Stream – Page 3

A Fortnight in Hollywood

July 16, 2010 by Nabil Leave a Comment

Over the last two weeks I’ve had some eye-opening experiences across the three dimensions of storytelling on which I’m focusing this summer.

On storytelling via open mic, I’ve started a standup comedy workshop with the esteemed Leslie Wolff, and have audited a class by Judy Carter, a standup comedian who, ironically, is focused on bringing comedy into the business world. Lesley and Judy have very different approaches to standup: whereas Lesley encourages her students to talk about themselves and do so via story, Judy says, “nobody cares about you” and encourages her students to keep their material about their audience, and structured in a way that is more focused on a punchline. Either way, the more I workshop standup with my classmates, and attend comedy nights around LA, the more I realize that standup is special in that it’s one of the few areas of successful, popular entertainment that is not technology-driven. Standup is still (mostly) one girl or guy with a mic, a stage, and an audience.

On storytelling via improv, I performed at the Upright Citizens Brigade theater with my colleagues from my 101 class at UCB. Given that everything we performed was made up on the spot, it was amazing to see how everyone’s nerves melted away while we found our groove as a group. On my own performance, while one of my skits landed well, some others did not and I feel that I’m still being too cerebral when it comes to how I enter a scene. I need to really let go a la “jump and the net will find you.” Some of my friends from the class and I rented a theater in Culver City this afternoon and hopefully will be practicing as a group for the rest of the summer.

On storytelling via film, I’ve spent the last two weeks learning the ins and outs of Final Cut Pro, Apple’s professional editing suite. It’s incredibly powerful (and built sort of like Microsoft Excel but for video) and I’m excited about the control that it offers above and beyond the Apple iMovie editing suite (which I used for my first couple videos). I’m just putting the finishing touches on my first movie from the roadtrip, titled Buffalo Walk. It is a 9 minute piece that tries to answer the question: “what are the values that will make people across America want to pack up their bags and move to Buffalo NY today”?

Finally, this week I had a chance to drop in on the set of Matt Walsh’s new movie, the High Road. Besides getting some cool insight into the brains of director Matt Walsh and his actors (including Rob Riggle, of Daily Show fame), I also got to play an extra in a scene (I’ll be the guy at the Cadillac Jack’s diner counter during the chase scene). Off we go-

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Life Lessons from Improv

July 1, 2010 by Nabil 8 Comments

This week I took a deep dive into improv via a one-week course with the Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB). As we wind down, my instructor Nick handed out a worksheet that summarizes the rules of improv that he’s worked to instill into my 16 classmates and me. The last item reads: “Final Rule: You can break all of the preceding rules, however, most of the time you’ll be better off if you don’t. Improv rules tend to be life rules.”

Given what I’ve learned in this course, I suspect that the intended meaning of this last point is that good improv is realistic. For improv to be funny, it needs to have a grounding in reality. If it’s completely fantastical, and the characters and scenarios are simply crazy, the audience will stop caring.

That said, I also interpret this in another way: the more comfortable you are with life, the more receptive the audience will be to your improv. From the two shows I’ve viewed and through my experience with my classmates, I find that the performers who consistently get the most laughs are those who truly don’t care about how they’re perceived, who are okay with complete lack of control in a scene, and who are totally focused on the moment (as opposed to the audience, or other distractions). In short, the more comfortable they are with their place in the universe (and whatever it throws at them), the more readily the audience connects with their work.

My last day of class is tomorrow, followed by a show at the UCB theater on Saturday evening. Here we go-

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Checking in from Los Angeles

June 25, 2010 by Nabil 1 Comment

If someone asked me to define my summer internship in one word, I’d say, “storytelling.” If I were given two words, I’d say, “performance ethnography.”

My goal for the summer is to get a lot better at understanding peoples’ personal stories (ethnography), and sharing their stories – as well as my own – with others in a compelling way (performance).

The first 20 days of my internship have been decidedly ethnographic. With the exception of a workshop I held for students at a community center in Springfield Missouri, my days have been spent listening, rather than talking. I felt that it was important for me to start in this order because my gut tells me that in order to tell a good story, I must first become a good listener. Over my cross-country drive, I’ve interviewed 32 people on camera, in eleven cities across America, in discussions that ranged from five minutes to two hours in length. From the electrical engineer who became a pastor in Tulsa Oklahoma, to the graphic designer who moved to Mumbai India to start a nonprofit, to the Polish refugee who built a large baking business in Chicago, most of my interviews were focused on people who took a big risk to follow a passion.

So now that I’ve arrived in Los Angeles, what’s next? Well, now it’s time for performance. In my mind performance is defined as taking an idea and sharing it with others in a compelling way. This can take many forms, from addressing strangers on a street corner to publishing a documentary. In the following two months, I plan to practice performance in three ways:
1. Open mics: Reciting stories at open mic venues throughout LA.
2. Improv: Creating stories on the fly and performing them in front of others.
3. Film: Telling story via short-form video.

To that end, next week I start my open mic training via Fresh Faces, a standup workshop instructed by the talented Leslie Wolff. I also start a one-week intensive improv course with the Upright Citizens Brigade. Finally, I plan to hit the editing room and produce a series of short, hopefully inspirational videos using the footage I gathered over the course of my journey thus far.

So there we have it: performance ethnography. Here we go-

New Mexico, Arizona, & arriving in Los Angeles

June 21, 2010 by Nabil 1 Comment

The odometer has clicked to 3,000 miles, tall palm trees line the streets, and dusty deserts have made way to a cavalcade of motorists heading to the grand blue Pacific. This can only mean one thing: I’ve arrived in Los Angeles.

The last few days have brought with them opportunities to get new perspectives on passion. Among them:
– Father Jim, the assistant priest at El Santuario de Chimayó, a famous church that has been called “the most important Catholic pilgrimage center in the United States.” Father Jim spoke about discovering his passion as a child while playing priest with his older sisters in Colorado. (Sante Fa, New Mexico)
– David, former employee of Los Alamos National Labs who quit his job to follow his passion for organic farming, and in the process developed a new form of garlic powder. (Santa Fe, New Mexico)
– Pritham, a good friend who balanced working as a full time management consultant with studying for her MCATs. She just completed her first year in osteopathic medicine and discusses the road that led her there. (Phoenix, Arizona)
– Three contestants who were auditioning for their own talk show on Oprah’s forthcoming TV network. (Laguna Niguel, California)

As I reflect on my time on the road, I feel blessed to have encountered so many unique perspectives, and also been supported so heartily by the family, friends, and friends-of-friends who were kind enough to open their hearts (and often their homes) to help make my project possible.

A few quotes that have stayed with me:
– “If you are fearful, fear will find you” – Volunteer for Heidelberg Project on working in neighborhoods with high crime (Detroit)
– “There is no such thing as a safe job anymore – Entrepreneurial baker on choosing your passion for a career versus what you think will be lucrative and stable (Chicago)
– “The unique thing about poverty in Buffalo is that it is neither entirely urban or rural. It is wide swaths of urban neighborhoods that are vacant, except for a few remaining city dwellers” – Local journalist on the new age of urban poverty (Buffalo)
– “To fail is to succeed at the wrong thing” – Engineer turned Pastor on the definition of failure (Tulsa)

On Missouri and Oklahoma

June 14, 2010 by Nabil Leave a Comment

As I reflect on my stay in Missouri and Oklahoma, four memories come to mind:
– Learning about intentional communities, and the impact of a passionate life on parenting, via my conversations with Tom and Sabrina in St Louis, Missouri.
– Eating well, sleeping better, and receiving great care and love from my extended family in Springfield, Missouri.
– Taking a first stab at wrapping my thoughts on passion into a lecture, and delivering it to a group of ten 7-9th graders at a community center in Springfield. (three of them fell asleep — clearly I’ve got some work to do)
– Spending several hours with Pastor Calvin Battle and members of his congregation as we did a deep-dive into Calvin’s foray into being pastor (after a successful career as an engineer).

As I enter the last third of my trip, I see New Mexico, Arizona, and California before me and three stories that need telling. Here we go-

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