That's a fun and helpful idea for connecting to a character. It would be interesting for people without background on thinking about (or developing) "character" to hear a few examples. Like, do they have to be exaggerated? What is the line between a (truly) regular person you work with and a "character"? Am I already a character as I am? And when you try it on your own in the exercise you suggest, how do you even know if you are doing a "good job"? No pressure to answer these questions - but they popped in my mind. :)
Lisa, these are excellent questions! I'll get more detailed in the next article on these, but thoughts off the top of the dome -
* They can be exaggerated or very close to yourself. A lot of this is in the reasoning you are using. For example, if you are playing a very misguided character it could be exaggerated to make it obvious it's not you, but perhaps why they are so misguided is based on a nugget of truth from your life. Playing a character keeps that part private, which is kinda neat.
* I don't think there are many lines between what is a character vs. what is completely regular. Or it's ridiculously hard to define, because... "what is regular" :) There WILL be improvisers who have THEIR definition of regular/"voice of reason" -- and that sort of brings in our society standards, or what most of the audience thinks is "normal". It can be tough to draw these lines. So I think in many ways this is sort of a question we need to answer individually based on what we perceive as a reaction.
* We can play ourselves in so many ways - we ARE a character just in that we are pretty unique, usually. It will often be a character to someone. If we're doing "voice of reason" style comedy, that might be fairly close to the character of "you." We can heighten pieces of what we do to accentuate them, even if we are playing someone fairly "reasonable". Character attributes can come from different parts of ourselves. Or we can play it very close to the chest. Many do, and it can get a lot of laughs :)
* I'm gonna say we are always doing a good job! :) But seriously, I think if we learn something in the process, even a single element -- or just putting the reps in and getting some practice -- that's some amount of success. We can "fail" (say, not like the character) but you're still learning what doesn't work for you. And what better place to "fail" than during a practice session.
Many things you wrote jumped out at me, but I'll highlight just the one for now: it feels really tractable immediately (to this newbie at least) to think about one attribute of myself or another "regular" person, and to accentuate and heighten that. Like a caricature artist. (Maybe this is not news to anyone else but was a real opening into "character" for me)!
That's a fun and helpful idea for connecting to a character. It would be interesting for people without background on thinking about (or developing) "character" to hear a few examples. Like, do they have to be exaggerated? What is the line between a (truly) regular person you work with and a "character"? Am I already a character as I am? And when you try it on your own in the exercise you suggest, how do you even know if you are doing a "good job"? No pressure to answer these questions - but they popped in my mind. :)
Lisa, these are excellent questions! I'll get more detailed in the next article on these, but thoughts off the top of the dome -
* They can be exaggerated or very close to yourself. A lot of this is in the reasoning you are using. For example, if you are playing a very misguided character it could be exaggerated to make it obvious it's not you, but perhaps why they are so misguided is based on a nugget of truth from your life. Playing a character keeps that part private, which is kinda neat.
* I don't think there are many lines between what is a character vs. what is completely regular. Or it's ridiculously hard to define, because... "what is regular" :) There WILL be improvisers who have THEIR definition of regular/"voice of reason" -- and that sort of brings in our society standards, or what most of the audience thinks is "normal". It can be tough to draw these lines. So I think in many ways this is sort of a question we need to answer individually based on what we perceive as a reaction.
* We can play ourselves in so many ways - we ARE a character just in that we are pretty unique, usually. It will often be a character to someone. If we're doing "voice of reason" style comedy, that might be fairly close to the character of "you." We can heighten pieces of what we do to accentuate them, even if we are playing someone fairly "reasonable". Character attributes can come from different parts of ourselves. Or we can play it very close to the chest. Many do, and it can get a lot of laughs :)
* I'm gonna say we are always doing a good job! :) But seriously, I think if we learn something in the process, even a single element -- or just putting the reps in and getting some practice -- that's some amount of success. We can "fail" (say, not like the character) but you're still learning what doesn't work for you. And what better place to "fail" than during a practice session.
Woah, those are super helpful replies, Jen!
Many things you wrote jumped out at me, but I'll highlight just the one for now: it feels really tractable immediately (to this newbie at least) to think about one attribute of myself or another "regular" person, and to accentuate and heighten that. Like a caricature artist. (Maybe this is not news to anyone else but was a real opening into "character" for me)!
I *love* that - *totally* like a caricature artist, but acting :) accentuate that thing that stands out!