Improvising Screenplays: Finding the Funny in

Your Screenplay, Using the Game of the

Scene
By: Brett Wean | December 18, 2013

In Improvising Screenplays, improvisational actor Brett Wean shares how the concepts of improvisation can be applied to the work and play of writing your script.
Im going to, very briefly, give away the secret of how great improv actors jump up on stage, get a
one-word suggestion from the audience, and then without having anything planned create an
entire scene off the cuff thats often funnier than anything youll typically see on Saturday Night
Live. Then Ill show you how you can start to apply that technique to your comedy scenes. (And
maybe a bit beyond.)
The concept Im talking about is The Game of the scene. The idea was
finessed and perfected when Amy Poehler and the other three members
of her improv group, the Upright Citizens Brigade, moved to New York to
start their own (now world-renowned) theater after being trained, themselves, in Chicago.
The idea is relatively simple. Performers establish a who-what-where to
the scene, playing at the top of their intelligence, and establishing a groundwork of reality. Meanwhile still playing real, not trying to be funny they listen carefully for something that naturally pops up as the first unusual thing.
That unusual thing can reveal itself in any number of ways. It could be a wildly inventive
high-concept idea that one of the actors suddenly has: perhaps hes playing a plumber, interacting
with a housewife and he suddenly, in a fit of inspiration, reveals that hes an alien.
Youre saying youre a what, now? the person playing the housewife might respond thus
communicating to the other actor that shes picked up on this unusual thing, and that they can
now focus in on it, together.
Or, the first unusual thing could simply be an unexpected emotional reaction. Two actors slump
into a room, joining a third. Its raining out, Jilly, one of them might announce sadly. Yeah, the
second could join in, sounding disappointed. The picnics been called off.
Great! the third person could cheerfully react. That means we can do our math homework! (Unusual? Yes. But believable: some kids do like math, and would prefer not going outside.)
Trained improvisers in agreement on what the first unusual element is then hone in on this
unusual thing and thats the game of the scene.
Establishing a game creates an efficient structure, and focus, for a comedy scene. It allows performers to not to have to continuously as it might seem to an audience come up with brilliantly funny jokes or one-liners to keep everyone laughing. They simply have to concentrate on
that one unexpected or unusual element, continue to behave realistically around it, and steadily
establish a pattern based on how this one element would play out in reality. The comedy naturally
arises from that.
How will the housewife react to the alien plumber? Comedy will generate from whatever her emotional and intellectual reaction is, as long as its honest. Is she scared? Maybe so. And the alien
then might go to great odds to convince her he means her no harm all while being completely
intent on unclogging her toilet.
Mrs. Hudson I know you dont want me to come any closer. I swear Im not going to laser beam
you. But if you could just switch places with me, move over toward the hamper, I could reach that
plunger over there and more quickly be out of here
Or, maybe her first instinct is to call the police! The press! Tell everyone about this great discovery: that there is alien life, right here on Earth! But she really wants that drain unclogged before
her party tonight.
I have so many wonderful things to tell you! the alien might enthuse. About the universe and
technology and your place in the galaxy
Thats great, the housewife might cut him off. But do you think youll be able to get this sink
working by 7 oclock?
A very simple game is played out in one of the many wonderful scenes in When Harry Met Sally.
Billy Crystal and Bruno Kirby are at a football game, having a serious conversation about divorce.
The rest of the people in the stadium are doing The Wave. And, while still having this heart-

to-heart conversation, Billy and Bruno keep having to stand up and raise their arms every few moments as The Wave comes through.
The famous stateroom scene in The Marx Brothers A Night at the Opera is another extremely
simple example of a game. On board a ship, the three characters are packed in to a small cabin.
Analyzing the structure of the scene for game, we would identify the unusual thing as how small
the cabin is. As the characters have their conversation, more and more people enter the
roomwaiters with trays of food, a cleaning lady, a manicurist, the ships captain, etc., with more
and more ridiculous results.
Often, but not always, the simple pattern of the game is examined in terms of The Rule of Threes.
If one little girl is excited that the picnic is rained out, because she and her two sisters can now do
math homework instead, how might that play out? Maybe she excitedly makes a contest out of it,
in exactly the same way a normal kid might play a competitive game at a picnic. Maybe she has
prizes arranged. Are the other two kids miserableor do they get on board and have a good time,
arguing over whos better at math? Each time the pattern of the comedy is repeated, it will ideally
be heightened in some way, ramping up the pace and the stakes. In a typical comedy sketch, well
return to the game three times.
If this is truethen what else is true? is a common way improvisers examine a comedic situation,
heightening the possibilities of the game, mining it for potential. If this is a household where kids
like doing math homework more than playing outside, how might the parents typically react?
Maybe their mother is on the other side of the door, calling in suspiciously, You better be running
around in there, and getting some exercise!
We are, mom! We are! the kids might call out, lying to her, from their seated positions on the
floor. Were playing catch!
I better not come in there to find you doing math homework again!
The kids, of course, will have quickly tucked away under the sofa all the textbooks and equationfilled scratch paper the second they heard a parent coming near.
Theres a snippet of a clearly game-based scene in the commercial now airing for the soon-tobe-released comedy sequel, Anchorman 2. Meeting a new colleague, our small group of naive reporters ignorantly question him, knowing so little about homosexuality that they confuse gay people with vampires:
Do you sleep in a coffin?
No, thats vampires, the new guy patiently answers.
Are you allowed to be out in the sun? Paul Rudd asks.
Those are also vampires.
Not every comedy scene in a movie is obviously structured in terms of gamebut many of them
are. Most sketch comedy is. And the funny moments in movies if they dont seem to be arranged around a simple game, themselves are often reflective of the central game of the film as
a whole. (More on this in a later article.)
So whats the upshot for you, a screenwriter (as opposed to someone improvising on stage, off
the top of their head)?
Keep it simple. Keep your comedic element focused. Decide on one simple, unusual thing, and
develop it as a pattern, laid atop a groundwork of straight-laced reality. (Amateur comedy writers
simply smash crazy on top of crazyand the results, generally, are just confusing, and not funny.)
Whats the central comedic premise? If thats the case, then what else might be true? How can we
make the scene, and the humor, build more and more, by heightening each consecutive exploration of it?
In future columns, I will continue to explore and examine the element of Game, not just in comedy
scenes, and comedy films as a whole, but how this technique of pattern-building and heightening
can aid you in structuring and writing any kind of movie, even a serious one.
For now, just begin to notice when watching funny movies and sketch comedy: whats the game of
the scene? How often is the pattern repeated? How might they be heightening it each time? And finally, how can you apply it to your own writing?
Have any questions about improv, and how it relates to writing for the screen? Feel free to post
comments below or send questions via Twitter. Theyll be considered for a future installment.
Related Articles:
More Improvising Screenplay articles by Brett Wean
Spit Takes by comedy writer Stephany Folsom
Balls of Steel: What Can Writers Learn from Actor Interviews
Spit Takes: Take an Improv Class (B*tch) and Become a Better Comedy Writer

Tools to Help:
Screenwriting Product Review: Outlining Software
10 Steps to a Bullet-Proof Outline Before You Start Writing Script PagesOn Demand Webinar
Crafting the Outline for Your Feature Film DVD

CATEGORIES
,,

About Brett Wean

BRETT WEAN is a writer and actor who has studied improvisation at New York Citys acclaimed Upright
Citizens Brigade and Peoples Improv Theater (The PIT), where he has taught improv as well as performing on several house teams and studying both sketch and screenwriting. He has appeared on television in various commercials, including New York Lotterys Little Bit o Luck campaign, and most recently
on MTV's Weird Vibes, and in the feature film Breakup at a Wedding, produced by Zachary Quintos Before the Door Pictures. Follow Brett on Twitter and .