This week’s TED is directly improv related. Charlie Todd the founder of Improv Everywhere in New York City discusses his organizations goal of bringing fun, play, and positive shared experiences to public places. I really love this quote by Todd describing the reason for his missions, “There is no point and there doesn’t have to be a point. We don’t need a reason. As long as it’s fun.” I improv, because it allows me to play as an adult, and Todd backs me up on that idea in his talk. So find a way to play today!
Tag Archive: Creativity
Check out this awesome video by Jill Bernard. I took a workshop with Jill about two years ago, and she was so awesome and refreshing. It’s reiterated in this video, but Jill definitely taught me to let go in my improv and to like what I did on stage. It’s easy to always be judgmental while I was in the moment improvising, and especially once I got off stage. Thanks to Jill, I let that go, at least a little bit!
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Ok so I have really gotten into this TED-ed talks. This one is again a bit animated, as Adam Savage tells three stories about how major scientific discoveries came from simple ideas. It show how even a small interaction from years ago in someone’s childhood can really affect their thought process in the future. I think this really brings to life a story of how the creative process works!
I have been out of the improv game for 51 days, and each moment seems like an aching pain to my body. While I was living in North Carolina and more specifically for the last year, I have been doing improv in some form or another about five nights a week. To get out of the game cold turkey as I moved across the country has been a hard transition to make. While the wheels are slowly starting to turn in the direction of reintroducing improv into my life, here are my thoughts on why I need improv.
We live in a world of no, and sometimes negativity comes along with that. In the everyday world we hear the same old answers ad nauseam, “there is not enough money in the budget, it can’t be done, that won’t work.” While living in that world on the everyday, it is so nice to walk into a place where you know that every single option put on the table will be accepted and heightened! “Yes and,” invigorating and refreshing to the soul!
Improv is journey taken together. When you and your scene partner are on stage, you have to be going in the same direction, even if it doesn’t appear that way to the audience. Whatever the adventure put forth, there needs to be an acceptance of that is where the scene is going. Sometimes that doesn’t happen in the real world, hey lets go here this weekend, doesn’t always end up being a cool trip planned and implemented. The journey wanted and needed!
The ultimate creative outlet, at least for me! As you can tell from this blog, I am a bit of a nerd when it comes to creativity. I thrive on it, my way of life. I was recently on the phone with a college friend and I was talking about creativity. She said with the most direct of tone, “you certainly are creative!” I have come to learn I am great with the idea generation, but not necessarily the details on making it happen. In the real world I need to live in those moments of creativity, and then get down to business. In improv it’s the other way around, I need to get down to business, and then be endlessly creative!
Being a bit goofy! I love to be goofy, weird, sarcastic, and a little crazy. Something else I need to really temper in the real world. It makes people uncomfortable and question your validity, especially when you are the boss. I need to be goofy, and that is where the improv outlet helps me the most. I love scenic, game based scenes, and I think they are even better when it feels true to life. But, I love myself a good scene that goes to crazy town!
Wow, it felt good to get that out. I have been feeling a bit of angst recently, and this was my diagnosis! Now the hard part, making the improv happen!
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This is a really powerful TED talk. We all know I am a bit of a Pixar freak, and it’s really awesome to hear one of their head honchos talk about his creative process. There is so much to love about the talk, around the 9 minute mark Stanton basically quotes strength theory. It’s also great to hear Stanton break down storytelling into such simple terms! Watch and enjoy!
Each year Disney puts on special events and promotions to draw people into their parks. Disney has certainly knocked it out of the park the past couples years with the huge Happiest Celebration on Earth campaign for Disneyland’s 50th Anniversary, their Magical Gatherings campaign, and recently the create your memories campaign.
This year is no different as Disney is taking advantage of the leap year in promoting One Extra Day. For the first time ever both Disneyland Park in Anaheim and Magic Kingdom Park in Orlando will be open for 24 straight hours. I love Disney’s campaigns; they are always innovative and exciting. Which this one definitely is! I know several Disney aficionados making the trip to a Disney Parker today to be apart of the action. Everyone should take some time to enjoy their Leap Day!
Any time I get to see a TED Talk about positive psychology, I get excited! The other thing that got me pumped about this talk was how funny it was. Shawn does an excellent job of weaving humor and excitement into his talk. I really enjoyed the push for positivity, describing how our brains work better,and are smarter on the positivity pill. Shawn also does an excellent job of laying out five simple steps you can implement on a daily basis to improve your happiness.
Photo by Sarah Hoye CNN.com
You may think this article is about my glorious moment in the sun on the two person improv team, Robot Girlfriend, luckily for you, its not! Actually, I’m going to talk about this article on CNN which really caught my attention. It featured Heather Knight a social robotic scientist who is working with a robot named Data who does standup comedy. Knight is working with the robot to teach it basic improvisation skills. During its act, audience members hold up cards detailing their opinion of the joke. The robot then scans the cards, analyzes the sound level of the laughter and reacts to the audience. Those reactions could be a punch line as to why the joke wasn’t funny, continuation of the present material, or a switch up to other stories that might elicit a better reaction.
Computers acting more like humans always kind of creep me out a bit. On one level I feel a little weirded out by robots that are humanesk, it’s like going to Disney World and seeing Abraham Lincoln talk and it just feels a bit off. I also always get these crazy I, Robot or Matrix type visions of the world being taken over by robots. Thankfully the article confirmed we are a long way off, if ever going to be in a place where that could happen. I was comforted by the fact that all of the current computer power in the world, on every single computing system humans have ever created, equals about one human brain. Whew!
I did really relate to the section of the article that discussed where improvisation comes from. It’s all of the built up knowledge for out past, humankinds past, and we process that to make snap decisions in the present. It also comes from that space between boredom and complete panic that we are fully out of control. The article states, “improvisation can be thought of as a continuum between unthinking reactions and fully engaged playfulness.” That is one percent true, the best improvisation comes from the moments when we don’t need to think and we are just reacting. We feel totally comfortable on the stage and we just get to play. It’s getting to that place of comfort and play that is the hard part. I always tell my students they need to let go, feel like you aren’t control, and that is the space you will find the most control. If you can do that, the funny will happen!
The NCAA is creating a special event to kick off the upcoming basketball season. In one of the most exciting and unique ways to play a sporting event, the game will be played on the USS Carl Vinson. They are going to be creating a court and seating for 7,000 spectators on the deck of the aircraft carrier. The event was created to celebrate veterans, will happen on 11-11-11, and to top it off President Obama will be in attendance.
My current institution the University of North Carolina will play Michigan State, and I am really excited to see this creative game take place. To celebrate this week, I wanted to show the above video which features how the trophy was made for the event. I love how even the trophy was created by a company in the northeast who builds the giant aircraft carriers. So tune in at 7:00PM EST on Friday to catch this exciting and creative event!
College football is filled with traditions, from Play Like a Champion Today, lighting the torch in the LA Coliseum, to Michigan Ohio State. But there is definitely one college football tradition that pretty much every single college football fan can agree they like. It doesn’t matter what team you like, the conference your allegiance is aligned with, or what part of the country you live in, this tradition starts off your college football Saturday. The most amazing thing about this tradition is that it doesn’t even happen at a football stadium, it happens outside of the top game of the day, where Lee Corso puts on the head gear of whatever team he picks to with that headline game.
This tradition started in 1996 when Corso picked Ohio State over Penn State by putting the Brutus Buckeye head on to end the broadcast. After that day, a new tradition was cemented into the college football time. Now everyone just waits for that moment when Corso will pick a mascot, stick it on his head, and do that goofy little wave.
One of the best thing about the headgear tradition is the gamesmanship involved with it. Corso is a natural actor and exciting personality, and his headgear predictions have become more and more of a production. Every week Corso looks for a way to top the previous prediction like firing off guns, or jumping more into a campus tradition, or throwing away the mascot hear he is not going to pick. While always new and exciting, the pick always feels the same. Headgear is the ultimate action to finish the College Game Day show and allow for the kickoff of the noon games.
Traditions come from many different places, and sometimes they are the weirdest things like a grown man putting on a mascot head to end a television show. Naturally this one feels just right, and that is the thing about traditions, once they feel right we need to embrace and heighten them. I love headgear; it is just perfect beginning to a college football game. This past Saturday Lee Corso celebrated his 200th headgear selection, and this is a day to honor what is great about college football and traditions. Thank you Lee Corso, and I look forward to many more exciting and different headgear selections!
