfirm our intentions.  We might feel that our scene partner didn't do what they were supposed to. They must have misinterpreted what we needed them to do. Maybe they weren't listening. But here's the thing -

Intention doesn't matter.

The invented past and projected future we constructed in our heads before the scene began isn't real. None of it. Once we initiate, our scene partner will take our line based on how they receive it and react accordingly. That's the reality. 

For example, let's say we have an idea for a scene where notorious nice guy Mister Rogers is very mean when he's not on television. We decide that the best way to initiate is with the line "Wow Mister Rogers, I never expected you to be such a jerk in real life." We figure that gives our scene partner plenty of information for who they are (Mister Rogers) and how to act (like a jerk). In creating this initiation, we've also both invented a past (Mister Rogers just said something mean to us) and projected a future (Mister Rogers will keep saying mean things and we will keep being shocked and hurt). 

But let's say we initiate and our scene partner responds with "I'm sorry...it's just that ever since Hammerstein died my musicals have been bombing. I'm so frustrated and lonely." For us this is a massively unexpected left turn. Despite what we thought was a clear initiation, our scene partner is both not who we expected (Richard Rodgers instead of Fred Rogers) and not behaving as we intended (apologizing and becoming vulnerable instead of acting like a jerk).

The easiest thing we can do in this moment (and the best thing for the scene) is drop our intentions completely. We might feel that since we put mental energy into our initiation and the expected context around it that dropping all of that pre-planned meaning would be a waste of a good idea. We might want to use some of the details from our original premise if we see windows to fit them in. But doing that is an act of friction. In order to make that tight left turn from our invented past into the current direction of the scene we have to slow way down so we don't skid off the road. It's so much easier to simply drop the past we invented and never have to make the turn in the first place.

Being fully present and not planning ahead allows us to be ready for any angle our scene partner defines by their reaction to our initiation. By having no expectations we never have to adjust our momentum and scramble to recover.

Thanks Bruce Lee

Locking ourselves to our intentions serves to act as if our imagined past and projected future are the correct path. We might feel that our scene partner wasn't listening or that they misunderstood what we needed them to do. We might attempt to course-correct - hinting that their reaction was misguided by saying things like "you usually don't act like this" or "are you sure that's what you want?" At best this becomes a disagreement about the reality of the world and the characters we're building together. At worst it turns into an attempt to control our scene partner's behavior. 

We might try to ignore their idea for the direction of the scene and double down on ours ("Musicals? Mister Rogers, you're a children's television host!"). If they keep going in what we perceive to be the wrong direction, our hints might turn into demands like "You should really..." or "Stop acting like this..." If we really start to panic, verbal demands might escalate to physical force or threats of violence (I've seen performers pull guns on their scene partners to make them do what they wanted).

Try to recognize when your actions are less about supporting the scene and more about trying to control the decisions or behavior of your scene partners. 

Attempting to control the behavior of others is an act of fear. 

In our eyes their behavior is wrong, so we need to correct it to make it right. But their behavior isn't wrong, it simply violates our expectations. When our expectations are violated, we panic because our prediction for the future is suddenly wiped away. Our plan is suddenly obsolete. We don't know what happens next, which is a naturally uncomfortable and scary place to be. 

Embrace not knowing.

It's not our scene partner's fault they didn't get what we were trying to set up. None of us are mind readers. It's our job to drop our predictions and adapt ourselves to their response. Committing to an imagined trajectory and trying to force the scene down a path it wasn't meant to go down will only cause it to stall out.

Make a dot, accept whichever direction your scene partner points it, and go.

Don't let yourself be guided by fear.

Stop trying to predict the future.

Embrace Slumps. Ignore Success.

Human progress is not an uninterrupted march forward. It is a slow and devious movement with haltings and twistings. The pathway of man ascends and descends, wanders off into mazes. At times the trail seems to lose itself in the wilderness of human passion and folly. But inch by inch it goes forward with halting steps.

- Joseph Alexander Leighton, philosopher

Progress is frustrating.

It is evasive. It is erratic. The harder you push for it the more it seems to resist.

Improv progress is full of ups and downs. We'll go through periods where things are really clicking for us and everything seems easy and then, out of nowhere, we'll find ourselves in a slump. Without changing anything about how we've been performing, we'll suddenly feel stuck. We won't feel inspired. We won't feel funny. We'll leave our shows and rehearsals with a tinge of regret. We won't quite live up to our own expectations. We won't be quite as good as we know we can and should be. We'll think we somehow managed to get worse. Then, just as suddenly as we fell in, we'll find our way out. We'll be back to clicking. We'll be back to being inspired. We'll be back to feeling funny. The slump will feel like a distant memory. We'll be performing better than we ever have before.

Why does this happen? How is it possible to go from feeling like we're moving backwards to making seemingly huge leaps forward? How does progression come from regression?

As it turns out, it doesn't. Even though it might feel like it, we aren't actually regressing at all. The chart below explains.

(Replace all references to drawing with improv)

Notice that the "Skill at making art" line is never actually going backwards. At worst, it's plateauing. It's only when our "skill at evaluating art" shoots past our ability that we feel like we've regressed. But this is simply an illusion of perception. It's not that our performance skills are getting worse, it's that our ability to evaluate performance is improving. Our standards are rising.

These "art lows" can suck, especially when they start taking a toll on our confidence. Since we rely on confidence to perform at a high level, it can be enormously frustrating that even the awareness of slumping can exacerbate the condition. But if we recognize that slumps are an unavoidable phase of the growth process, we might manage to curb some of those negative effects. 

Accept the fact that slumps will happen. Embrace the knowledge that they are temporary.

It might seem like everyone else is getting better and you're the only one struggling. You aren't. You might feel like you've peaked and can never get better. You haven't. Everyone's progress chart looks different. People improve at different speeds, at different times, at different gradients. Keep your eyes on your own paper. 

Another thing to recognize is that the longer we improvise, the longer these up and down phases can last. The waves of your progress chart tend to stretch over time. At some point you'll find yourself in an extended low-grade slump that Rachel Klein calls "The Vast Plateau of Competency":

You move up through the levels and the people who stay are as poised and quick-witted as you. You get cast on your first team and after a few shows of beginner’s luck fueled by adrenaline and all the friends and family you brought to watch your “comedy debut”, the thrill starts to fade and you’re left with just the work ahead. Your “go to”s start to get boring, predictable, even to you. Some days you kill, others you bomb, and you can’t seem to get a handle on the difference. You try to reach deeper for new material, new points-of-view, a fresh perspective, and sometimes they come, but often you feel tapped. Maybe you’re no good at this after all, you think.

 

This, my friend, is the Vast Plateau of Competency. You’re not doing badly. And a lot of the time you’re actually pretty good, which is what makes The Plateau all the more frustrating. You can see the people below The Plateau not being able to make the moves you can to set up a scene for basic success, to feel a general sense of comfort on the stage, to know how to “find the game,” to “heighten,” to “hit the button.” But ahead of you is a precipitous rock face, and at the top of it stand the people you admire, waving and smiling and doing what looks like effortlessly brilliant work, and you can’t seem to see how you get there from where you are. Will you just be “pretty good” forever?

Her post is worth a full read as she offers some great practical advice, but generally speaking the only thing you can do is ride it out.

Here's Ira Glass with similar thoughts:

Maintaining progress in improv requires a good amount of patience and resilience and non-judgmental self-awareness. It also requires a significant commitment to avoiding complacency.

An important thing the ability chart mentions is "not getting too cocky during art highs". This is a massively common problem for improvisers. It's an artificial sense of mastery of an inherently unmasterable practice. What's really happened is our ability to perform has progressed beyond our ability to evaluate so we think every move we make is genius.

A lot of performers get to this point and relax, especially if they've managed to accomplish a certain goal like getting on a house cast or performing on a specific show. They think they can finally take their foot off the gas because they've finished what they set out to accomplish. They might stop really pushing themselves in rehearsals and onstage. They might only perform in comfortable rooms with comfortable formats with comfortable people. They might feel like they can coast on all their previous hard work. 

This is a trap.

At the beginning of The Dark Knight Rises, Gotham City has experienced a long period of prosperity thanks to the heroics of Batman, who has retired his cape and has spent the last eight years in solitude. But when the mercenary Bane appears and starts creating havoc, Batman is forced to return.

He finds Bane in the sewers. 

"Peace has cost you your strength. Victory has defeated you." This is what Bane says right before he proceeds to kick Batman's ass. Batman's previous success and the resulting comfortable stretch have developed into complacency. He has grown weak. Old reliable tricks like smoke bombs and cutting the lights don't work. He has never encountered an adversary who he couldn't defeat through these methods. He has never been challenged in this way.

It literally breaks him.

This is what happens when we relax during a high. It eventually ends. The double helix of artistic progress flips once more and we suddenly hit a wall. If we're not prepared, if we forget how to handle slumps, it will break us. We won't be able to adapt to new challenges. We will have forgotten how it feels to be seemingly getting worse. "I've hit my limit," we might think. "This is as good as I'll ever get." At that point we might stop trying altogether. We might fall out of love. We might quit.

Don't let success beget complacency.

The more we ignore the pleasure of the high, the easier it will be to bear the storm of the inevitable low. Keep finding ways to challenge yourself. Surround yourself with people who can push you in new ways. Try a form you've never done before. Perform at festivals in other cities for strange crowds. Take a new class. Learn a new skill. Read a new book. Chase what scares you.

Only two things can prevent us from improving - deciding we can't and believing we don't have to. As long as we're aware of that we'll never stop getting better. We'll learn to love slumps for their impermanence and the challenges they present. We'll learn to stay on course during highs and not coast on momentum.

Embrace slumps. Ignore success. Progress.

Breaking No Rules & The Flow Of Information

Let's explore the following improv maxim:

There are no rules.

What does this mean? For the performer, for the audience, for the scene, what does it mean to say there are absolutely no requirements or expectations in an improv performance?

For the performer it means we can do whatever we want. Any choice is valid and acceptable. We can say and do whatever pops into our heads whenever we want. We can go anywhere in space and time. We can be anyone or anything. We can not do anything at all. Everything is fair game.

For the audience it means they have no idea what is about to happen. They don't know what they'll see, hear, feel, like, or dislike. They might witness a performance that makes them think and challenges them or they might get one that is entirely goofy and ridiculous. They might leave the show changed, for good or bad. They might wish it could last forever. They might walk out in the first 5 minutes.

For the scene it means it could move slowly, quickly, or anywhere in between. It could last 20 minutes or 20 seconds. It could have eight characters, or fifteen, or one, or none. It could lead to nonstop laughter or be completely serious. It could take place over 2 minutes or 1000 years. It could move forward in time, then backward, repeating itself in reverse and ending where it started.

It means anything can happen, which is simultaneously freeing and terrifying. But that's the thrill of it. No one in the room knows what's about to transpire and all of us are along for the ride together, for good or bad.

But here's the catch - we do want it to be good. Preferably every single time. And though there are no rules and we can do whatever we want, we also want our scene partners to be on the same page. We want the audience to enjoy the show. We want the scene to be cohesive and easy to follow. In order to have these things, preferably every single time, we can't exactly do whatever we want all the time.

This is the reason we learn general practices that make our improv more successful - because some of the choices we can make are more effective than others. These routes to effectiveness have transformed into general behavioral guidelines. Stray from those guidelines and we risk annoying our fellow performers, alienating our audience, and destroying the scene.

But only if it doesn't work.

If it works, and sometimes it will, the opposite will happen. Your fellow performers will be impressed. The audience will love it. The scene will be taken to places we never thought it could go.

These are the risks we strive to take, because when it works the reward is great. But in order to be able to take these risks, it's important to understand what the routes to effectiveness are, and why they exist.

                                                     That's Mount Effectiveness right there.

The things that are more effective err on the side of acceptance - listening to our scene partners, saying yes to their choices, sharing focus. The things that are less effective err on the side of denial - saying no, arguing, lying. 

We could spend all day unpacking the problems that arise with denial, but let's focus on one specific type (lying) along with its close relative (coyness). 

What is it about these choices that make them not particularly effective? Consider this:

An improv scene, at its core, is information flowing back and forth.

With each line, facial expression, and movement, we reveal information about the characters in the scene and the world they inhabit. At the top, the information is for the purpose of establishing context (or "base reality"). Who are the characters on stage and how do they feel about each other? Where are they in space and time and what are they doing there?

Laughs come when new information fits the established context while still being surprising. We say or do something completely unexpected that adds new meaning but doesn't wreck the scene. John Cleese calls it "the moment of contact between two frames of reference." That's comedy. Unanticipated information that resonates on multiple levels.

Information can travel at different speeds, but one thing is certain - it has to travel. Stop the flow of information and the scene dies. Think of it like blood. New, fresh information has to be consistently circulating in order to keep the scene alive, but it also has to be the right type. Just as the body will reject blood that isn't the right type, the scene (and the audience) will reject information that is too dissonant from what has already been established.

So what does this have to do with lying?

Lying, or labeling our scene partner a liar, serves to halt the flow of information. 

Because it relies entirely on trust and immersion, the improv reality is a fragile one. Everyone in the room has to take what they hear and see at face value. We can't second-guess the information that's been revealed. When someone is labeled a liar, it creates a feedback loop of misinformation that breeds confusion. It creates a scenario in which we are constantly questioning reality.

Let's use the following overly simple example:

Person A - "I saw a dog today."

Person B - "No you didn't. You're lying."

Person A has two options; they can agree that they're lying ("you're right I didn't see a dog today") or they can disagree and double down ("I swear I saw a dog today"). Either way, the response doesn't really matter. The liar label, once applied, means everything Person A says gets called into question. If Person A agrees that they were lying, our assumption is that everything they say for the rest of the scene is a lie. If Person A disagrees that they were lying, we wonder why Person B assumed they were. If Person B is so quick to assume Person A is lying, EITHER Person A has a reputation for not being truthful, which means, once again, we have to question everything else they say for the rest of the scene, OR Person B has trust issues, which means they will constantly be questioning everything Person A says the rest of the scene anyway, even if Person A is telling the truth. Either way Person A responds, once labeled a liar, the veracity of anything they say will always be dubious, either to the audience or Person B, and probably both.

This is the Liar Paradox - the idea that if a liar says "I am lying", it means they are telling the truth, which means they are lying, which means they are telling the truth, which means they are lying, ad infinitum. Conversely, if a liar says "I am telling the truth", it means they are lying, which means they are telling the truth, which means they are lying, which means they are telling the truth, ad infinitum.

Here's a clip from the Star Trek episode I, Mudd where Captain Kirk and crew encounter a planet of strictly logical androids, whom they defeat using a combination of object work and the Liar Paradox.

Trying make sense of the crew reacting to a bomb that isn't there and the infinite feedback loop of the paradox causes the androids to overheat and shut down. When we label someone a liar in a scene, the performer, the audience, and the scene will all respond in a similar way. Because of that loop, with each new line the performer will struggle to figure out what is real and what isn't. The audience will eventually stop trying to keep up and lose interest. The scene will flounder when reality is constantly called into question and the flow of information comes to a screeching halt. It will stop being about the characters and the world they inhabit and instead become about what is fact and what is fiction. Trying to wrangle the logic of a liar in an improv scene is a black hole that is immensely difficult to overcome. For the most part, it's not worth the trouble.

Coyness is a tough characteristic to wrangle for similar reasons:

Being coy slows the flow of information, which causes the scene to drag.

When one character is reluctant to share information with another, the scene moves so slow it struggles to survive. Instead of rapidly establishing context and building from there, a scene with a coy character usually starts lopsided and then stalls out. Instead of building context together, the coy character might sit idle while their scene partner front-loads all the pertinent information in the hopes that will get things moving. Maybe, they might think, the performer playing the coy character is just a little uncertain about who or where they are, so they'll do all the heavy lifting, presuming that will solve the problem. 

The scene might appear to be moving along nicely as the world is being built, but it is quickly approaching a brick wall. Once context is established, the only place the scene partner can go is at the coy character. They'll probably try to coax them out of their shell by attempting to hit them from different angles - asking various questions, making suggestions to justify their behavior (which the coy character might neither confirm or deny), or doing something wacky or shocking to try to stimulate any sort of response. On the surface it may seem like something is happening, but in reality the scene has slowed to a crawl. We usually don't end up learning much about either of our characters because one partner refuses to engage. An experienced and talented performer may very well manage to turn this into an interesting scene, but it's still only information flowing in one direction. It is essentially a solo scene, but one in which the person we could be learning about is probably too distracted trying to interact with the other person onstage to reveal anything about themselves. The end result is usually a scene with a rapidly fading heartbeat.

Recognize when information has stopped flowing.

Add some.

In general, it's probably in our best interest to avoid lying and being coy. If we notice that the reality of the world is being questioned, we should find a way to name it and cement it with our scene partner. If we notice that new information has stopped coming in, we should create more.

That's not to say there aren't ways to handle both of these scenarios.

If we find ourselves being being labeled a liar or playing a coy character, we should find a way to give our fellow performers and the audience the information they deserve. One way to do this is to step out and give a noir-style monologue. Another is by confiding in an imaginary friend/conscience. Even a character who always lies can reveal truths in an internal monologue or by sharing secrets with representatives of their psyche. A coy character in a monoscene, for example, may choose to only be coy toward a specific character while being completely open and honest with someone else once the object of their coyness is offstage. In this way, we can validate the choice we've made while still letting information flow freely.

Try to remember to separate the character from the performer. Just because we don't want a character to know something doesn't mean we shouldn't let the performer playing that character in on the secret. In fact, if we can manage to do that, they'll probably be able to play that role even better. When they know more than their character does they can find ways to put their character in situations that exploit that lack of knowledge.

But of course, there are no rules. We can do whatever we want.

Thinking Backwards For Good Reason

Why is improv difficult?

If it is a practice that essentially requires us to emulate and heighten human behavior, why does it take years to become competent? We've been people our whole lives with no trouble at all. Why does getting up in class or onstage in front of an audience sometimes make being people seem like an impossible task? Why aren't we immediately and consistently good at it?

The reason is oddly simple.

Improv forces us to think in reverse.

Real life and improv operate at different speeds, which compels us think about them with different temporal orientations. 

Real life moves slow. For the most part, we see our choices coming before we have to make them. We have time to weigh our options and determine each possible outcome. We have time to think before we act.

The real life decision process is oriented toward the future. We start from a place of understanding our motivations and goals. We use these to deliberate our options. Then we make a decision.

Improv moves fast. It forces us to make choices not yet knowing why we are making them. We don't have time to think about all the possibilities. Our scene partner is waiting for us to respond. The audience is waiting for us to do something. We have to do or say the first thing that pops into our heads. We have to act without thinking.

The improv decision process is oriented toward the past. We start by making whatever choice feels right. We study that choice to determine what it means. Then we justify it in a way that fits what we've established.

Real life orients us toward the future: Motivation > Deliberation > Decision             
Improv orients us toward the past: Choice > Analysis > Justification

In order to become competent at improv we have to reorient our minds, which is something that simply takes a lot of practice and patience and time.

“Improvisation is like steering a car by looking through the rear view mirror. You don’t know where you’re going, you can only see where you’ve been.”
-Keith Johnstone

Along that three-step path, justification is by far the most difficult to grasp. Deciding why our character behaves a certain way is one of the hardest things to determine on the spot, especially when there might be other variables in the scene that demand our attention. But if we can manage to find it, justifying our point of view will massively increase our chances of creating a successful scene.

So what makes a good justification?

Let's use the following arbitrary premise as an example:

A parent is trying to convince their child that they should go into a career as a frog breeder.

Here are a few common justification pitfalls that aren't quite effective:

1. No justification whatsoever - If the child chooses not to ask their parent why frog breeding is important and the parent chooses not to offer an explanation, the scene might very well survive by becoming about the weird frogs the family is going to breed or expand to other unusual parental requests, but all of those moves will feel empty because we'll never know what motivates our characters. The audience will spend the whole scene wondering why frog breeding, specifically, was so essential. Why does the parent care? Why does the child agree or disagree? We need to answer these questions.

2. Crazy/on drugs - This is a fairly common justification that is just as insufficient as none at all. The problem with craziness is unpredictability. Our character needs something to hold onto in order to behave consistently. The audience needs to understand how that character operates in order to follow the scene. Being crazy makes behavior too inconsistent, too random. We need some sort of pattern to carry us to the end of the scene. Too much randomness will only raise questions and create confusion. Drugs create a similar scenario because they change behavior. They put our character in an altered state where they aren't thinking clearly and they aren't in control. A sober sane parent who wants their child to breed frogs is inherently more interesting than a high crazy parent. The sober sane parent is thinking clearly, so they must have an interesting point of view.  A high crazy parent isn't thinking clearly, so they might not even mean what they say.

3. History/Tradition - This is probably the most common of the pitfalls. The parent says something like "You have to be a frog breeder because I'm a frog breeder! My parent was a frog breeder and their parent was a frog breeder! This is a frog breeding family! So you're going to be a frog breeder because it's what we do!" The problem with this justification is it's true to life, so it seems like it works. There are plenty of real life parents trying to convince their real life children to carry the torch of their real life family histories and traditions for the sake of keeping those histories and traditions alive. In improv, though, we strive to reach a deeper meaning behind our choices. Blaming history and tradition for our actions simply serves to kick the can down the road. It passes the onus of justification onto characters we'll never know or see. At one point, for some reason, someone in the family decided to become a frog breeder, and it probably wasn't with the intention of creating an everlasting family tradition. What was that reason, and how can we bring that reason to the present moment?

Action for action's sake is not sufficiently satisfying.

A great justification will be all three of these:

1. Personal - People are driven by the pursuit of some sort of individual benefit. Try to find that. Does the parent believe frog breeding is a lucrative career and it would make them happy to see their child to have financial success? They are personally driven by the financial safety of their family. Is the town plagued by mosquitos and the parent is sick of being constantly itchy? They are personally driven by physical comfort. Do they really enjoy frog legs but the local French restaurant went out of business? They are personally driven by enjoying the finer things in life. How does the parent benefit from their child becoming a frog breeder? How does the child benefit from agreeing or disagreeing? What do those benefits mean about their individual values?

2. Actionable - The best justifications are those that are possible to actively pursue. The parent that finds happiness in a financially successful child can pursue that goal by helping their child get a business loan or filling out tax paperwork for their frog breeding business. The parent seeking comfort from mosquitos might attempt to get their child to switch careers once more when they realize all those frogs make a whole lot of noise. The parent who enjoys delicacies might take a cooking class to learn how to make those homemade frog legs. Find a justification that requires active work.

3. Perpetual - The perfect justification will never be able to be fulfilled. It will be something our character is constantly seeking no matter what situation they are in. The parent who wants their family to be financially secure will always be concerned about how they might lose their money and trying to gain more. The parent who desires physical comfort will always be trying to avoid uncomfortable situations and maintain comfortable ones. The parent who seeks the finer things will never want anything cheap or average and will always be looking for the best food, wine, clothing, etc. Find a justification that can never be satisfied and we can live in that character forever.

A personal, actionable, and perpetual justification will allow us to thrive in any situation.

This is especially useful in forms like the Harold where we might see the same character in multiple scenes. Our character will carry that justification into the 2nd beat to be explored in a different/heightened way, or matched up against any other character from the show in the 3rd beat as we explore what happens when all the worlds and point of views we've created collide. These moments suddenly become much easier to live in because we already know what motivates our character. We already know their "thing".

That pre-knowledge will serve to orient our approach less like improv and more like real life, so it should feel much more natural. We've already done all the work. Now all we have to do is play.

Offstage: Auditions, Rejections, & Next Moves

When it comes to improv, auditions are a flawed casting methodology. The nature of auditions devalues everything improv is supposed to be about and promotes everything it isn't. Collaboration becomes competition. Support becomes selfishness. Listening becomes laugh-seeking. It can be a frustratingly unreliable method of identifying ability.

In a perfect world, directors would spend most of their time scouting the talent pool and talking to teachers and coaches about up-and-comers - intimately getting to know the strengths and weaknesses of as many performers as possible and casting by invitation. Unfortunately in many places that's a full time job, and most improv directors just don't have the time. So they hope we're capable of accurately representing our skills in the short, high-pressure window we're given. And we hope they're capable of recognizing our skills in a crowded environment.

Auditions are necessary evil. They're far from perfect, but they're what we've got. If we want improv to be a part of our lives, auditions are going to be a part of it too.

So we put ourselves out there.

We show up to the audition full of excitement, fear, and caffeine and we try to represent our skills to the best of our ability. We support our scene partner. We show a range of choices and emotions. We do our best to have fun in spite of our nerves.

Then, almost as soon as it starts, it's over.

So we wait.

And we wait.

And results go out.

And we get rejected.

We go through the audition over and over in our heads. Where did we go wrong? We thought we did pretty well. We felt good about our choices and we did some good scenes. We weren't perfect, certainly, but no one else was either. How could they not recognize the skills we know we have? Why don't they want us in their show? Why don't they want us at their theater?

Here's the bad news:

Improv has never been more popular than it is right now. Getting cast at a major theater is the hardest its ever been. The gap between interested performers and available spots on resident casts has never been larger. There just simply isn't enough room for all of us, and that means a lot of us are going to be rejected.

Here's the good news:

We do not need permission to do improv.

If this is something we love, if this is something we want to do, we do not need approval from any individual or institution to continue to do it. 

Of course we want those "official" opportunities. Of course we want the support of an established theater. Of course we want the credibility that comes with being put on a premier stage. All these things are great. None of them are necessities.

A theater is just a big shiny box.

It might have a big stage in a big room and a bar in the lobby. It might have fancy lights and a sound system and cool posters in the window. This is all just packaging - stuff intended to attract audiences and improve their experience. Strip away all the packaging and what's left is a group of people making stuff up. And we can do that anywhere.

Here's more good news:

Because improv is more popular than it has ever been, the indie scene is thriving. There are indie nights happening in apartments, bars, breweries, cafes, hotels, rehearsal spaces, and anywhere else at least twenty people can fit in a room. There is a massive amount of stage time available to us if we are willing to seek it out. These might not be the best opportunities in terms of atmosphere and audience size, but they are chances to hone our skills and continue to do what we love.

Recognize the value of those opportunities. Take advantage of them.

I am no stranger to rejection.

It took me 6 auditions to get a callback at ImprovBoston. I spent a full three years of my life being told I wasn't good enough do to improv and I wasn't even close to making the cut.

Each failed audition crushed me harder than the last. All of my friends got on casts before I did. People with a lot less experience than I had were getting picked over me. It didn't make any sense. I was doing everything right and it still wasn't enough.

Somewhere in the midst of all that rejection I decided I wasn't going to let it beat me. I wasn't going to let people tell me that I couldn't do improv. I wasn't going to let people tell me I couldn't have what I wanted.

I decided that I was going to do whatever it took to become one of the best improvisers in the city. I would outwork, outstudy, and outrep everyone. I would push myself harder than anyone else pushed themselves. I would be tougher on myself than any coach or director possibly could be.

I wanted to become undeniable. I wanted to prove them wrong.

I still approach every day with that mindset. I'm still driven by those goals.

Here's a hard truth about improv and life in general:

Some people have to work harder for the same opportunities.

They will tell us we aren't good enough. They will tell us no one wants to work with us. They will tell us we aren't worth the effort to train. 

Become undeniable. Prove them wrong.

Here are some things I did in those three years that directly contributed to my improvement:

1. Understand that you are constantly auditioning. You never know who is going to be a future director or producer. Give a full effort every time you perform because they could be in the audience, even if that audience is only 3 people. Be reliable - sometimes all you need to do is show up when you say you will. Be nice to everyone because no one wants to work with assholes.
2. Invest in the community. Go to Jams. Stick around at the bar after shows. Talk shop with other performers. Make some new friends. Directors and producers are more likely to take chances on people they know. New shows and teams are constantly being born over burgers and beers. 
3. Study your heroes. What makes them good at what they do? What about them do audiences respond to (mannerisms, characters, etc)? Steal all of it and add your own spin. Ask your local heroes to coach your team or at least run a workshop.
4. Study yourself. Coaches and directors aren't going to give you notes on everything. Their responsibility lies with the development of the group as a whole. Record your shows and analyze your scenes. Try to notice when you're making the same choices frequently and force yourself to mix it up.
5. Tell people what you want. Directors want people who are invested and excited. Find ways to let them know you want to work with them. Ask them what you can work on to put yourself in a better position to do that. Listen to them. Do those things.
6. Learn from other places. Take classes at other theaters in your city or intensives out of town. Take workshops even if you're not interested in the subject or know who the instructor is. Read. TJ & Dave's book is great. Mick Napier's book is great. Will Hines' book is great. Take an acting class. 
7. Do stuff without permission. Make a video. Put a practice team together. Write. Create your own show and put it up somewhere. There are tons of ways to get better that don't require anyone's approval. It doesn't have to be for any reason other than your own personal growth. The work that no one will see will be some of the best work you ever do. The opportunities you create for yourself will be the ones you're most proud of.
8. Do other things. Improv has a tendency to suck people in and burn them out. Take breaks from time to time. Check out other art forms. Study other subjects that interest you. Travel. Not every show is a can't-miss show. Improv is about reflecting life. When too much of your life is centered on improv, it will start to get stale. Take some time to live. Improv will still be here when you get back.
9. Love yourself. When you decide to unconditionally value your own abilities, you become invincible. When you know without a doubt that you are good at this, no amount of rejection can hurt you. It might be frustrating. It might not make sense. You might feel like you don't fit anywhere. You might have to create all your own opportunities. But as long as you honestly value yourself, rejection will never be able to beat you.

I'll finish with this quote from the film The Imitation Game:

"Sometimes it's the very people who no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine."

And this video about someone great who was initially overlooked: 

Memento & Finding Meaning in Nothing

A common piece of advice for initiating an improv scene is "start in the middle". The idea is that if you want to do a scene about an unusual dog at a pet store, the initiation of "I'm afraid the dog is still full price even though half of it is stuffed" is much more effective than "Hi, welcome to the pet store". The former gets to the meat of your premise right away, while the latter requires a good amount of meandering and patience from your scene partner (who might try to move the scene in a completely different direction altogether). "Start in the middle", in short, means "get to the point". 

This is great advice for scenes where we have a full or even partial premise in mind, but what happens when we find ourselves at the top of a scene without an idea ready to go? We look up expectantly at our scene partner only to see them looking expectantly back at us.

"Uh oh", we think. "We've got nothing." 

This can be a terrifying moment. Uncertainty is scary, especially when we feel we don't have anything to hold onto. We might start to panic; going into our heads to think of a weird thing to say, or reaching out for some indeterminate object in the hopes that some sort of activity might give us more time to think. What we often don't realize is this - 

The simple act of being onstage with another person is all we need to start a scene.

In the film Memento, Guy Pearce's character suffers from a condition that prevents him from forming new memories. Every time he "comes to" he has forgotten everything about the events leading up to that moment. He has no idea how he got to where he is, or if he has ever met the person he is talking to before. Even the people he sees every day are completely forgotten when his memory resets. His condition forces him to constantly rely on context clues; to become an expert in finding meaning in the smallest details.

Here's an example where his memory resets in the middle of a chase:

Notice that Pearce starts with self-examination - "Okay, so what am I doing?" He finds himself running but doesn't know why. Also notice that despite not knowing why he's running, he doesn't stop. That's the key. He knows his memory is faulty but he still inherently trusts himself.

So instead of "Why am I running? I'll stop and figure it out."

He thinks "I'm running. It must be for a good reason. I will keep running and that reason will reveal itself to me shortly."

And it does.

                                      Wish I remembered to bring marshmallows...

If we approach our "nothing" scenes with this mindset - that we're where we are doing what we're doing for a reason -they suddenly become a lot less terrifying. We know we're supposed to be there, we just haven't quite uncovered the specifics. And just like in Memento, we can do that using context clues. 

If we take a moment to observe closely we can find meaning in the smallest details.

How are we standing and what does that mean about our attitude or emotional state? Do we have our hand in our pocket because we're nervous or because we're grabbing some change for a vending machine? Are we squinting slightly because it's bright or because we're suspicious of something? What does the distance between ourselves and our scene partner mean about the space we're in or the intensity of our relationship? Is their smile one of sincerity or politeness? What can we infer from the smallest movement or subtlest posture?

When we have nothing, everything is a gift.

Try to be comfortable with the idea that these types of scenes can start a little slow as we dedicate those first few moments to observation, so resist the urge to panic. 

It's also not the time to be polite or coy. If the context clues tell us we're on a beach, say it and make it real. Don't wait and hope our scene partner reads the clues the same way.

Conversely, it's also not the time to be stubborn. If we think we're on a beach but our scene partner cements us at a bank, they're right. Understand that our first instincts only carry us as far as reality permits. Guy Pearce thought for sure he was the one doing the chasing until his scene partner pulled a gun on him.

Be adaptable.

An interesting thing about this approach is that it almost always forces us to "start in the middle" even if we weren't intending to do so. When we're looking for meaning in the smallest details, our mind frames things differently. The first few moments aren't about looking forward to try to figure out what the scene could be, they're about looking backward to see what the scene already has been. What did we say to make our scene partner look at us in this specific way? What did we do that got us to this specific position in space and time?

Finding meaning in nothing allows us to step into the middle a scene that had already begun before we even found ourselves onstage. Our job from there is simply to play the rest of it out.

Into the Pensieve: Going Meta

One of the things that makes human beings special is our ability to get emotionally invested in completely imaginary circumstances. It's why we cry when Wilson floats away in Cast Away, or why your partner gets mad about something you did in their dream. Our imaginations are powerful things.

In improv we push this immersive ability to its limits. We (usually) have no costumes, no set, no objects, no music - none of the advantages that movies and traditional theater have to help the audience immerse themselves in the world we're presenting. We hit the stage with nothing but our bodies, minds, emotions, and the hope that if we commit hard enough to our choices the audience will fill in all the blanks. Luckily, they usually do.

But what happens when they don't?

What happens when, 5-8 minutes into our set, all the "good will" laughs have died off and the audience stops responding vocally? We find ourselves doing several scenes in a row with maybe one or two light laughs each. "Uh oh..." we think. "This is going poorly." And we're right.

And we panic.

And we need to do something - anything - to get a BIG laugh.

And we notice our scene partner's object work isn't quite as precise as it could be when we hand them a can of beer and they drink it without opening it.

And that's our chance.

"How are you even drinking that beer? You didn't even open it!"

And the audience laughs. And we relax.

We saved the show.

Or did we?

This is "going meta"  - commenting on the scene you're currently inside of in a way that reminds the audience that they're a bunch of people in a room watching people make stuff up.

We do it because it works. We needed a big laugh and we got one. But at what expense? Now the audience remembers who they are. They remember they're watching a show. They remember they paid $12 to watch adults make funny faces and they're trying to decide if it was worth it. We've destroyed the immersion. We've torn down everything we spent the last 5-8 minutes building. With one line. Because we panicked. And because WE needed that laugh.

Going meta is a selfish act.

It doesn't serve the scene because it destroys the immersion. It doesn't serve the audience because it makes them self-aware. It doesn't serve your scene partner because (in this example) you're calling them out for sloppy object work. Going meta only serves the needs of the person who panics and needs the instant positive feedback of a big laugh.

This one's for metaphor fans:

Immersion functions like the Pensieve in Harry Potter.

In the Harry Potter universe, the Pensieve is an object where you can store and review memories. Here's a clip from The Goblet of Fire where Harry discovers the Pensieve for the first time:

There are two main takeaways here. 1 - David Tennant has a very active tongue. 2 - When Harry is viewing memories in the Pensieve, he's not just watching them on the surface of the water. He is literally in the room. He is experiencing the memory as if he was there himself. Though he can't interact with them, the people seem real. Though he can't influence the events of the memory, he feels involved. Look at his face as the trial unfolds. He is concerned, uncertain, and most importantly, fully invested.

A fully immersed improv audience will feel the same way. They are literally in the room, and though they can't (or shouldn't) interact directly with the performers, they will feel involved and invested as long as long as we continue to fully commit to the worlds and characters we are building.

But how would Harry's experience change if Dumbledore suddenly turned to him and reminded him that he wasn't actually in the courtroom? That he was actually face down in a bowl of magic water.

          Harry...you alive? I fell asleep.

He would feel self-conscious and probably a little silly. He would be distracted, and he wouldn't be able to focus his full attention on the memory. He'd probably miss something. Going meta has the same effect on an audience. It reminds them that what they're watching isn't real, and when things aren't real they stop being important.

Now here's the part where I say "but":

It is entirely possible to comment on a scene in a way that does not destroy the immersion.

But it's tricky. When something is a little off or we blatantly break the reality of the world, the audience will recognize that. It's important for us to acknowledge that we see what they saw. They need to know that we're in total control of what's happening - or at least more than they are. 

So how do we acknowledge a "mistake" without going meta?

Justify from within.

Find a way to make it work by making it a part of the reality of the scene. Pointing at it and saying "that's weird" is simply not enough and usually, for the reasons I explained above, counterproductive.

In the Pensieve scene, when Harry plops down next to Dumbledore, he is confused why his professor is ignoring him. It is not until someone passes a hand through him that he understands the rules of the memory world - he can watch but he can't interact. The Pensieve justifies from within.

In a recent Oregon Fail show I played a federal detective who was attempting to arrest someone for murder. As I did, I found myself saying the line "I'm going to place you under arrest under the order of our current President..." In that moment I recognized that I was in trouble. Oregon Fail takes place in the year 1848 and at the time I had no idea who was President in 1848 (it's James K Polk). Recognizing that my character would have to know the name of the current President, and recognizing that the audience would expect that too, I justified from within. I finished with "...whose name I will not mention out of respect." It fit my character, it fit the world, and it was a subtle wink to the audience that let them know that I saw what they saw without ruining the immersion.

The beer can example is no different. If, instead of calling out our scene partner for sloppy object work, we had made it fit the scene by saying something like "you really have to teach me how you're able to open these with your teeth", we have acknowledged the "mistake" without breaking the immersion. We've also given our scene partner the gift of a character ability instead of making them look bad. It clears all hurdles. Justify from within.

So what do we do if we find ourselves struggling at the 5-8 minute mark? We've done several scenes in a row and the audience just isn't responding. What do we do when that urge to go meta starts creeping in? Don't pull back. Don't rip Harry from the Pensieve. Push him deeper in. Commit harder. Make what's happening matter more. Believe it more. If it matters to you it will matter to the audience. If you believe it, so will they.