The Skills We Need for Fast Forward, and How to Develop Them

Eliminating Stress; Acknowledging Disposability

Theory

A lot of people might think the biggest problem we face with Fast Forward is coming up with material fast enough or moving the plot forward effectively enough or making choices that are bold enough.

I think the biggest problem is stress. If we stress out, we stop being good improvisors. Coming up with sixty scenes in sixty minutes is a stressful proposition. The little voice that says "you don't have time to pause at all" will be whispering in our ears the whole time, trying to stress us out.

If we give in to that, then lots of things go wrong. We just focus on how scared we are, and we stop paying attention to the scene or the other performers in it. We don't make the bold choices we need to, because we're afraid of making the scene even worse.

To counter this, we should focus on hammering home the disposability of these scenes. Make sure we're acutely aware, not of how quickly we have to work, but of how little it matters if we screw up. 1?

Practice

One possibility: we can agree that no rehearsal scene goes on for more than a minute -- or some specified period of time. We need to get rid of the "I'm going to be shackled to this scene for 4.5 minutes" feeling that makes us afraid to do anything.

But the other thing is that we need a stress-free environment. It's going to be like most musical pursuits -- when you want to do something faster, you have to relax nto it instead of straining to GO FASTER. Maybe halfway through every rehearsal we do some sort of relaxation/meditation exercise -- could Ed offer any advice on this?

We've got to be willing to do a LOT of unimpressive improv, knowing full well that it's all disposable anyway.

Eliminating Self-Imposed Editing

Theory

Some of us -- not all of us -- have problems with disposing of ideas. We know the next thing that happens in a scene... but that's not good enough... so we come up with something else... no, that's not good enough either... so we come up with something else....

In Fast Forward, we literally don't have time for this. And, since the scenes are 1 minute long, we definitely can afford to throw in the idea that's not good enough. 2?

However, there are those of us who don't have this problem. Several of us have the opposite problem, of never holding anything back and not leaving space for other players. We need to be careful not to encourage these people to talk all the time.

Practice

There need to be prizes for screw-ups. We need to be rewarded for jumping into the chasm and just not quite reaching the other side.

Perhaps we have the bell. If there's a pause where somebody is just waiting around, some point where Shana would (ever-so-helpfully) say "Do it," we can ring a bell. Then you have to say something. If you say something hopelessly fscked-up, then you get some lucrative prize. Or maybe we can combine the bell with a question.

<ding> "What room are you in?"

"Eerrrrummmthe inside of a donkey!"

<general befuddlement>

"Okay, Peter gets a prize for that one."

Starting the Scene Immediately

Theory

Okay, so we have the problems of vagueness, of hemming and hawing and self-imposed editing, all the time. But it's never so prevalent as when we start a scene:

(Peter walks on, stepping from the bench to the stage, while staring vaguely into space. He stands and waits.)

(Bob enters from the opposite direction.)

Peter: Hi... um... Jeffery.
Bob: Hi... Stan.

And we're already thirty seconds into Anonymous 'Tards Go To Vaguesville.

If we can figure out how to start a scene quickly, boldly, and effectively, then we're 80% of the way to putting on a good Fast Forward show.

Practice

The key seems to be ripping off Sean's "High-Octane Improv" class. It might behoove us to get a quorum of people together and petition Sean to offer us the class one weekend.

Also, an evening spent developing our skills with quick, simple endowments would help.

(Peter): The above sections handle general technique for Fast Forward. Are there other techniques we want to discuss?

The sections below are more specific, in that these aren't techniques we use all the time, just occasionally.

A Panic Technique: Reincorporation

Theory

We're going to end up blanking out in various places. I think we should handle this in two ways -- push against the problem itself by reducing our self-editing and becoming willing to make bold 'wrong' choices -- and finding ways to cheat around it.

This is one of the latter. When you're dry, reincorporate from earlier scenes. If you don't know who you should be in a scene, redo a character from an earlier scene, or be the priest that the lawyer mentioned twenty minutes ago.

Practice

I don't know how to condition the players to reincorporate earlier elements as necessary. Anybody have any thoughts?

Footnotes

1? What's worse, classes and Micetro have created "non-disposable improv." In Micetro, each scene might be your last. In class, each scene is a significant percentage of what you paid to take the class.

2? Of course, improv mavens would tell us that the ideas we discount, we usually discount because they're too straightforward or too obvious -- the very qualities that make them good ideas in the first place. They would go on to say that even a bad offer can become a gift when handled by an open-minded improvisor.

That said, I think that's bullshit. It is possible to have a bad idea that derails a scene irrevocably, and knowing that these are ultra-disposable one-minute scenes provides a comfortable safety net.