Feeling Safe With Edits
Editing is amazing. It’s a punchline. It points out the thing to continue later. It regulates the pace of the show. It prunes tag runs. It is a critical way (maybe secretly the most critical way) to support your castmates. It’s also something that players get in their heads about.
It feels like a negative action. Like you’re stopping the fun. This mindset has to be broken.
This lesson plan is to build up players’ confidence in doing this incredibly important task.
Warm-Ups
Monologue snake
A series of character monlogues. One starts a character monologue the other must initiate their monologue by stepping in front of the speaking person. This repeats, with them stepping in front of each in turn. Start with plenty of room!
The physical act of stepping in front of the speaking person is important, don’t let them forget this.
If you need to prompt them to make the move.
Samurai
I don’t know who made this but I’ve seen it called a bunch of things
One person gets in the middle of a circle of the other players. The circle takes turns tapping the person in the middle and initiating a scene with them. This scene should not last more than a few lines. Another person in the circle then taps the person in the middle and starts another. Etc, etc
This framework supports many tweaks
The person in the middle must mirror the initiators character (peas in the pod)
The person in the middle must keep the same character through all of the initiations (feels like a tag run)
The initiation must be physical, with several seconds of silent work
The initiations must be in one location
The initiations time-jump
And so on
You can enforce an “everyone must go once before twice” rule. Or don’t and note who edits and how they do it.
(The Home Improvement Huuuh sound)
Get a lot of space for this one.
Put the players in a cluster. They are going to run around playing a series of preset games as a group, one after another. This looks like the cluster bouncing around the space and doing different group games, taking initiative to edit into the next.
The games can be anything that supports group play, I typically use the following
One player will point to a location in the space and make a grunt sound. Another player must run to that space and start miming an activity. Then after a beat all of the other players join them doing the same activity, or supporting the activity.
I like the vocal and physical aspects of this edit, that and the initiator does not make the first scenic move.
One player runs to another place in the room and strikes a pose. After a moment the rest run and build around them to create a tableau.
This can be done as a static piece or as a “machine”
One player starts a character monologue and the group then Monologue Snakes
A more thinky initiation
One player starts to sing a tone, they rest then join in to make a harmony/dissonance. The tone can evolve.
I introduce these one at a time, letting them play with each and get comfortable.
Watch for the same people initiating over and over, encourage individuals to edit
Make it clear that there is nothing precious about these games and you can edit whenever you want.
Exploratory Exercises
Directed Edits
Very simple. Call out when an edit should happen and force the players to act on it. I try to do this randomly not in rhythm with the scenes. Sometimes with a timer.
This works editing at any time, not getting stuck watching the scene.
Self Edits
A montage where all of the scenes end with a character exiting. Once a player exits the next scene must be initiated immediately.
A variation is limiting the edits to a character turning out and starting a monologue to the audience. As they’re talking other players must set up behind them and do silent environmental work until they conclude then immediately start their scene.
Onion
The short-form game where you start with a one person scene/monologue, then a person joins to make a new unrelated two person scene, then a third joins for a three person scene, and so on until everyone’s in a group scene. Then each scene initiator finds a way to leave their scene and we swap back to the previous scene, counting back down until the one person scene.
Montage/Sets
During all of the scenes in this section call out when a player jumps to edit and backs down. Force them to complete the edit. This behavior is often rooted in “Wait, am I cutting them off?”. If they feel it, they should do it. Encourage them to trust their feet and not feel regret!
Limiting Editing Options
Discuss what editing tools the team likes to use (organic, narrative, swarm) and limit the set to using just a few of them.
I often nix interscene things like barn-doors, tag in/outs, paints to focus on clean edits
You can run a Slacker or Follow the Leaver, same idea.
Wrap-Up
Talk with the group about what felt easy, what felt hard. Note the players who edit a lot and those with the most trepidation, have a conversation about how people view when to edit (and what scares them about editing).
This is a good time to get feedback on what editing mechanisms the group likes and what are difficult for them. Given the choice I’d spend time sharpening the ones they like rather than trying to force them to get used to what doesn’t click. Of course this depends on the kind of show they want to do.
