Does This Make Sense?

Let’s just start at the top.  Game is almost impossible to fully understand.  The idea of Premise vs. Game, forget about it.  I’ve heard it explained a million ways. Please tell me if this makes sense.

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Game = The Funny thing

I think this is the best definition.  I think it strips it pretty bare.  I think whenever someone laughs, you can ask yourself “What was funny about that?”.  If something is funny or comedic, an improviser should be able to answer the question “why is that funny”. 

So instantly when I come up with a ridiculous “rule” of a statement, I try to disprove myself.  A difficult example I can think of was an Assssscat sometime last year.  At a very awkward time during the show, someone walked all they way across the stage (and if I remember Gethard followed him across).  The audience exploded at the weirdness and the show kept going.  Gethard disappeared.  Later on at a completely random time in the show, Geth just walked through again with the same calm demeanor of the original guy.  The audience ate it up.

On the surface it looked like it was just playing the pattern.  But I think Gethard understood why the walk through was funny.  It was totally random and unexpected.  The randomness of the act was what the audience responded to.  If I remember correctly he kept hightening by being more random. Does this make sense?  I know it’s thin.

Another simpler example,

Imagine this: In a scene you’re performing surgery and you decide to start shifting gears.  The audience responds to that.  Why did they? Because that is a specifically unusual way for a doctor to act.  So later in the scene when a nurse says “He’s crashing” the surgeon might put a seat belt on him. 

I also think that just bad doctor is a game, but it’s the easiest to play.  We shy away from it because it’s been done and therefore not funny to us anymore.  This is where game becomes subjective.  I think some people will call something a game if they believe it is worth playing.  I think we should use the word playable games more.

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Premise: Present me a way to play this game.

I think depending on form or style, a performer uses premise at different times.  You may use premise to do second beats of scenes with clear games.  Maybe you’ve pulled a game from the opening and want to initiate with premise.  I think it’s the same idea.  Show me a good way to play the game.  If you initiate, initiate a good scene to play the game.  I think the key to my understanding of it, lies in already having a game.  I think this is a definition thing.

If you have a funny thing in your head, and you understand why it is funny, you should be able to show me.  Set up a scenario that exploits that funny thing for the same reasons.  If you start a scene looking to build to a comedic idea then that is not a premise initiation.  But if you were to find a game and later try to do a second beat of that scene, you would use premise to present a place to find the organically found game. (This paragraph must read like nonsense)

Examples:

Doctor race car driver: Show me a surgery, Show me medical school, Show me physical.  Those situations make it easy to play the game.  A doctor being interrogated for malpractice would not be a great place to play that game. 

Gethard walk through:  This one is tricky and where my theory collapses on itself.  I think the premise was the random situation.  No one initiated it but Gethard assumed he premise himself.  This happens a lot with Organic harolds.  You fall into second beats and you have to insert your game into the given premise.  In this case, Gethard recognized a random situation (best place to play the game) and went for it.  To initiate a random enough premise that would honor why that act was funny, seems nearly impossible.  This is what makes that brilliant.  He was able to snatched the premise because he knew and understood his game.

I think good walk ons and tag outs have premise.  If you know the game of the scene, show  me another way to hit the game. A good example involving Doctor race car driver:  If the doctor completed surgery, a nurse could walk on with a Giant bottle of champagne.  The doctor could see this as “Oh this is how a race car driver would celebrate, how else?” Then maybe he would try to do a back flip.

Conclusion

Game = The Funny thing

Playing Game = understanding why something is funny and consistently applying it to the scene

Premise = Presenting a way to play the game

You can have game without premise, but you can’t have premise without game.

Does any of this make sense?  What do you think?

Well Hello Improv Nerds,

I think about improv a lot.  What I love about improv is that it’s still a new art form and we are constantly gaining new understanding.  And much to the dismay of the people around me, I get endless joy looking for new understanding.  This blog will host to ramblings about my current thoughts and disscusion about what I’m not just getting.  Then hopefully I can shut up about it in the real world.

P.S.  Mom: If your reading this because you’ve Googled my name, this too is not really leading to any way to make a living.  Keep Worrying.

Don’t Think?

Shaun Diston