Lessons stand-ups can learn from improvisers #3: Flashing (+ Exercise)
Lessons stand-ups can learn from improvisers #3: Flashing (+ Exercise)
It doesn't mean showing your junk
Hello kind reader! Thanks for an amazing year 🥰 I’m going travelling! I’m going to be schlepping my 90s mountain bike and 80s body from Copenhagen to Nordkapp somehow. If you’re interested in that sort of thing I’m going to write about it which will probably be funny and weird https://authenticcomedy.substack.com/s/gen-x-bikepacking-glory EDIT: lol turns out I definitely don’t have the time or energy! Follow me on instagram for the digest version.
I will continue writing The Authentic Comedian as I’ll need something to do in the evening, other than gaze at the majesty of nature 🥱. Most likely I’ll be re-writing some older articles you might have missed, which are also some of my favourites. And maybe I’ll finish one of the 12 drafts I have - who knows! 🚲
This exercise is free but the exercise at the end is just for paid subscribers.
Other in this series:
In improv you have to come up with solid ideas very quickly, so improvisers use a technique called “flashing”. This means getting to the emotional heart of an idea as quickly as possible. You “flash” to a personal memory, and use the emotions to drive a scene.
When you’re writing stand-up you’re not generally under a time constraint, but this is still a valuable skill to learn for writing. It’s definitely a valuable skill if you’re doing crowd-work or improvising stand-up.
Can I get a..?
Improvisers are often given a one word suggestion in order to inspire scenes. Say the suggestion is “tangerine”. An inexperienced improviser might create multiple scenes featuring tangerines. Even if someone tries to A-C the suggestion, and get away from it “I’ve stained my wedding dress!”, the untrained improviser will always bring it back to the core suggestion “Here, try and rub this tangerine on it!”.
Flashing means getting to a core emotion of a subject. It’s fast way to make a more emotional scene. Emotional scenes are easier to play, and more engaging to watch. If I was to “flash” the word tangerine I’d think of:
(dad eating an orange) My dad was a health nut & ate a lot of fruit but still died young
(smell of The Body Shop) I don’t care about perfume, but I used to try to be more feminine
(mouldy fruit in my backpack) Packing healthy food for a trip but then just getting Burger King
(One of my students has a joke about this) Your baby is the size of a tangerine
(blergh) I hate citrus seeds
(Tangerine dream) Music was better in the past, or was it? Or do all old people think that? Will people in the future really be like “Harry Styles, now THAT was music!”
(Orange faced people) Wearing too much make-up
- How To Be The Greatest Improviser On Earth (essential reading for improvisers)Ian Roberts [UCB co-founder] uses a technique called "flashing." He points out that almost any move from one actor will trigger in the other actor some kind of memory or association. It will flash right away with very little thought. If you pay attention, you can "catch" that flash and use it in your scene. This will give you your second choice, and it will be using your unique experiences to do so. In [a] "making a snowman" scene, you need something like:
you're proud of having made a snowman because it's such a "normal kid" thing to do, as opposed to socially awkward, or
your mom kicked you out of the house to play outside because she wanted to have sex with your father, or
this is the first time you and your brother have done something without fist-fighting, or
your grandfather would have been proud of you because he loved snowmen so much.
Flashing exercise
This exercise is designed to train your "flashing muscle, and use it to write deeper premises for stand-up comedy. Like all of my exercises, it’s paywalled! (sad trombone)
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