Category: Quote

Nathan [Fielder] had made a lot of pieces at This Hour Has 22 Minutes in Canada, and I think one of the things he found out, and it made such a big difference in Nathan for You, is just to really not ever force anything and not try to create a reaction. Like if a person is in a real situation, their reactions might be very small, but that’s still the real reaction of that person in that situation. As much as I like, you know,The Three Stooges or Bugs Bunny or something, it’s really funny just to see how a person actually behaves in a really awkward situation, and sometimes people being small and polite is just as funny. If it was written, a lot of times there’d be a really big reaction because you want the audience to feel something, so it’s really cool when people — especially when it’s actors and you’re banking on your actors being funny — that you just let them be natural and accept that people watching this will get that it’s a truthful reaction.
Michael Koman on letting audiences find the funny from truthful reactions – something that applies to improv as much as the written material he’s talking about. More comedy theory in a really great interview with Splitsider here.

There’s also the concept of taking care of the audience. In other words, there is no movie without an audience. Movies don’t exist unless there’s someone there to watch them. So they’ve given you their trust. They’ve given you their time. So it’s like, are we taking care of them?
Michael Showalter on the unwritten agreement between the filmmaker and the filmgoer.

Kevin Scott on the unspoken improviser/audience agreement

[..] part of being an improviser that the audience wants to see is a display of skill that the audience does not have. It’s like watching dancers on Broadway – they want to see someone who can do something that they can’t.
Kevin Scott of Centralia on the unspoken agreement between the audience and an improviser, as heard on Improv Nerd E134.

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