Yes And…Click — Warm up games (part 2)

One of the challenges of improv is to get in the game aka get yourself in a place where you are ready, open, ideas flowing, creativity at the ready.
There’s been many a day when I trudged through the rain the 12 blocks to the theater, tired before I hit the door, and somehow I have to bounce around the stage with a smile on my face.

Luckily one of the many things you learn in improv classes and your teammates is a pantheon of warm up games to help you get in the mood. I think some of these games would be at parties, business meetings for learning names or just getting the blood flowing and people focused. I know I have definitely been out for a photo shoot and feel uninspired. I think a little activity that keeps the brain from thinking of the task at hand and gets the blood flowing helps me get in the zone.

Get to know each other

Name game:

Stand in a circle facing inwards. Somebody (Bob) starts by pointing at somebody else, and saying their own name (“Bob”). The person that was pointed at (Sally), points at somebody else and says (“Sally”), this goes for a while. Then phase 2. Then Somebody (Bob) points at somebody else and says the pointees name (“Sally”). Phase 3. When you point at a person and say their name, they respond with yes, giving the pointer permission to cross the circle and take their place. They have to point at somebody else and say their name, get permission and then move. Build up speed. You can also add a phase 4 where the pointer doesn’t say a name at all and has to ask for permission entirely by eye contact.

7 Things
In a circle, one player points at another says their name, and says ” Tell me 7 ____ you ____” . Example “Bob, Tell me 7 places you’d like to visit” Then Bob says a place, the group says loudly with excitement “One!” Bob says another place the group says “Two!” When he says the 7th, the group says “Seven! Seven Things!” Bob then turns to someobody else says their name and “Tell me 7 ____ you ____” you can also play this as a pattern game “name 7 car companies”. The goal is to rattle off the seven as fast as possible, doesn’t really matter if you truly want to visit san antonio, but it gets you a little more familiar with the other players and gets the brain in a free association mode.

Energy games:

Pass the clap
Stand in a circle. The first person turns to a person next to them and makes eye contact and claps once One Clap only. The clap receiver attempts to clap in unison with the clap sender. they then turn to the next person in the circle and attempt to clap in unison with them. The clap goes around the circle. A clap receiver can hold the eye contact and clap a 2nd time (in unison) to reverse the direction of the clap. Try to speed it up as fast as you can while still being in unison.
Phase 2: everybody starts walking around randomly and relying on finding people to make eye contact to pass the clap to.

You can also pay pass the clap by having each person make a unique sound or phrase they pass to the next person (each pair says that pair’s unique phrase in unison)

Eights
Purely an energy game, that I like to do right before hitting the stage. This can either be done loudly or by a “shouting” whisper.As a group form a circle (noticing a circle trend?)
Put your right hand way up in the air and shake it in and out 8 times, counting 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 then the left hand 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, then the right foot 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, then the left foot 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8
then go back to the right hand but only count 7 (1,2,3,4,5,6,7 for those of you challenged at math), left hand, right foot, left foot.
Then do a round of 6, then 5, with each round get faster, until the last few you are flailing like crazy.

Concentration games:

Patterns
Everybody in the circle raises their hand. One person picks a category such as “colors” and points at another person keep their arm pointed at the pointee and says a color. The pointee points at somebody else that has their arms raised and says a different color. The last person pointed at, points back at the category originator and says a color. Everybody then drops their arms. The starting person points and says their color, dropping their arm after the person registers they were pointed at. They point at the person they picked and say their color and you try and go through a few times as fast as possible.

Then you do the same thing with a different person starting and picking a category e.g. “car names”. People should try and point at somebody different from the first time. Build this 2nd pattern up until everybody has got it figured out (each person basically needs to know who pointed at them/their word, and their own word/point target). Run through building up speed.

After people seem to have the 2nd pattern down pretty well, the person who started the first pattern can start in on the first pattern while the second pattern is still going.

We usually add a 3rd layer, and then finally a 4th layer which is movement. Instead of doing a word pattern for the 4th layer, point at somebody and say “you” and then go and take their place in the circle. So you have to remember the words/people rather than position. Instead of saying you, you can make it easier by using names.
It’s up to the pointer to resay their word if the receiver doesn’t hear or register it.

Group Counting
Everybody get as close as possible in a circle. People close their eyes. The goes is to count to a specific number. Say 20 to start. Somebody (undesignated) says “one”. If somebody else started to say or did say one, you start over. then somebody says two. Again if two people speak at same time it resets. Everybody screams when you get to your goal.

——–
There’s so many more fun games. They may seem silly or hoky, but if some of the players commit to the game and do it with energy (even if they are faking the energy) they tend to build. The great thing about improv people is that we are trained to say “Yes…And” aka to go along, to add energy and ideas to what they were given. Turn off that mental judge and try committing to the simple game, and enjoy.

Where would you photograph?

I recently saw a twitter contest asking “Where would you photograph if you could photograph anywhere?”
Of course I had a thousand places and only 140 characters. (some of which were taken up by the link to the contest – normally I dislike spending my twitter followers attention with contests but I thought it was an interesting question)

Some of the things that came to mind:

1) Fedex hub in Memphis — What a fascinating logistics ballet it must be to get all these packages everywhere. Same goes for an Amazon warehouse.
2) behind the scenes at So You Think You Can Dance
3) The International Space Station (hey they said *anywhere*)
4) Behind the scenes at a las vegas casino — I heard they have tubes carrying liquor to the bars and coins to the slot machines
5) Airport — I love airports as a concept, the people, the dance of airplanes coming and going, the frustration, the kiss-n-drive dropoffs, but apparently everybody near an airport with a camera is a terrorist now
6) Baja Mexico, where the humpback whales give birth and bring their young up to the meet the tourists in the zodiacs
7) Anywhere with dolphins
8) White Sands New Mexico (this was inspired by George Lepp who has an incredible pano from there that I just love)
9) Northern Lights viewing spots
10) Bhutan or Tibet — mostly because I want to travel there

So…many…more…places…

Such a fascinating world.

Where would you photograph?

The Burden of Ideas

I can’t say for sure but I think I have a lot of ideas swirling in my head. I mean, it seems like the fish swimming in my mental aquarium are roiling the waters but I can’t see what’s in your mental aquarium to know relative wise. That’s not to say my fish are good fish. They’re just fish, popping out of hiding and playing in the bubbler at the most inappropriate times like when I’m trying to fall asleep or when I’m concentrating on something else. Ooh I should write about blog post about XYZ. Oh it’d be cool to photograph more bridges. I should buy a bigger ladder for tulip season. I should try printing on acrylic.
It’s a blessing to be interested in many things and have thoughts about ways to experiment, but it’s a problem for me as it means I have an ever increasing to-do list. It also means I feel defeated when I see somebody has actually made progress with an idea I had. It means I could probably be diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. It means I go in the other room to get protective spray and find myself rewiring the gallery music system.

Ideas are cheap, it’s the hard work and the follow through that makes an art piece, or a startup company. In the tech world it’s rarely the first company to the market that wins. In the art world we all interepret an idea differently, so there’s still validity in proceeding. But the cost of the idea is that burden of hope that it places in your mind. The seditious optimism that one could and should be accomplishing that.
Of course, I imagine it’s worse to be on the opposite end of the spectrum, a perpetual mental dial tone (for you youngsters that’s a reference to pre cell phone days). But sometimes I’m at my happiest, when I’m executing and in the groove, and focused. Often this is when I’m busy enough running, putting up framing studs, playing a video game, that it feels like a flowing stream, rather than a small whirlpool in an aquarium.

Here’s a stretch but is indicative of the weird connections in my brain, this ideas/hope vs. focus/acceptance sort of continuum (I’m not describing this well, ack parenthetical idea! stop, assume your readers will forgive you, back to your run on sentence) is how I imagine the continuum of single and looking for “the one” vs. an arranged marriage. Why is it that we seek perfection and end up with loneliness, and I hear and read about so many people in arranged marriages that are very happy (exceptions abound in both cases – just a thought experiment). What about us is happier when we don’t have choices? if we don’t have an idea for something better, are we happier with what we have?

Would I be happier in a authoritarian regime, telling me exactly what to do, NO, but I am interested in learning more about how to deal with unpursued ideas, possibilities just out of reach and the alluring siren of hope keeping me from settling in with a extra large refillable tub of popcorn, a backpack of soda, a 2×4 of Kit Kat and watching this mostly pg-13 life flow by.

Hmm. I’m weird.

“They should have sent a poet”

In high school, I was assigned a paper that involved picking a poem to analyze. I was frustrated because I didn’t understand so many of the poems and the first one that I “got”, was rejected by my teacher as too simple. The most frustrating part was that I couldn’t see a path by which I could put in effort and get results out. How do you research the meaning of obscure references from a time past or describe the effect of the use of adjectives that all began with the same letter.

Later, I found poets that I were very compelling. Without a paper due, I could relax in to the poem and just the enjoy the effect, like a nice glass of whiskey, I may not be able to describe the components of the “nose” but I can still enjoy the warmth and the complex unindividuated tastes.

As I have read more poems, the ones that hit me over the head, I appreciate less, because “I get it already”.

When I am writing in a journal, or writing about myself, I find what I’m trying to convey too cartoon-mallet-to-the-head, and it sounds wrong. By writing more obscurely with more references and allusions it feels less ugly, less egotistical.

When seeing an incredible sunset that smacks me silly, and I lose my words and I stumble around saying “WOW just WOW. WOW” I think to myself of the scene in the movie Contact where Jodie Foster’s character says “They should have sent a poet”

Like poems, my appreciation for photographs started with working to remove all the unessential elements and get to the feeling of the photograph. But now those images feel “mallet-y”, and I long for the complex, and the unknown, the mystery and the allusion.

May all of us appreciate the situations we are in, that so simply full of life, in all its complications that we wish we were poets.

Bryn

Noticing

I used to say one of the major reasons that I took pictures was because it kept me looking out the window.

I am a huge reader. Not quite the epic reader that my sister is, but still. On car trips as kids we used to read the whole way. People would always ask don’t you get car sick? Nope, not even on highway 1 through big sur, though that ability has diminished somewhat, though I was able to survive the Nurburgring at super high speeds looking through a telephoto lens bouncing around aimed at the car in front of us, but I digress. I read instead of looked out the window. My mom would always be trying to get us to look at something interesting.

Once I took up photography, the type A part of me knew that there were interesting things out there, and now that I was fitted with a camera, I could record them. Huge type A so suddenly it was a game, so suddenly I was looking out the window. I may not have gotten great images, but I was getting the reward of looking out the window and seeing.

I’d see cool textures, or notice graffiti, or funny signs. The sort of thing you do while travelling in a foreign country, but don’t do in your home town.

But somehow I’ve gotten jaded with my photography. I used to notice professional photographers that wouldn’t photograph because it wasn’t the best light or it was just a “nice” waterfall. I think this comes with constantly trying to top your portfolio, rather than record the interesting things you see. You develop a callous filter that says “nope not interesting” “not portfolio worthy” and you take so many pictures anyway, that’s it such a nice break to give yourself permission to just read.

So now I play a game I call “I notice you” when I’m in the car by myself. I actually say out loud or just the narrator in my head “I notice you stop sign with bullet holes”. “I notice you broken railroad crossing gate”. I do this especially when there isn’t anything interesting to notice. I force myself to say it, because it’s legitimizing the discovery and adding value to the act of noticing.  Whereever my eyes land, I plant my verbal flag on the moon and declare it noticed in the name of The Bryn or for Brynlandia.

Anyway, by playing the game with myself I can practice observation, much like I practice holding my 500mm lens. It’s a workout for the eyes and the brain and sometimes it gets me warmed up enough that I see things that I want to photograph at some point.

 

I notice you horses sheltering behind graffiti building.

 

I notice you blog readers.

Yes And…Click (part 1)

Yes And…Click

I strive to be a creative photographer, but some days it’s like pushing rope. Recently I realized that improv has taught me ways to be more creative at a moments notice. In this series of posts I plan to share some of the lessons and games that I find useful.

A few years ago, despite my attempts at crosswords and sudoku, I felt like my brain was getting sluggish, not enough exercise. At the time I was playing in a regular ultimate frisbee pickup game, and a number of us decided to go to an improv comedy show to support a fellow disc player who was performing that night. Watching the show, I thought wow, that looks incredibly challenging, maybe I should take a class as mental exercise. Never imagining performing myself, I found myself taking class after class because I was surrounded with people that made me laugh, and was learning techniques that made improvising easier. Having been invited to join the house team upon graduation I was too honored to turn them down. Since then improvisational theater has joined photography as one of my great passions in life.

When you are not feeling very creative, or are having pixel block, try improvising!

Walk through life with your lens cap off

I was in a workshop where an actor was given a scene suggestion and stopped to ask what his character’s motivation was. Improv is so fast paced that you have to take shortcuts if you will. The camera has to be on, and the lens cap off. Improv is sort of like trying to take pictures on a train. The scenery is moving so fast, you can’t decide that you want to take a picture after you see something interesting. You have to have the camera out of the bag when it’s boring scenery so you can be ready in case something comes along so you can seize that golden moment. And yes, you will sometimes scratch your lens, but isn’t that better than a missed opportunity? Is a well kept lens, or ego, better than a great picture or an audience’s uproarious laughter?

Agreement — Yes, and…

One of the first lessons taught in improv is called Yes And. The lesson is all about agreement. Learning to agree with your scene partners is crucial to not ending up in a Am Too, Are Not argument scene which everybody gets enough of at home, they don’t need to see it on stage. The problem with an Argument is that it has 3 possible endings 1) it keeps going, 2) I win 3) you win. Once one person wins the scene is over, but the payoff is only for the winner not the audience. So, the Yes And exercise forces you to start every line with “Yes, And…” So you agree, and add details. The details then in turn give your scene partner something to play off of and it heightens the scene’s interest by allowing progress to be made.

Stan: You look terrible.
Tina: Yes, and i hope not sleeping for three days gets me the part in this zombie movie.
Stan: Yes, and for good luck, I’ve cooked you veal sweetbreads to put you in the mood.

The forced construct is stilted, but it trains us out of our natural instinct which is to be on the defensive, to argue, or to at least try and communicate our own self view, rather than accept the character other people put on to us. The actor playing Tina may be a vegetarian, and would never eat cow brains to prepare for a zombie movie, but she should pretend she does for that scene! Who knows it may lead to a future scene where she is running a restaurant that has Type O smoothies on the menu.

Can your model not successfully pull off what you were planning? Switch gears and go with that they can pull off. Is their too little light to make a sharp photograph? Accentuate the blur and make the image about motion or underexpose and make it about the darkness.

So no matter what your subject matter is giving you, harsh light, a grumpy look, take it for what it is, and add something of your own to it. Or just stop and take time to notice what the first few shots you are taking, are adding to the scene, or trying to change the scene.

Part 2 – Get the creative blood pumping with warm up games (coming soon)

Painting with Lasers! [video]

Check out this video I shot with Russell Brown (Senior Creative Director at Adobe Systems) on using lasers and flatbed printers to add multidimensionality to “prints”. You can add texture to a picture using the information in the image, carving out relief to show individual hairs on a person’s beard, or just add paint brush like texture.

It was a blast getting to videographer for such a creative guy like Russell, constantly exploding with ideas.

Having done all the editing on Adobe Premiere, After Effects and Soundbooth, that the CS5 version is really really great. I would recommend it to people using more expensive editing software. You can preview edits and effects in real time with a NVidia graphics card and their CUDA drivers (that technology came out of my friend Ian Buck’s graduate work. Go Ian!)

 

Here’s the adobe blog post with the video: http://blogs.adobe.com/photoshopdotcom/2011/01/russell-brown-teaches-fans-his-extreme-painting-technique-using-photoshop-cs5.html

You can click “watch on youtube” on the player, to watch in HD