improv

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-

A Messy Manifesto

May 3, 2010 by Nabil Leave a Comment

When it comes to writing, I’m usually a perfectionist. I pore over my words, check its cadence, and double-check its grammatical correctness. Perfectionism has its place, but it also has its price. It is this perfectionism that often stands between me and self-expression. Over the last year, there are many things that I have wanted to write about — but which I haven’t — because I didn’t have the time to craft a post that I felt that I would be happy with.

My upcoming summer storytelling internship in Los Angeles is about being driven by my emotions, rather than my intellect. It’s about passion over strategy. And so with this internship, and this blog, I will experiment with a different approach. I vow to prize quantity over quality. I vow to prize content over beauty. I will make mistakes. I will stay stupid things. But in the spirit of my journey it’s about going with a feeling, putting myself out there, and seeing what happens.

I hope you’ll join me as I embark on a cross-country journey to Los Angeles to try my hand at storytelling. I’ve included my original blog post – below — which describes the journey that’s gotten me here. Now it’s about making it real.

Off we go-

The Bold Sell: It’s a Wrap

March 7, 2010 by Nabil Leave a Comment

Three judges from Xerox, Cisco, and HubSpot. Eight contestants from MIT Sloan and Harvard Business School. And a surprise appearance by one John Coleman.

A big thanks to all those who helped to bring this week’s Bold Sell Competition to life, including our volunteers, judges, contestants, and the over 200 people who attended the event. Congrats also to our three winners: Slava Menn (MIT – 3rd place); Chika Ekeji (MIT – 2nd place); and William Collis (Harvard – 1st place).

If you’d like to play an active role in organizing next year’s competition, or would like to bring The Bold Sell to your school or organization, do let us know. For video of all our winners, click here.

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