I think this type of question is more dependant on the team’s focus, and not the individual. I think the most important thing is that the entire team is playing in a similar fashion. If half of you are doing premise based openings into a world of if-this-is-true, and the rest of your team is initiating with half-ideas, there is going to be a lot of confusion early on in many of your scenes.
My personal view on this is that if you are doing an opening that CREATES premises, then initiate with those premises, or why the fuck did we work so hard creating them? Pattern game and Premise keepers are good examples of this.
If you are doing Invocation or Scene painting you will probably be starting with more half-ideas than hard premises.
My main point is I think the team should have a similar focus for how they are using the opening and how scenes are starting.
How do you take a game or idea that has already been established from the opening and keep it interesting for the first beats? Put the game in a different setting? Analogous? - johneveretttrowbridge
Sure, those would work! Just do something with the idea that you’d like to see and haven’t…
I guess I ask about game because I see a lot of people take an established idea from the opening and then use that established idea as an inspiration for their scene. THEN they initiate with a skewed version of the established idea or some odd a-c idea and then the other person is confused because they thought they were playing the original established idea. Does that make sense? Sure we should be able to yes and into a functional scene but I feel like why establish an idea in the opening if you aren’t going to play the idea in the show. The audience is expecting it because its all they know.
I am with you 100% on this one, John.
I think some of this comes from stuff we are told in early classes, especially when learning pattern game. A to C. Because if you just A to B in pattern games, you end up with three minutes on the same thing. (Or worse, A to A where everyone just lists names of TV shows.) And then when you get into scenes, an early improviser will often get stuck on the one thing for the scene if not pushed a bit beyond.
But then you start getting it and start having no problem just creating. Creating becomes easy. That’s when you need to explore and create less.
There is that whole thing that everything you really need for a scene is those first three lines. If you explore those, really explore them, you make glorious discoveries. Always remember the first thing you said and the first thing your scene partner said. And how they said it. There is (usually) so much there that with the smallest bit of justification (which is a whole other kettle of fish) and detail, suddenly becomes a wealth of material to play with/in.
I think openings, when best, are treated more this way. In the simplest way, if in the opening you loved the idea of “Pickle Blimp”, show me a damn pickle blimp and explore what the heck that means.Don’t initiate a scene about a “mayonnaise rocket.” It might not make any sense to your scene partner and most likely made no sense to the audience.
But, hey, if you want to initiate with “Why, yes. All of the transportation devices I have invented are made of condiments,” great! You’ve expand on “pickle blimp” but not walked away from it.
I don’t know if any of this makes sense. I’ve had a headache all day.
