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Using improv in an entire film

is it a good idea? i know you would have to have actors really good at improv.
Are there any features that have done this?
i dont plan on doing this anytime soon, i'm just curious on peoples opinions.
 
Harmonica what are you talking about? Everyone wants to "improve" their films. :lol:

TC, trying new things isn't bad. If I ever make a movie, I'd give it a shot. Maybe for a couple scenes to see how it goes. But it'd be called an experimental film then, not a great idea if you're trying to do narrative
 
Yeah that could work. It just may take more time in editing. The thing to do is write a script have them act that part out the way you wrote it. Then have them try to improv the scene to make it better. Then you have options. Jim Carey is know for being great at improv in movies.
 
what if the director has the basic idea for each scene and tells the actor the direction he wants them to go in.
i guess the improv would make it seem more natural?

Thats how it works.

But there are way more failures than successes.

For some successful ones, watch The Missouri Breaks. Almost all of Brando's performance is improved.
And watch The Grand. Almost all the performances are improved but it is geared towards those who are a part of and have a good knowledge of the poker world. Among them, it is quite successful and impressive considering all the improv.
 
Well okay, using Jim Carrey as an example, sometimes improve works if an actor says something funny, or says something that wasn't in the script. But if the actor says something that doesn't make sense, to the story, then you just gotta reshoot it again. As long as you have an idea of what you want them to say, for each plot point, but that's still really retroscripting, compared to improving, isn't it? I thought improving was making up parts of the plot as you go, or that's what I learned in drama class.
 
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Improv is improv. You can do it in many different ways. You can make plot points as u go along or follow certain outlines and improv in that. Basically from all out and free to in a contrained way.

However, there are certain rules and techniques and guidelines one can learn abt improving which help any actor who improvises. Knowing those can help the improv performance quite a bit.
 
Curb Your Enthusiasm is improv -- but obviously the situations are carefully and brilliantly scripted.
There's a indie guy over at the Blue Forum name Zak Foreman that shoots that way too and gets results. I'm sure a lot of actors aren't comfortable with it.
 
It depends on your goal, too. I was involved in an entirely improvised short film, but it was shot mockumentary style, so it was more the case of a single character improvising some scenes, but mostly sit-down interviews in the typical documentary style. For that, we had a few questions in mind to ask the character, but nowhere in particular to go with the dialogue. Shooting a lot of different questions and answers and b-roll, and then creating the story in editing was the production flow.

With a narrative, if you have to tell a story, entirely improvised, you're probably better off with a solid outline of beats you need to hit, points that have to emerge, knowing where Point A is and how you're going to get from there to Point B, C, and so on. Giving the actors lots of direction in terms of what their character's goals and motivations and history are would help them make the right decisions for their characters. And you would probably be more reliant on how a certain take goes (like, if you get certain plot points out, naturally, in a take, you might not want to inter-cut between different takes), so shooting two angles at the same time, giving you the option to cut between cameras, might not be a bad setup.

gelder
 
very cool!

i would LOVE to improv in a whole film

I would too. A few days ago I was trying to rehearse a few child actors. I was thinking of trying it improv style, just give them the situation and say whatever came to mind that fit the situation. Remembering lines and hitting marks is tough for a kid, dunno if it would have helped.
 
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