Comedy Books Archives - Page 5 of 18 - Ben Rosenfeld

November 6, 2014

“You’re Lucky You’re Funny” Quotes

I recently read “You’re Lucky You’re Funny: How Life Becomes a Sitcom” by Phil Rosenthal. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. As always, if you like the quotes, click here to buy the book.

“Almost every experience I’m writing about here will somehow be used later. You’ll see. And what you’ll also see is that as you go through life as a writer, it’s easier to write thing down than to actually write.” (56)

“Then there are the people who are running shows who have no business doing that because they are not ready to run a show yet. They were on staff of a hit show and sold a pilot. But they don’t know what they’re doing and don’t know what they want and they’re operating from fear and nervousness. Their minds are changing all the time because they just don’t know what they want. Or they’re listening to the network’s or the studio’s notes and assuming they know what they want. you have to know what you want.” (62)

“The single best piece of advice I ever got from anyone about anything. It was from Ed Weinberger. He said, ‘Do the show you want to do, because in the end, they’re going to cancel you anyway.’” (67)

“There are umpteen factors you can’t control. So you have to make sure the ones you can control are so fantastic, they trump the ones you can’t. Your show has to be undeniable.” (70)

“The networks don’t like what’s called a premise pilot – one where the premise of the series is established – because it’s not indicative of what the other episodes will be like. They want an episode that could be episode number two or twelve or thirty.” (80)

“Comedy isn’t just comedy, it’s clarity. Without that clarity, you’re only funny to yourself.” (100)

“We started with a few rules in The Writers’ Room:
Could this happen?
No topical jokes.
No B stories.” (101)

“At the end of the day, you know the best way to reconcile your feelings with people who’ve done you wrong? Just keep this in mind: They have to be them. That’s their punishment.” (125)

“There are dry-erase boards all around us on the walls. One board has the places we order lunch from. One has the places we like to go out to. One board has words that Ray can’t pronounce, and the way he actually does pronounce them, which come out of his mouth sounding like Einsteen and mispronunctuation. Another board is titled “Ray’s Surprise Vocabulary” and has some lofty words Ray has actually used correctly in a sentence, like “sharecropper.”
Several boards have the name and number of every episode we’ve done so far, so that when someone has a great idea, someone else can usually point to the board and say, “Number sixty-seven, you moron. We did it already.” And then there are teh boards with the color-coded ideas. And these colors actually mean something, not like the government with its terror alerts. A certain color indicates this is just an idea. Another color might indicate we got somewhere on that story – we have actual notes on it. And another color means it was turned into an outline already, which means we’re doing it. If we’ve already gotten to the outline stage, it’s very rare that we’ll throw it out.” (132-133)

“We were always looking for the deeper meaning in every story, something that would have some kind of resonance with the audience, no matter how silly on the surface.” (140)

“Half the day is working on future shows, and the other half is this week’s show.” (140)

“No matter how seemingly silly the episode was, we felt the need to tie each one down to some sort of emotional underpinning, something that would resonate with the viewer after the show was over.” (167)

“The best note I ever received as an actor I got when I was doing too much on stage – you know, trying to be funny… she said, ‘It was very good, but let them come to you.’
‘Let them come to you’ means just be. Don’t playact at being the character, just be the character. Just be. Just live. Don’t push. So that applies to everything. It’s one of those notes that applies to everything in life. Let them come to you. Just be. Just be you. Don’t push; they’re going to like you at the party. It’s going to be fine. We tend to like people who are real and believable and are like us. It doesn’t mean you don’t do anything, but you don’t push it. You don’t show the audience that you’re doing an action. ‘Look how I brush my hair away from my face so slowly to show I’m really interested in what the other actor is saying’ – you just are interested. Same in writing.” (170-171)

“Everyone in our cast had it. The deadpan look. To me the golden key in comedy is: They know what you’re thinking. That’s what we take so any pauses in the show. So that the look will get the laugh because the audience, once the characters have been established, knows what Robert is thinking when Ray gets a big homemade cake from Mom. And we know what Debra is thinking. And Frank. And Marie and Raymond.” (171)

“It’s all a struggle toward simplicity and clarity – from the writers’ story, to the show in front of the live audience, to the show as broadcast on television.” (174)

“Sometimes it’s a goddamn struggle to figure out what an episode is about. What is it about? That’s at the bottom of everything. What is it about. What is this scene about? What is this line about? What is this word about? Or, is it worth stopping the scene for that joke? What if it doesn’t advance the story – and not every line has to advance the story – we are in the comedy business – but is it worth stopping for Frank to insult his wife at this moment? Usually, you bet it is. Everyone has his or her part to play. Everyone has his or her character that we look forward to seeing.” (174)

“You have to justify every action and attitude the character takes, or they don’t make sense.” (175)

“It’s good writing if the setup is funny in and of itself. Then the audience doesn’t know they’re being set up – that’ sa good setup. It’s not dry, it’s not boring, it’s not what we call “pipey” – as in, it’s so obviously information that the audience needs to know just to understand what the hell is going on, it’s as if we’re laying pipe. We don’t want the audience to know it’s just exposition, the part they have to sit through before we get to the kitchen burning down.” (178)

“Say it without saying it is a great rule. You don’t want to be so on the nose; you want the subtext to come through. First of all, you have to have text before there can be subtext, right? But the show, what is it about? You don’t want ot say it blatantly in lines; you want it to be there, understood. You never want to say, “I am angry.” That’s bad writing, right? Too on the nose. So you want to say it without saying it. You want to say I love you without saying it.” (180)

“If we want the audience to care about the show, we have to care about it, and we worry and fret over every detail. I have to save for another book the decisions about costume, hair, and set design; personal dramas; how the show is advertised; how the film is developed – there’s a tremendous amount of work that goes into making a half hour look seamless. Fred Astaire would practice dancing until his feet were bleeding. Every move, everything, where to turn, every decision, how to hold his head, his hands, every split second of that dance had been choreographed to within an inch of its life so that when you watch it, it appears effortless. Same with this. Same with any good play, film, TV show, book, painting, vagina sculpture. You shouldn’t think to look under the sucks; you just enjoy the dancing.” (181)

“Everything is tested to death, under unrealistic conditions, and testing’s main use has become ass covering. So that any given executive doesn’t have to take the blame for a decision but can point to the numbers when the thing tanks, and say, “It wasn’t my decision; it tested well.” If every show tests well that the networks put on, there’s clearly something wrong – for instance, the only reason the Stupid Show test “very well” is because the audience recognized the lead. The quality of the show meant nothing. “I know that guy! I turn the knob on my approval meter to the right.” End of testing. And so the show goes on and it stinks because that’s not how anybody watches television, but sometimes enough people watch to justify the process, and then the end of civilization.” (193)

“My attitude was, it all just gets richer. Robert marries Amy, and at first he thinks he has what he thinks Raymond has. However, once he gets married he will see he’s still Robert. He still doesn’t have the place in his mother’s heart that Raymond has, and so he may feel worse. Robert could have everything Raymond has – he could even have twin boys. He could have triplets. He could have a better life in every way than Raymond has, but he will never be Raymond. THe circumstances may change, but not his character. We’re changing the sit, not the com.” (199)

“I want every episode to have some truth revealed so that it’s something that the audience identifies with in their lives, that has resonance. That’s the whole point. And if you work in the sitcom form, which is fast, like a short story, the challenge is: How do you get that emotional punch or meaning in that short form?” (199)

“I can also tell you that while running our show, I learned a helluva lot from the other side of casting. Advice to my fellow actors: Always memorize your audition, and don’t treat it as an audition, treat it as a chance to perform that day. Then, if you don’t get it, it’s not because you weren’t prepared, and you can at least feel good about yourself. And always try to get the first appointment. If you’re good, you’ll be the one to beat. If you’re bad, it wasn’t you, it was the idiot doing the casting.” (217)

“The work is its own reward. I’d heard that from some guy.” (221)

“Things need time to grow. By the way, about reality shows, why are they so popular now, at the expense of comedies? Because a lot of comedies are not writing real people. The characters are not believable as people. So we turn on a reality show and we say, ‘That character is funny!’ That’s a real person that we recognize and relate to, because we understand what it’s like to be a real person. So when we watch a sitcom and the characters speak like nothing on the planet, and don’t act human, and they’re cardboard cutouts of human beings, I’d rather watch the reality show. Even though it’s not reality, the people on them remind me of people. We know this, don’t we? Even if we don’t know it and can’t articulate it all the time, we know it intrinsically. ‘Why am I not relating to his?’ Because this is not dialogue that anyone would say, this not a situation that anyone could believably be in. And here’s a person in a reality show that’s plopped in the middle of an island, and he’s acting more like a person I’m in the office with than this person on a sitcom who is actually in an office setting.” (237)

“We’re looking to connect. That’s all we do as human beings on the planet – look to connect with other human beings. So we look for the most relatable, connectable thing. Subconsciously, not even consciously.” (237)

Did you like the quotes? Buy the book here.

September 10, 2014

“How To Fail At Almost Everything And Still Win Big” Quotes

I recently read “How To Fail At Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind Of The Story Of My Life” by Scott Adams (the creator of Dilbert). Below are the quotes I found most interesting. As always, if you like the quotes please buy the full book here.

“Every skill you acquire doubles your odds of success.” (3)

“Happiness is health plus freedom.” (3)

“Simplicity transforms ordinary into amazing.” (3)

“Making comics is a process by which you strip out the unnecessary noise from a situation until all that is left is the absurd-yet-true core.” (5)

“Good ideas have no value because the world already has too many of them. The market rewards execution, not ideas.” (17)

“For our purposes, let’s say a goal is a specific objective that you either achieve or don’t sometime in the future. A system is something you do on a regular basis that increases your odds of happiness in the long run. If you do something every day, it’s a system. If you’re waiting to achieve it someday in the future, it’s a goal.” (33)

“I figured my competitive edge was creativity. I would try one thing after another until something creative struck a chord with the public. Then I would reproduce it like crazy. In the near term it would mean one failure after another. In the long term I was creating a situation that would allow luck to find me.” (40)

“If you want success, figure out the price, then pay it.” (46)

“When you decide to be successful in a big way, it means you acknowledge the price and you’re willing to pay it. That price might be sacrificing your personal life to get good grades in school, pursuing a college major that is deadly boring but lucrative, putting off having kids, missing time with your family, or taking business risks that put you in jeopardy for embarrassment, divorce, or bankruptcy. Successful people don’t wish for success; they decide to pursue it. And to pursue it effectively, they need a system. Success always has a price, but the reality is that the price is negotiable. If you pick the right system, the price will be a lot nearer what you’re willing to pay.” (46)

“Let your ideas for the future rule your energy today. No matter what you want to do in life, higher energy will help you get there.” (67)

“It’s smarter to see your big-idea projects as part of a system to improve your energy, contacts, and sills. From that viewpoint, if you have a big, interesting project in the works, you’re a winner every time you wake up.” (67)

“I’m better than 99 percent of the world in Scrabble, Ping-Pong and tennis because I put in more practice time than 99 percent of the world. THere’s no magic to it.” (70)

“You shouldn’t hesitate to modify your perceptions to whatever makes you happy, because you’re probably wrong about the underlying nature of reality anyway.” (72)

“Every generation before us believed, like Snickers (my dog), that it had things figured out. We now know that every generation before us was wrong about a lot of it. Is it likely that you were born at the tipping point of history, in which humans know enough about reality to say we understand it? That is another case where humility is your friend. When you can release on your ego long enough to view your perceptions as incomplete or misleading, it gives you the freedom to imagine new and potentially more useful ways of looking at the world.” (72)

“Where there is a tolerance for risk, there is often talent.” (88)

“Things that will someday work out well start out well. Things that will never work start out bad and stay that way. What you rarely see is a stillborn failure that transmogrifies into a stellar success. Small successes can grow into big ones, but failures rarely grow into successes.” (88)

“The quality of the early products was a poor predictor of success. The predictor is that customers were clamoring for the bad versions of the product before the good versions were even invented.” (89)

“Bad luck doesn’t have the option of being that consistent forever.” (90)

“It’s generally true that if no one is excited about your art/product/idea in the beginning, they never will be.” (91)

“If your work inspires some excitement and some action from customers, get ready to chew through some walls. You might have something worth fighting for.” (91)

“You can raise your market value by being merely good – not extraordinary – at more than one skill.” (96)

“When I combined my meager business skills with my bad arts skills and y fairly ordinary writing talent, the mixture was powerful. With each new skill, my odds of success increased substantially.” (98)

“Recapping my skill set: I have poor art skills, mediocre business skills, good but not great writing talent, and an early knowledge of the Internet. And I have a good but not great sense of humor. I’m like one big mediocre soup. None of my skills are world-class, but when my mediocre skills are combined, they become a powerful market force.” (99)

“Everything you learn becomes a shortcut for understanding something else.” (99)

“I don’t read the news to find truth, as that would be a foolish waste of time. I read the news to broaden my exposure to new topics and patterns that make my brain more efficient in general and to enjoy myself, because learning interesting things increase my energy and makes me feel optimistic. Don’t think of the news as information. Think of it as a source of energy.” (100)

“You can’t directly control luck, but you can move from a game with low odds of success to a game with better odds.” (101)

“If you find yourself in a state of continual failure in your personal or business life, you might be blaming it on fate or karma or animal spirits or some other form of magic when the answer is simple math. THere’s usually a pattern, but it might be subtle. Don’t stop looking just because you don’t see the pattern in the first seven years.” (103)

“Today when I see a stage and a thousand people waiting to hear me speak, a little recording goes off in my head that says today is a good day. I’m the happiest person in the room. The audience only gets to listen, but I get to speak, to feel, to be fully alive. i will absorb their energy and turn it into something good. And when I’m done, there’s a 100 percent chance that people will say good things about me.” (106)

“Children are accustomed to a continual stream of criticisms and praise, but adults can go weeks without a compliment while enduring criticism both at work and at home. Adults are starved for a kind word. When you understand the power of honest praise (as opposed to bullshitting, flattery, and sucking up), you realize that withholding it borders on immoral. If you see something that impresses you, a descent respect to humanity insets you voice your praise.” (107)

“Dilbert was the first syndicated comic that focused primarily on the workplace. At the time there was nothing to compare it with. That allowed me to get away with bad artwork and immature writing until I could improve my skills to the not-so-embarrassing level.” (109)

“Quality is not an independent force in the universe; it depends on what you choose as your frame of reference.” (109)

“Animation shows take longer to “tune” than live action because the writers for animation can’t know what worked in a particular show until it is fully animated and too late to change.” (111)

“Success in anything usually means doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t, and for animated TV shows that means you don’t hit your pace until about the third season.” (111)

“i no longer see reason as the driver of behavior. I see simple cause and effect, similar to the way machines operate. If you believe people use reason for the important decisions in life, you will go through life feeling confused and frustrated that others have bad reasoning skills. The reality is that reason is just one of the drivers of our decisions, and often the smallest one.” (117)

“Politicians understand that reason will never have much of a role in voting decisions. A lie that makes a voter feel good is more effective than a hundred rational arguments. That’s even true when the voter knows the lie is a lie. If you’re perplexed at how society can tolerate politicians who lie so blatantly, you’re thinking of people as rational beings. That worldview is frustrating and limiting.” (117)

“View humans as moist machines that are simply responding to inputs with programmed outputs. No reasoning is involved beyond eliminating the most absurd options. Your reasoning can prevent you fro voting for a total imbecile, but it won’t stop you from supporting a half-wit with a great haircut.” (118)

“All you do is introduce yourself and ask questions until you find a point of mutual interest.
1. What’s your name?
2. Where do you live?
3. Do you have a family?
4. What do you do for a living?
5. Do you have any hobbies/sports?
6. Do you have any travel plans?” (123)

“The reality is that everyone is a basket case on the inside. Some people just hide it better.” (130)

“In most groups the craziest person is in control. It starts because no one wants the problems that comet rom pissing off a crazy person.” (140)

“The way fake insanity works in a negotiation is that you assign a greater value to some element of a deal than an objective observer would consider reasonable. For example, you might demand that a deal be closed before the holidays so you can announce it to your family as a holiday present.” (140)

“The biggest component of luck is timing. When the universe and I have been on a compatible schedule – entirely by chance – things have worked out swimmingly. When my timing has been off, no amount of hard work or talent has mattered.” (158)

I stayed in the game long enough for luck to find me.” (158)

“The success of Dilbert is mostly a story of luck. But I did make it easier for luck to find me, and I was thoroughly prepared when it did. Luck won’t give you a strategy or a system – you have to do that part yourself.” (160)

“I find it helpful to see the world as a slot machine that doesn’t ask you to put money in. All it asks is your time, focus, and energy to pull the handle over and over. A normal slot machine that requires money will bankrupt any player int he long run. But the machine that has rare yet certain payoffs, and asks for no money up front, is a guaranteed winner if you have what it takes to keep yanking until you get lucky. In that environment, you can fail 99 percent of the time, while knowing success is guaranteed. All you need to do is stay in the game long enough.” (160)

“Experts are right about 98 percent of the time on the easy stuff but only right 50 percent of the time on anything that is unusually complicated, mysterious, or even new.” (166)

“Simply find the people who most represent what you would like to become and spend as much time with them as you can without trespassing, kidnapping, or stalking. Their good habits and good energy will rub off on you.” (170)

“The single biggest trick for manipulating your happiness chemistry is being able to do what you want, when you want.” (173)

“You need to control the order and timing of things to be happy. It’s important to look at happiness in terms of timing because timing is easier to control than resources.” (173)

“Step one in your search for happiness is to continually work toward having control of your schedule.” (174)

“By any definition, what I’m doing is work, but because I can control the timing of it on this particular day, it doesn’t feel like work. I’ve transformed work into pleasure simply by having control over when I do it.” (174)

“Happiness is the natural state for most people whenever they feel healthy, have flexible schedules, and expect the future to be good.” (175)

“Recapping the happiness formula:
Eat right.
Exercise.
Get enough sleep.
Imagine an incredible future (even if you don’t believe it).
Work toward a flexible schedule.” (178)

“That’s what I call failing forward. Any time you learn something useful, you come out ahead.” (191)

“You’ll be surprised at how often a bad night of sleep leads to nonstop eating.” (195)

“in the long run, any system that depends on your willpower will fail. Or worse, some other part of your life will suffer as you focus your limited stockpile of willpower on fitness.” (207)

“My worldview is that all success is luck if you track it back to its source.” (218)

“If you think your odds of solving your problem are bad, don’t rule out the possibility that what is really happening is that you are bad at estimating odds.” (224)

Liked the quotes? Click here to buy the book.

June 5, 2014

“The Humor Code” Quotes

I recently read “The Humor Code: A Global Search For What Makes Things Funny” by Peter McGraw and Joel Warner. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. As always, if you like the quotes, please buy the book here.

“Two University of Tennessee professors had 44 undergraduates listen to a variety of Bill Cosby and Phyllis Diller routines. Before each punch line, the researchers stopped the tape and asked the students to predict what came next. Then another group of students was asked to rate the funniness of each of the comedians’ jokes. Comparing the results, the professors found that the predictable punch lines were rated considerably funnier than those that were unexpected. The level of incongruity of each punch line was inversely related to the funniness of the joke.” (7)

“As Jimmy Carr and Lucy Greeves put it, ‘In a room filled with people, the comedian is the only one facing the wrong way. He’s also the only one who isn’t laughing. For normal people, that’s a nightmare, not a career aspiration.’” (36)

“It’s not about whether or not you’re funny, it’s how you’re funny: how you learn the ins and outs of the business, how you develop your comic perspective, how you mix honesty and humor, how you deal with bad venues, and how you handle your shot at fame. And the only way to learn is through hard, repetitive, empirical work.” (40)

“In a MIT study on idea generation, improvisational comedians asked to brainstorm new products generated, on average 20 percent more ideas than professional product designers, and the improv comic’s ideas were rated 25 percent more creative than those of the pros.” (50)

“This recipe for humor production seems so simple: acquire a lot of information, then combine it in unusual ways.” (50)

“It’s not about following rules. It’s about breaking them – shifting perspectives, exploring the absurd, and probing the outer limits of what’s acceptable.” (51)

“Named the ‘Jon Stewart Effect’ after the allegation that while political-satire shows like The Daily Show might get people to pay attention to unpleasant news, the comedy involved could make them less likely to right the wrongs that they’re learning about.” (54)

“The goal of these gargantuan operations (mass-market attempts at humor)? Maximize the number of people chuckling and minimize those offended. In the television development world, there’s a term for this practice: “Least Objectionable Programming.” The results don’t usually equal hilarity, but then, that’s not the point. It’s to move movie tickets and score high Nielsen ratings.” (58)

“Hanson and his colleagues looked at 9/11 this way. ‘To me, it’s not about timing; it’s about validity,’ Hanson tells us. ‘If what you are saying is honest and legitimate and has a valid point, it’s going to be valid the day after, and it’s goign to be valid 500 years later.’” (61)

“Most things in the world aren’t funny. So if you aim to be hilarious… the best thing to do is to come up with as many jokes as possible, then come up with more.” (64)

“In medieval England, cracks about the dunces who lived in the village of Gotham were all the rage. (New York’s nickname, ‘Gotham,’ doesn’t sound so impressive once you learn that author Washington Irving coined it to suggest the place was a city of fools.)” (98)

“It’s possible that joking among the discontented masses might act as a safety valve, allowing folks to let off steam and view their plight in a less threatening manner instead of rising up in rebellion.” (167)

“According to Popovic… humor added three key elements to the movement. First, it allowed the protesters to break through the “fear barrier” that kept much of the population immobilized. It’s harder to be afraid of someone once you’ve laughed at him. Second, the young, laughing activists wearing hip Otpor! T-shirts and engaging in goofy street theater made protests seems cool and fun… Finally, humor was integral to Otpor!’s signature “dilemma actions” – protests designed so that however Milosevic responded, he looked stupid.” (168)

“Patch says, ‘The jester is the only person in the king’s court who can call the king an asshole.’ It’s true. Clowns, like comedians, are outsiders and rebels. All over the world and through most of civilization, clowns, jesters, tricksters, and picaros have stood apart from the crowd, with full license to break all the rules. They can spit in the face of conformity. They can say what no one else dares to say.” (187)

“Jordy Ellner, director of talent and digital at Comedy Central, took all his years working with comics and distilled what he’d learned into a single word: ‘Smile.’” (201)

Liked the quotes? Click here to buy the book.

May 10, 2014

“On The Technique Of Acting” Quotes

I recently read “On The Technique Of Acting: The First Complete Edition of Chekhov’s classic To the Actor” by Michael Chekhov. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. As always, if you like the quotes, please buy the book here.

“When criticized that his notion of Kobe was not what the playwright intended, Chekhov replied that he went beyond the playwright and the play to find Kobe’s true character.” (xii)

“The idea that an actor can “go beyond the playwright or the play” is the first key to understanding the Chekhov Technique and how it differed from Stanislavsky’s early teachings.” (xii)

“Chekhov’s performance was based not on recapturing the experience but on a feverish anticipation of the event.” (xiii)

“Chekhov’s Technique dealt primarily with images, especially visceral ones, that short-circuited complicated and secondary mental processes. Instead of telling the actor “to relax,” Chekhov asked him “to walk [or sit or stand] with a Feeling of Ease.”” (xvii)

“We soon find that we have only to consciously illuminate two or three light bulbs before a chain reaction begins and several more light up without our ever having to give them special attention. When a sufficient number of these light bulbs are shining brightly, we find that inspiration strikes with much greater frequency than before.” (xxxvii)

“This longing for knowledge makes the real artist brave. He never adheres to the first image that appears to him, because he knows that this is not necessarily the richest and more correct. He sacrifices one images for another more intense and expressive, and he does this repeatedly until new and unknown visions strike him with their revealing spell.” (6)

“When one hears an artist say, “I have built my art upon my convictions.” Would it not be better for an artist to say that he has built his convictions upon his art? But this is only true of the artist who is really gifted. Haven’t we noticed that the less talented the person is, the earlier he forms his “convictions” and the longer he tenaciously clings to them?” (6)

“The real beauty of our art, if based on the activity of the Creative Individuality, is constant improvisation.” (19)

“People often want to experience something other than that which they need to experience.” (21)

“The audience became for Vakhtangov the transmitter of public opinion. He listened to it and kept pace with his time, but was never subservient to it.” (22)

“Do the Psychological Gesture and the acting alternately, until it becomes evident to you that behind each internal state or movement in acting is hidden a simple and expressive Psychological Gesture that is the essence of the acting.” (65)

“The nonactor reads the play absolutely objectively. The events, happenings, and characters in the play do not stir his own inner life. He understands the plot and follows it as an observer, and outsider. The actor reads the play subjectively. He reads through the play and by doing so he inevitably enjoys his own reaction to the happenings of the play, his own Will, Feelings, and Images. The play and the plot are only a pretext for him to display, to experience the richness of his own talent, his own desire to act. The nonactor reads the liens while the actor reads between the lines, sees beyond the characters and events of the play.” (71)

“Choose two simple contrasting psychological moments. For instance, one of them can be the word “yes,” pronounced with wrath and power. The other can be the word “no,” spoken softly and full of pleading. Pronounce this “yes,” and then continue to act without any previously thought-out theme, knowing only that your final aim will be the pleading “no.” Allow your soul to make a free and unbroken Transition from one pole to the other.” (73)

“All the lines, all the situations in the play are silent for the actor until he finds himself behind them, not as a reader with good artistic taste, but as a n actor whose responsible task is to translate the author’s language into the actor’s.” (77)

“As soon as the actor becomes aware that the Psychological Gesture is an incessant movement and never a static position, he will realize that its activity is inclined to grow and its Qualities to become stronger and more expressive.” (81)

“Each character on the stage has one main desire, and one characteristic manner of fulfilling this desire. Whatever variations the character may show during the play in pursuing his main desire, he nevertheless always remains the same character. We know that the desire of the character is his Will (“what”), and his manner of fulfilling it is its Quality (“how”). Since the Psychological Gesture is composted of the Will, permeated with the Qualities, it can easily embrace and express the complete psychology of the character.” (90)

“The actor should never worry about his talent, but rather about his lack of technique, his lack of training, and his lack of understanding of the creative process. The talent will flourish immediately of itself as soon as the actor chisels away all the extraneous matter that hides his abilities – even from himself.” (155)

“Chekhov would then being to ask questions; the first was always “Is this predominantly a ‘Thinking’ character, a “feeling’ character, or a ‘Will’ character?'” (160)

“When acting, it is quite valuable to know whether you are working with a character who has strong Will forces and relatively little intellectual power or one who has a strong Feeling life but little ability to take hold of his Will forces.” (160)

“Chekhov would further inquire, “What kind of Thinking does your character have?” Thinking can be cold and hard, like a little black rubber ball, or quick and brilliant, traveling in flashes. It can be fuzzy, light, slow and ponderous, sharp, jagged, penetrating – the types and qualities of Thinking are almost unlimited.” (161)

“The same holds true for Feelings. “What kind of Feeling does your character possess?” The character can have a Feeling life that is intense and passionate, lukewarm and lugubrious, or basically bitter like a lemon. The character can have predominantly heavy Feelings that drag it down, or light sun-filled Feelings that easily radiate to all other characters. The variety is endless.” (161)

“Mischa was also very insistent about our knowing at every moment what our characters wanted. He often said, “Art is not like life. Art cannot be like life, because in life most people do not know what they want. But the actor must always know what the character wants. The character must always have clear-cut Objectives!”” (161)

He said, “For the actor, it is not enough ti simply have an Objective – nor even to feel a tepid desire for something. You must visualize the Objective as constantly being fulfilled. For example, if your Objective is ‘I want to escape from this room,’ then you must see yourself escaping, perhaps in many different ways – through the door, through the window, etc. It is the vision of the Objective being fulfilled that creates the impulse for a strong desire. This is what will bring your role to life.”” (162)

“Chekhov consistently encouraged me to discover the differences between the character’s personality and my own. “it is the differences which the actor must portray, that is what makes the performance artistic and interesting,” he said. “The similarities will be there by themselves!”” (162)

“Don’t try to mentally justify it. Just do it.” (163)

SHORTCUTS FOR PREPARATION AT HOME (167-168)

Read the script silently as many times as possible

Describe the plot of the script to a friend

“Baptize” the emotional sections

Make a list of your character’s physical activities

SHORTCUTS FOR PREPARATION ON THE SET (169-170)

Make friends with the set

Make friends with the camera

Make friends with the audience

“Read the script silently as many times as possible.

Resist the temptation to say your lines aloud for as long as you can. Do not try to analyze or even consciously think about the script or the part. This allows your creative unconscious the greatest possible freedom in bringing forth a truly original interpretation of the role.” (167)

““Baptize” the emotional sections.

This means to find successive sections in your script and name each one according ot its principal emotion, feeling, or sensations, so that from the emotional point of view each section will differ form the next ones.” (167)

“Make a list of your character’s physical activities.

Include those that are given in the script and those that you may wish to invent for this part.” (168)

“Chekhov believed that it was important for actors to be aware of how much they really need and love their audiences. He said that when actors are not conscious of this love, or are ashamed of it, they are in danger of becoming jaded and patronizing toward the audience.” (170)

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April 22, 2014

“Show Your Work” Quotes

I recently read “Show Your Work! 10 Ways To Share Your Creativity And Get Discovered” by Austin Kleon. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. If you like the quotes, please buy the full book here.

“The best way to get started on the path to sharing your work is to think about what you want to learn, and make a commitment to learning it in front of others.” (19)

“Artists love to trot out the tired line, “My work speaks for itself,” but the truth is, our work doesn’t speak for itself. Human beings want to know where things came from, how they were made, and who made them. The stories you tell about the work you do have a huge effect on how people feel and what they understand about your work, and how people feel and what they understand about your work effects how they value it.” (93)

“Author John Gardner said the basic plot of nearly all stories is this: “A character wants something, goes after it despite opposition (perhaps including his own doubts), and so arrives at a win, lose, or draw.” I like Gardner’s plot formula because it’s also the shape of most creative work: You get a great idea, you go through the hard work of executing the idea, and then you release the idea out into the world, coming to a win, lose, or draw. Sometimes the idea succeeds, sometimes it fails, and more often than not, it does nothing at all.” (99)

“Every client presentation, every personal essay, every cover letter, every fund-raising request – they’re all pitches. They’re stories with the endings chopped off. A good pitch is set up in three acts: The first act is the past, the second act is the present, and the third is the future. The first act is where you’ve been – what you want, how you came to want it, and what you’ve done so far to get it. The second act is where you are now in your work and how you’ve worked hard and used up most of your resources. The third act is where you’re going, and how exactly the person you’re pitching can help you get there. Like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, this story shape effectively turns your listener into the hero who gets to decide how it ends.” (101)

“George Orwell wrote: “Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful.”” (108)

“In their book, Rework, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson encourage businesses to emulate chefs by outteaching their competition. “What do you do? What are your ‘recipes’? What’s your ‘cookbook’? What can you tell the world about how you operate that’s informative, educational, and promotional?” They encourage businesses to figure out the equivalent of their own cooking show.” (117)

“Teaching people doesn’t subtract value from what you do, it actually adds to it. When you teach someone how to do your work, you are, in effect, generating more interest in your work.” (119)

“This story shows what happens when a musician interacts with his fans on the level of a fan himself.” (127)

“Steve Albini says, “being good at things is the only thing that earns you clout or connections.” (131)

“Once a good knuckleball is thrown, it’s equally unpredictable to the batter, the catcher, and the pitcher who threw it. (Sounds a lot like the creative process, huh?) (139)

“Colin Marshall says: “If you spend your life avoiding vulnerability, you and your work will never truly connect with other people.”” (152)

“You have to remember that your work is something you do, not who you are. This is especially hard for artists to accept, as so much of what they do is personal.” (152)

“Comments outnumber ideas.” (156)

“Cartoonist Natalie Dee says: “There’s never a space under paintings in a gallery where someone writes their opinion.” (157)

“Artist Ben Shan says: “An amateur is an artist who supports himself with outside jobs which enable him to paint. A professional is someone whose wife works to enable him to paint.” (161)

“Walt Disney: “We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies.”” (172)

“Try new things. If an opportunity comes along that will allow you to do more of the kind of work you want to do, say Yes. If an opportunity comes along that would mean more money, but less of the kind of work you want o do, say No.” (174)

“The people who get what they’re after are very often the ones who just stick around long enough.” (183)

“Isak Dinesen wrote, “You can’t count on success; you can only leave open the possibility for it, and be ready to jump on and take the ride when it comes for you.”” (185)

“A successful or failed project is no guarantee of another success or failure. Whether you’ve just won big or lost big, you still have to face the question “What’s next?”” (187)

“You can’t be content with mastery; you have to push yourself to become a student again.” (197)

“Alain de Botton wrote, “Anyone who isn’t embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn’t learning enough.”” (197)

“First, be useful. Then necessary.” (206)

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