WEBVTT 00:00:00.140 --> 00:00:02.700 Hey everybody, welcome back to the SoCap Improv 00:00:02.700 --> 00:00:05.379 Comedy Podcast. My name is Ralph, I'm the owner 00:00:05.379 --> 00:00:08.119 and artistic director at the SoCap Improv Comedy 00:00:08.119 --> 00:00:11.359 Theatre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. S -O -C 00:00:11.359 --> 00:00:16.460 -A -P dot C -A, SoCap dot C -A. Uh, yeah, so 00:00:16.460 --> 00:00:18.600 come on down and take a class with us, or send 00:00:18.600 --> 00:00:21.679 me questions, or comments, or whatever you like. 00:00:21.920 --> 00:00:25.600 Uh, and the purpose of this podcast is to talk 00:00:25.600 --> 00:00:29.219 about improvisational comedy. But not just for 00:00:29.219 --> 00:00:35.159 stage, but also in real life. You know, I say 00:00:35.159 --> 00:00:38.780 this all the time, but I live my life honestly 00:00:38.780 --> 00:00:41.460 by a lot of the principles that I talk about 00:00:41.460 --> 00:00:44.520 when I talk about improvisation. You know, so 00:00:44.520 --> 00:00:48.659 just briefly some examples are I try, don't try 00:00:48.659 --> 00:00:50.780 to control what happens to me. I try to control 00:00:50.780 --> 00:00:55.049 how I react to it. And try to see the value in 00:00:55.049 --> 00:00:57.469 all the things that happen, whether good or bad. 00:00:57.850 --> 00:01:01.750 I try to love what happens. As Nietzsche said, 00:01:01.890 --> 00:01:06.250 amor fati, love what happens. I do try to treat 00:01:06.250 --> 00:01:10.250 problems and chaos and nuance as opportunities 00:01:10.250 --> 00:01:13.609 rather than things to avoid or be mad about. 00:01:14.049 --> 00:01:17.370 And I think for me, when I live my life this 00:01:17.370 --> 00:01:22.219 way, it really makes life more enjoyable. You 00:01:22.219 --> 00:01:24.560 know, my mood is better and I'm more flexible 00:01:24.560 --> 00:01:27.519 and all these other things. So today's topic, 00:01:27.640 --> 00:01:31.579 I want to talk about being specific versus being 00:01:31.579 --> 00:01:37.780 general in your offers. And I'll get into what 00:01:37.780 --> 00:01:40.780 I mean in a moment. But just, you know, I think 00:01:40.780 --> 00:01:42.319 we all kind of know what specific and general 00:01:42.319 --> 00:01:45.549 is, right? But, you know, in general, like don't 00:01:45.549 --> 00:01:49.769 say or try not to say, oh, do you want to get 00:01:49.769 --> 00:01:52.010 in my car? It's better to say, do you want to 00:01:52.010 --> 00:01:56.189 get into my Hummer or my Mazda 3 or my Volkswagen 00:01:56.189 --> 00:02:01.329 Beetle? Right. Or, hey, you want some food versus, 00:02:01.390 --> 00:02:04.370 hey, you want some greasy fries or you want some 00:02:04.370 --> 00:02:09.509 cheese, French cheese omelette, the omelette 00:02:09.509 --> 00:02:11.960 du fromage. You want something like that? These 00:02:11.960 --> 00:02:17.819 are, that's being specific. And now why? Why, 00:02:17.819 --> 00:02:21.319 Ralph, why does it matter? Well, number one, 00:02:21.319 --> 00:02:24.960 for an audience, whether that audience is on 00:02:24.960 --> 00:02:27.780 stage or, you know, across the dinner table from 00:02:27.780 --> 00:02:31.479 you, specific offers are more relatable to people. 00:02:32.199 --> 00:02:35.460 And in the terms of being on stage, they'll tend 00:02:35.460 --> 00:02:41.560 to laugh, right? And so for an example, You know, 00:02:41.580 --> 00:02:43.780 I've heard, and this is the one that resonates 00:02:43.780 --> 00:02:46.020 with me because I've heard this. I've heard people, 00:02:46.159 --> 00:02:49.580 you know, when an offer is made and, you know, 00:02:49.580 --> 00:02:50.960 they're talking about washing their clothes and 00:02:50.960 --> 00:02:53.139 they say, don't add the detergent. They say, 00:02:53.159 --> 00:02:56.439 oh, add the Tide and people will laugh. And I 00:02:56.439 --> 00:02:58.599 was always very curious about why people laughed 00:02:58.599 --> 00:03:02.580 at that. And I've come to believe that it's because, 00:03:02.719 --> 00:03:06.060 oh, Tide, I know that. Or I use that. That's 00:03:06.060 --> 00:03:08.860 I get that, you know, and it just increases the 00:03:08.860 --> 00:03:10.520 connection between you and your audience. And 00:03:10.520 --> 00:03:12.939 it pulls them in a bit more because even if they 00:03:12.939 --> 00:03:15.419 don't use Tide, they've probably heard of it. 00:03:15.460 --> 00:03:18.840 And yes, Tide is sponsoring this episode. So 00:03:18.840 --> 00:03:22.879 go out and get your Tide. Right. And being specific 00:03:22.879 --> 00:03:26.500 also creates a connection and the clarity. You 00:03:26.500 --> 00:03:29.719 know, it's. You know, it's different if you're, 00:03:29.719 --> 00:03:33.319 you know, talking about, oh, at the aquarium, 00:03:33.639 --> 00:03:35.360 it's like, oh, I see fish. Oh, no, no, look, 00:03:35.560 --> 00:03:39.060 I see a turtle. And, you know, if people bend 00:03:39.060 --> 00:03:41.360 to Ripley's or other aquarium, oh, yeah, sea 00:03:41.360 --> 00:03:45.080 turtles. They'll have more of an emotional attachment 00:03:45.080 --> 00:03:48.759 to that or like, oh, it's a shark or a salmon, 00:03:48.780 --> 00:03:51.319 you know, rather than just a generic fish. It's 00:03:51.319 --> 00:03:54.479 like a specific thing. So it's relatable. People 00:03:54.479 --> 00:03:58.379 will laugh. Oh, yeah, I know that. And they will 00:03:58.379 --> 00:04:01.419 have more of a connection to a specific thing 00:04:01.419 --> 00:04:07.180 versus just a little thing. And one time this 00:04:07.180 --> 00:04:10.319 happens a lot is in scenes in a library or bookstore 00:04:10.319 --> 00:04:13.139 where someone pulls a book off a shelf. And they'll 00:04:13.139 --> 00:04:15.340 often say, oh, it's a dictionary or it's a fiction 00:04:15.340 --> 00:04:18.699 book. And in those cases, generally, you know, 00:04:18.699 --> 00:04:20.860 when you say the name of the title of the book, 00:04:20.879 --> 00:04:22.839 someone says, what are you reading? It's better 00:04:22.839 --> 00:04:26.069 to have like a real book title. And better. I 00:04:26.069 --> 00:04:28.750 mean, because if you say a real title like, oh, 00:04:28.829 --> 00:04:33.149 it's Moby Dick or the Game of Thrones or Lord 00:04:33.149 --> 00:04:38.149 of the Rings or The Stand, you know, anybody 00:04:38.149 --> 00:04:41.129 who knows that book will laugh. Ha ha. You have 00:04:41.129 --> 00:04:45.089 created a mini environment, a mini relatable, 00:04:45.389 --> 00:04:48.129 a mini community with that. And they'll laugh. 00:04:48.800 --> 00:04:51.160 at the recognition of it so the the laughter 00:04:51.160 --> 00:04:53.800 is ahaha i'm i know that book i'm in oh i'm look 00:04:53.800 --> 00:04:56.439 at me i'm smart and i'm elevated so they really 00:04:56.439 --> 00:05:01.040 like it one thing uh just while i'm talking about 00:05:01.040 --> 00:05:04.660 books you know uh so the two things i see the 00:05:04.660 --> 00:05:08.060 most are people say oh it's a fiction book or 00:05:08.060 --> 00:05:10.079 a dictionary or the or they'll try to make up 00:05:10.079 --> 00:05:13.300 a title right and then they'll pause because 00:05:13.300 --> 00:05:15.480 they're trying to think of a perfect hilarious 00:05:15.480 --> 00:05:20.329 title Oh, a thousand and eight uses for cheese. 00:05:21.110 --> 00:05:24.410 And if you say that, you might get one or two 00:05:24.410 --> 00:05:25.949 people in the audience doing that head laugh. 00:05:26.009 --> 00:05:28.930 Ha! Right. Oh, that's clever. Right. And they 00:05:28.930 --> 00:05:32.209 might like it. And I'm not here to say that that's 00:05:32.209 --> 00:05:37.269 good or bad or if you prefer like a belly laugh. 00:05:37.529 --> 00:05:40.589 But you won't get that connection. You will get 00:05:40.589 --> 00:05:45.089 often a couple of people laughing like that. 00:05:45.470 --> 00:05:49.209 at your cleverness, but you'll miss out on that. 00:05:49.550 --> 00:05:53.250 Oh, no, I'm more invested in your scene. I'm 00:05:53.250 --> 00:05:55.689 more with you. You want to really bring people 00:05:55.689 --> 00:05:59.089 on board. I say often that, you know, we're not 00:05:59.089 --> 00:06:01.490 trying to be comedians so much as trying to spread 00:06:01.490 --> 00:06:04.629 joy. If you spread joy, that will make people 00:06:04.629 --> 00:06:08.529 laugh a lot more and have a better time and want 00:06:08.529 --> 00:06:10.610 to come back and see you again, whether you're 00:06:10.610 --> 00:06:13.589 on stage or whether you're out in the world. 00:06:15.179 --> 00:06:18.100 So just some other little examples. If someone 00:06:18.100 --> 00:06:21.060 offers you a drink, instead of saying, oh, would 00:06:21.060 --> 00:06:23.360 you like a drink? Say, would you like a non -alcoholic 00:06:23.360 --> 00:06:26.339 beer? Would you like a tea? Someone brings you 00:06:26.339 --> 00:06:27.959 flowers. Not just, oh, you brought me flowers. 00:06:28.079 --> 00:06:30.819 Oh, you brought me yellow carnations. If you 00:06:30.819 --> 00:06:33.180 have a smell in the air, it's like, oh, I smell 00:06:33.180 --> 00:06:37.699 jasmine or burnt toast or the smell of decay 00:06:37.699 --> 00:06:42.540 versus just a smell. If you're around the sensor 00:06:42.540 --> 00:06:45.459 objects like a fire, oh, feel the heat of the 00:06:45.459 --> 00:06:48.779 fire. We have a beverage. Oh, this coffee's hot. 00:06:49.259 --> 00:06:52.259 In your imagination, in your mind's eye, try 00:06:52.259 --> 00:06:57.980 to see these things and comment on them and kind 00:06:57.980 --> 00:07:01.339 of imagine you can feel them. Because this takes 00:07:01.339 --> 00:07:04.199 me to my next thing about being specific. Not 00:07:04.199 --> 00:07:06.339 only will you create connections with other people, 00:07:06.459 --> 00:07:10.500 but it will root you in the present. right if 00:07:10.500 --> 00:07:13.199 you can if you look if you're doing a scene where 00:07:13.199 --> 00:07:14.920 you're fishing and you look out and you see the 00:07:14.920 --> 00:07:17.680 lake and you see mountains or trees and clouds 00:07:17.680 --> 00:07:21.759 and birds chirping and hear the crickets that 00:07:21.759 --> 00:07:24.480 will root you in the here and now the same way 00:07:24.480 --> 00:07:27.100 that using an emotion does you'll be in the moment 00:07:27.100 --> 00:07:32.360 uh if you see those things you won't be you will 00:07:32.360 --> 00:07:34.540 be present and your self -consciousness will 00:07:34.540 --> 00:07:37.259 go away so it helps you get into the moment It 00:07:37.259 --> 00:07:39.500 overcomes your self -consciousness. It makes 00:07:39.500 --> 00:07:45.139 you more receptive and open and aware. And the 00:07:45.139 --> 00:07:48.759 third thing about being really specific, so we've 00:07:48.759 --> 00:07:53.310 got it will make you more relatable. It will 00:07:53.310 --> 00:07:55.329 root you in the moment. And the third is it suggests 00:07:55.329 --> 00:07:58.829 character, right? So if I say, would you like 00:07:58.829 --> 00:08:00.670 a non -alcoholic beer? Well, that says something 00:08:00.670 --> 00:08:03.149 about my character, right? It says, oh, maybe 00:08:03.149 --> 00:08:06.670 my character is against alcohol or is conscious 00:08:06.670 --> 00:08:08.790 of their health versus just to drink, right? 00:08:08.930 --> 00:08:11.430 It'll pick up little subtle comments that other 00:08:11.430 --> 00:08:15.569 people can build on and you start to have a rapport 00:08:15.569 --> 00:08:20.689 and you build something from that. And so that's 00:08:20.689 --> 00:08:25.310 the third one is that you have a sense of the 00:08:25.310 --> 00:08:32.870 character, right? So those are the three kind 00:08:32.870 --> 00:08:35.590 of things. Now, there is one time that I recommend 00:08:35.590 --> 00:08:39.690 it's not a good time to be specific because, 00:08:39.850 --> 00:08:42.289 you know, no rules and sometimes it's not a good 00:08:42.289 --> 00:08:44.509 idea. And one of those times it's not good to 00:08:44.509 --> 00:08:47.580 be specific is when you're talking about. a cause 00:08:47.580 --> 00:08:50.139 of a death of a character like why is a character 00:08:50.139 --> 00:08:53.340 dying because if you say something like if you're 00:08:53.340 --> 00:08:55.700 dying of cancer or heart disease or stroke or 00:08:55.700 --> 00:09:00.720 something that is a real thing anybody generally 00:09:00.720 --> 00:09:04.139 watching you especially an audience will be taken 00:09:04.139 --> 00:09:06.519 away from the moment and they'll think about 00:09:06.519 --> 00:09:09.039 the time that terrible disease affected them 00:09:09.039 --> 00:09:11.320 or someone that they loved because we've all 00:09:11.320 --> 00:09:15.110 been touched by these horrendous diseases So 00:09:15.110 --> 00:09:17.870 that will take your audience and your whether 00:09:17.870 --> 00:09:20.169 that audience is again sitting in the stands 00:09:20.169 --> 00:09:22.470 or across the dinner table from you. It'll take 00:09:22.470 --> 00:09:24.370 them away from the moment and they'll be thinking 00:09:24.370 --> 00:09:27.269 about they'll be transported like out of the 00:09:27.269 --> 00:09:29.850 moment and back into their their mind, their 00:09:29.850 --> 00:09:33.090 self -consciousness. So once again, this is not 00:09:33.090 --> 00:09:35.990 about being PC, which, you know, people ask me 00:09:35.990 --> 00:09:37.970 a lot. It's like it's not about being PC. It's 00:09:37.970 --> 00:09:42.269 about not. not upsetting your audience unnecessarily 00:09:42.269 --> 00:09:44.629 and it will it will tend to upset them i've seen 00:09:44.629 --> 00:09:47.330 people run out of the theater crying because 00:09:47.330 --> 00:09:50.309 on stage people were talking about a character 00:09:50.309 --> 00:09:54.929 dying of of um cancer and uh they were being 00:09:54.929 --> 00:09:57.830 kind of flippant about it and you know it's just 00:09:57.830 --> 00:10:00.690 gonna upset people and you know at the end of 00:10:00.690 --> 00:10:02.549 the day you do what you want but i don't want 00:10:02.549 --> 00:10:06.230 to upset my audience okay so when it comes to 00:10:06.230 --> 00:10:10.029 death what i would recommend is that you uh you 00:10:10.029 --> 00:10:13.710 know, talk about very general things like, oh, 00:10:13.730 --> 00:10:16.470 they were poisoned or they died of a mysterious 00:10:16.470 --> 00:10:20.309 illness or a scurvy, something that doesn't, 00:10:20.309 --> 00:10:23.250 you know, that's unlikely to affect somebody 00:10:23.250 --> 00:10:26.970 in your life. It's funny because sometimes, you 00:10:26.970 --> 00:10:29.409 know, we say murdered a lot. We murder a lot 00:10:29.409 --> 00:10:32.669 of characters. And for some reason, that one 00:10:32.669 --> 00:10:37.330 rarely gets upset, anybody upset. And I'm sure 00:10:37.330 --> 00:10:40.070 that I've had many people in my audiences who've, 00:10:40.149 --> 00:10:43.470 you know, had family members murdered. But anyway, 00:10:43.610 --> 00:10:50.230 I digress. So in closing, being specific is generally 00:10:50.230 --> 00:10:53.549 a much better way to go than just being generic 00:10:53.549 --> 00:10:57.809 because it will create a relatable connection 00:10:57.809 --> 00:11:01.179 between you and your audience. It will root you 00:11:01.179 --> 00:11:03.440 in the present moment if you can see these things, 00:11:03.580 --> 00:11:06.179 if you see yellow carnations versus just flowers. 00:11:06.960 --> 00:11:10.240 And it will suggest character. It will suggest, 00:11:10.360 --> 00:11:15.860 you know, aspects of your character. Like if 00:11:15.860 --> 00:11:19.139 you're eating in, you know, if you're eating 00:11:19.139 --> 00:11:21.340 at McDonald's versus, oh, I'm eating at, you 00:11:21.340 --> 00:11:23.779 know, this Michelin restaurant, that's going 00:11:23.779 --> 00:11:26.080 to tell us something about your character, right? 00:11:26.279 --> 00:11:30.139 Which will help. inspire your scene partner to 00:11:30.139 --> 00:11:33.840 add more things to it, right? It's easier to 00:11:33.840 --> 00:11:38.360 build something when, you know, your choices 00:11:38.360 --> 00:11:40.620 become limited. So if we're eating at a Michelin 00:11:40.620 --> 00:11:42.639 restaurant, that tells us some things about these 00:11:42.639 --> 00:11:45.000 characters and it will make making other choices 00:11:45.000 --> 00:11:50.379 easier. Right. So that's what I have today. Thank 00:11:50.379 --> 00:11:52.940 you very much for checking us out. We'll see 00:11:52.940 --> 00:11:54.980 you here next time on the SoCap Improv Comedy 00:11:54.980 --> 00:11:57.480 Podcast. My name has been Ralph and we'll see 00:11:57.480 --> 00:11:59.820 you next time. Take care, as always. Ciao.