Improvisation.

 Starting improvisation as our new topic is fun and very interactive. We have already started playing some new games that get us to be creative and I find them very fun to do. Here are a few games that we have started to play with a small description too:

DING!

 To play, everybody sits down and when the "DING!" is shouted, two people have to go up to the stage and start to act out any scene they want unless a topic is given to them. When "DING!" is shouted again, the scene has to change immediately from the position they are in from the previous scene. However, if "DING! DING!" is shouted, it means that one person from the two can sit back down and another person has to get up and do the exact same thing but with the previous person that was left on stage.

 I really liked playing this game because it didn't give you a choice but to think straight on the spot and just go with whatever is happening. On the other hand, the game could go wrong if one of the two partners 'blocks' their partner on stage. Blocking is when one of the people starts a scenario and the other person just totally dismisses the story line and starts with their own instead. For example, if two people went up and one person started with "I haven't seen you in five years! How are you?" and their partner then says "I don't have a clue who you are, sorry." This is common blocking because then there is nowhere the conversation can go. This should not be done in improv but it still is regularly. This is a bad move, but I am sure we will get out of this habit very soon.

ZIP! ZAP! BOING!

 Standing in a circle, you can shoot someone to the left or right of you (depending on what direction it is going in, if it is going round the circle to the left you have to keep going to the left of you) shouting the word "ZIP!" and pointing a finger gun at the person. You can then shout "ZAP!" and point it at anybody in the circle from any direction of you still holding your finger gun and making it obvious of who you are pointing it at or it could cause a lot of confusion amongst the group. To "BOING!", you have to put your arms in a sort of square and fire it towards the person who has "ZAP!"ped you. This fires the shot away from you and sends it in the opposite direction.

 This is a fun game because it helps you to think fast and also on the spot. This is therefore a great improv game and I hope to play it a lot more regularly so that we can think on the spot a lot easier.

The yes/no game

 Everybody stands in a circle and if someone is pointed to and spoken to, the person on their right has to answer the questions aimed at the person, but they can not say 'yes' or 'no'. So for example, if someone is pointed at and is asked "So how are you finding the course so far?", the person on their right has to answer any thing without saying yes or no, so they could say for example "Really good thanks, I love it." This carries on until there are only two people left standing who are then classed as the winners of the game.

 This is a good improvisation game because it requires the person to think about what they are saying and what they are doing. It takes a lot of concentration and ability to think fast, just like what you need to do in the improv unit. This is a good help of a game and I really enjoy playing it, I would say that it is my favourite game out of them all because it gets everybody to think and also everybody is involved until they are out.

Quote game

 A very simple game, in pairs one person gets a script/book and a character from the given script/book. They then have to read only that characters lines whilst the other person in the pair has to improvise in what they say to fit with the lines given.

 I found this game to be fun with what came out and how the situation fit quite well each time, it made it a lot funnier how nobody knew what would come next from the script. A fun game to play and it got everybody to think fast and to also work with the small information that they had been given, learning to work well if the story line that they have thought of at first now doesn't fit with their partners.

Tap out

 Very similar to 'DING!", here we had to start off with a given scenario (for example, a blind date) and then tap the next person in the line to carry on and change the scenario with the previous person. However we mixed up each couple each time by doing more strange things such as every time the persons partner spoke, the other person had to dance as they spoke which made the game a lot more interesting and fun to do.

 I did not really like this game because I didn't know when to tap out and I much more preferred the game "DING!" because it had an easier format of when to leave and when the next person could come on.

General unit information

 I would say that my strengths so far in this unit would be reacting to my partners starting sentence quickly. However I would say that my weaknesses are probably not being able to end an improv and never knowing when to tap out without being told to. I will work on this as a future target and hopefully will not do this in the future.