What's The Big Deal With Edits
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This is the Improv Chronicle podcast. I'm Lloydie.
Improv edits
“I define edits as not necessarily how do you end a scene, but how do you start something new?”
It's Tuesday, 10th March 2020. If you sit in a bar with a group of improvisers and get them onto the topic of edits, sparks can really fly. I've been at enough after show discussions to know it's a hot button topic, even though I've never really fully fathomed why, I mean, surely edits or a functional part of improv and nothing to get worked up about right? Well, wrong, apparently. Or at least according to some. So why? I went back to one of our previous contributors on the Improv Chronicle podcast, one who doesn't mind the occasional controversial hot take on improv matters.
Hi, my name is Neil, current founder, director of In Professed are Living co director of Improv Utopia. I improvise mostly in Dublin.
What do you think about the whole subject of edits when people start talking about it in the pub? What what's your reaction?
Can you imagine watching a film and at the end of the scene? A director walks onto the set and says, just to let you all know this scene is now over and we're gonna move to a different location. But the film is going to continue with completely different settings. That kind of feels like what a lot of people do an improv and when it comes to and it's and it kind of quickly fall into the trap of improbably, we're doing this great art form where we makes definite, but we don't know what's gonna happen, but we do know how we're gonna edit. We're going to end up the same way our teachers told us when we were in level one. We're going to continue that trend for the rest of our careers. I know that sounds really mean, I'm sorry, but it kind of came to a head for me when I brought a friend of mine who had never seen long form before to a show. And it was an Armando Show, and during the show he turned to me and he said that He said, Why did they keep running across the front of the stage? Am I supposed to know something about it? And I turned to him very arrogantly, and said. That's called an edit and I realised I'd fallen into that trap. And so we have these approaches and techniques to edits that I just think our highly unnecessary and actually jarring to what's happening on stage if we have their own workshops on editing an improv or we have to attend workshops on anything, and I'm probably doing it right.
Wow. Okay, well, I guess we all know where Neal stands. The day following my conversation with Neil, I walked to a New York coffee shop to meet someone who is teaching to some degree at least, a workshop that Neal said shouldn't exist.
My name is Peter McNerney and the head of the Magnet Theatre Conservatory in New York City also perform with the improv duo Trike Saturday's The Last 12 Year, 10 Years sometime, and I'm the New York artistic director of the Story Pirates, which is a very different way. Adapt storeys written by kids into sketch comedy and musical theatre Story Pirates podcast.
I had a conversation yesterday with a friend of mine from Dublin. Neil, who is not into edits it all, he said, like if you are taking a workshop in edits, maybe you shouldn't be an improv. Now you are going to be teaching workshopping on it aren’t you?
Well, is a little broader than that. But yes, essentially, I teach a class called special effects, which is about anything but scene work and. I'll be the first to validate what your friend said, which is that, like none of it matters if the show doesn't matter. And so I When I first started improvising, I got really into the trickery. You know that like you have a blank stage, you have no said. You have no costume, so you can literally do anything because there's all this negative space that we're filling in. And so figuring out how to get the audience to watch the show more like a movie than theatre because you could do that when you when an improv fascinated me and it became realise something I was very good at. And so I really latched on to all of that, you know, probably to the detriment of scene work. But on moving to New York City, where there was so little of that. I found that no one really knew how to do that, so I had to sort of give it up for a while, and then I just did essentially mono scenes like zero Literally Zero edits For two years until my best friend, Nick Canellis, showed up to New York City, who was another person, that he had come from that same school. So the show I do now is very much we threw all those elements back in, but at its best, it's to serve the characters, is to serve, wants its to serve, the world that you've built. And it is actually framing what the show is about and serving where it's going as opposed to, you know, impressive things for their own sake.
Okay, so like so many things in life, this is about balance. I wanted to find someone who was a real nerd for edits. So I did what any self respecting nerd would do when faced with that task, I went onto a Facebook group and arranged to call someone.
Hi, I'm Kelly Agatha's I'm a Greek improviser based in Brussels, Belgium, and I am the founder and the artistic director of Improbuble. Improbuble is a school of improvisation that we also have a professional cast that performs weekly at Lamp of East, which is the only theatre in Brussels dedicated to improve. And we do a lot of corporate work with the EU institutions. I'm a massive improv nerd, so I can talk about it forever. It's also one of the things that I am super passionate about transmitting to students or when I'm directing to make sure people are on top of. In fact, we had a rehearsal just today, and my main feedback on the show we did our today was way need to be faster with our edits.
So, Neil Curran says. If you need to take a workshop on it, you're doing improv wrong. How do you feel about that?
I know and respect Neil very much. I've never heard that from him, but it's an interesting opinion. I don't think it's it's either or I. I don't think that being good at editing precludes doing a., good job on your basic scene work, and if you if you have got a sense of when the scene is over by default, you would know where to edit and therefore, if you are a good improviser, probably also but editing and it is there for a lot of her reasons and edit. It’s there to signify the end of one scene. For the moment, it doesn't necessarily mean that it will never go back to the reality that was created there. It means that right now we've seen enough of this let's move on to something else.
Kelly loves a good at it and thankfully also really likes. Neil is a human being, too. It's actually very hard to dislike Neil. I have not yet managed it, but he really doesn't like the transitional mechanics that so many improvises use - even tags.
I’m not going to start on tag-outs - the act of, walking on stage and tapping someone of the shoulder. Or when there's like a town hall scene and somebody comes on and stands like whooshing and swishing people of this thing. It's like a traffic cop has come on the stage. Direct people where to go, like I think we get it. We don't need to do that just like appear in front of the person who's on stage is like getting between the two, the two characters, and just do your bit whenever they need to, like start doing you know, threatening an intersection of eight lanes of traffic off unnecessary effort. I mean what we've always done. We're creatures of habit, even way improvising is what we love, but it's just unnecessary. And to me, it just takes me out of the scene, even just momentarily sound like a grumpy old man thing. But it just takes me out of the scene momentarily and fields like this conscious effort of unconscious, unnecessary effort on, you know, where improv won't die our break if we don't do that.
Like film doesn't edit and go to another scene because they're done showing someone story. They just believe that in the storytelling, now is the time to shift, focus and go somewhere else.
Now there is again, from all our contributors on this podcast, the running theme of film edits. It's interesting how we compare what we do to the movies in this instance rather than theatre. I guess Theatre can't do a lot of what improv does, because we don't need sets so we can be more cinematic. We choose to bay. Maybe that's why edits get people so excited. Okay, if getting all cinematic what air the edits we love. Kelly again.
First of all, I like See, I love sitting with my students, especially in working on timing. And there's actually a great exercise that I learned from Sean Kinley from the Loose Moose Theatre back in Calgary. Very, very simple exercise, which was just what people in the scene and then go in. And they will tell you if it was the right time or the wrong time. And so you can You can have a feeling and usually are feeling from the audience is more right. than if we're on the side of this thing, but you will get instant feedback from both the audience and your people on stage of whether you came in too soon or too late or right on time s O, That was a little bit on the content on the types of edits I like. I really like things that are like cross fades. So people coming with purpose in front of the two people or three people, whoever many world stage and starting a new scene, and I'm fine with the others finishing their sentences and taking their own time to get off stage as long as there's no confusion and the new people that go on stage are really committed to starting whatever it is that they're starting. So I think it's super simple. I think it's super elegant s Oh, I don't know if it has an official name or something, but the walk on that looks like a cross fade is my favourite at it. So what would you want people to remember? I think that what some people forget is that if a scene is edited, it doesn't mean that it's over. So I would rather tell people to air on the side of editing too soon rather than editing too late, because there's nothing worse than watching a scene deflate the energy leaving. And then you have the sense that the people who teach don't want to be there, but no one's editing them, and so everybody is stuck. So I would. My advice and something I feel very strongly about is if in doubt, sooner rather than later, like go in too soon rather than too late, because then you've given your improvisers on stage and opportunity to come back and explore that scene further. If they feel like something was not said or not done, but you keep them from having that deflation moment that they could have had. If, in fact, your instincts were spot on and you miss your moment.
Peter has his own take on the functionality of edits.
I define it. It's not necessarily how do you end a scene, but it's How do you start something new? And so that's what my classes not just ending scenes. It's How do you introduce something new? So that might mean a split scene, you know, like, uh, Nick and I like it a sort of cliche example. But something I've fallen into is that a really great swinging door scene, which which people use that term differently? And for me, that's that is two different scenes happening at the same time with a single hinge character in the middle. And the classic example is like, if there's this in it and it works well, if there's a scene that asking for it, for example, you know I'm the teenager who's yelling with and yelling at my mom and having a big fight and play something like It's not like this a dad's house, and then oh if I'm on the side and I hear that I'm walking out on the opposite side of Mom and I'm starting a new scene with that kid being like you're staying for the whole weekend. All right, boys. Afternoon. And based on how I take the stage, which is like not cutting in front, I'm not getting in Mom's way. A polite entrance, says the mom, Don't go anywhere. I'm just in a different scene over here, so I'm like a boy's weekend. We're gonna live it up. I got some Seimas for us, and then that middle actor turns around and just sees me acting like Mom doesn't exist. And then there is a new scene. They're like, Yeah, Dad's house is awesome! And then any point Mom just continues the scene that she's in on that kid flips back and the that says something. We're comparing this versus this, and it's a meaningful way, and there's a person is affected by both. So in that instance, I'm like, Oh, that's a scene like I would put that in my movie because we're intercutting between these relationships that are intertwined and matter, and not just because we can so That's an edit for me. Uh, on So as soon as you brought in the definition of what an edit is finished just like anyone joining this age or leaving the stage. Uh, so when's the last time I was in a show that really asked for that? It's probably been a long time. Every once in a while pops up like this is exactly the thing, you know, journey scene where we were. We pan the camera or tracked the camera with the character, just like Quick Cut two's other things like, Can I do a 1,000,000 quick illustrative scenes? And I think people really used to that where somebody mentions, like your dad seemed weird this morning. Boom, like we go and just immediately do that scene and come right back. My show uses a lot of those, but not every show. What kind of show are you? Sometimes if the 1st 2 person seen suddenly really matters and it cuts, it goes fast, like 10 minutes, and then a new characters just arrives, and then we start to realise, like we're not in a cut to show this show's about this place, so we try toe figure out what kind of short on that should dictate. What, Ed, It's serious, You know, if the first scene is short, and then suddenly we just feel the urge to start a brand new sing unrelated. We know that, like, Okay, we're probably gonna have another one of these. Were following two more over here. It's gonna be weird if we didn't stick with that one for 15 minutes. So having the tool belt, you know, Batman's got everything in his tool belt, but he's only using 5% of it because that's what the case asks for.
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