Hey I wanted to write a little about justifications in improv, specifically how improv justifications act as the central compass of game within your scenes; determining the pathway the comedy of your scene will move in.
Let’s get all the common complaints about justifications (and game) out of the way. They are confusing, laborious, terrifying, the opposite of improvising freely, blah, blah, blah, blah…
All this is true.
They are also quite powerful and can make second beats and heightening a cinch if you get good at using them.
Let’s look at some examples coming from organic scenes inspired by a suggestion.
SUGGESTION: Laser
PLAYER 1
The corrective surgery I am suggesting, Craig, will remove your need for corrective lenses. You’ll be able to leave your glasses behind.
PLAYER 2
That would be wonderful! I hate the way my glasses get all the attention.
A pretty quickly inserted funny thing (first unusual thing), people who dislike wearing glasses do not normally feel that way out of jealousy for their glasses.
PLAYER 1
Oh, you feel your glasses get more attention than you do?
Player One questions the unusual thing, one of the few right ways to use questions in improv, as a framing move to repeat and clarify an unusual thing.
PLAYER 2
Of course, my glasses are in front of my face, which means they are the first thing you see when you see me. And you know what they say about first impressions.
Okay here is the justification, Player 2 explains that people observing you see your glasses first because they are literally the closest things to their eyeballs. The logic extends from there a bit, that this creates a first impression, which is connected to the general societal belief that first impressions are important. Maybe that extension gets looped into the larger pattern or maybe not.
PLAYER 1
I don’t think people mean that when they talk about first impressions.
Okay an argumentative move that is a Top of Your Intelligence response. Classic Voice of Reason move.
PLAYER 2
To each their own. But I can tell you, these glasses have caused me an enormous amount of pain. Sometimes I wonder if my wife even loves me, or if she only loves the impression she got of me from my glasses.
Great move here, to first sidestep the argument while still acknowledging the disagreement and then quickly moving to heighten the absurdity. This man believes his most intimate relationship is nothing but a sham due to his glasses being in front of his face.
PLAYER 1
But your glasses are entirely unremarkable, they’re large lensed with a frame that has no flourish or thought to design.
Another Top of Your Intelligence response, Player 1 points out that Player 2’s glasses are unremarkable, and though it is left unsaid, therefore not likely to be the reason Player 2’s wife fell in love with him.
PLAYER 2
Don’t I know it! Mr. Boring, that’s who my wife loves, not me, not Craig Morrit. Did I tell you she works as an actuary? She got the job after we became engaged. I think because she thinks she loves a boring man on the basis of my boring eyeglasses. How I hate them!
Okay this line and Player 2’s last one are probably too long. It definitely could have been just the first sentence. Stay pithy. Still the absurdity is heightening and that is all happening through the perspective of Player 2 which was defined by the justification.
Evaluating the scene, it is a little passive. All the heightening moves are coming in reference to Player 2’s partner who is not in the scene. Maybe it would have been better for Player 2 to accuse Player 1 of trying to fix his glasses instead of himself? Or maybe Player 1 could have put on one of those mirror devices that hang off the front of the head of eye doctor’s and Player 2 could have started treating the doctor differently based on his impression of that device.
It is easy to see how second beats might play out with this perspective as our justification. Maybe a scene in which the same character (Craig) is at a Halloween party or answering the door for trick or treaters. He could treat people in their costumes as though they really are werewolves and vampires and so on.
Or maybe he is in a job interview and the interviewer is sending signals that they intend to hire him. But this only infuriates him, because he is sure they are only doing so because they think his glasses are boring and responsible. To make it more absurd, perhaps he has ditched the glasses for contacts and now accuses his interviewer of only seeing him as his contact lenses instead of the person underneath.
Maybe he initiates that scene with a line like, “What do you mean by complimenting me for being so transparent about my previous work history? I’m a human being, made of flesh and blood and quite opaque, I think you’re thinking of my contact lenses when you compliment me for being transparent!”
And so forth.
But what if the justification were different? Would that change the potential trajectory of the initial scene and following beats? Let’s revisit the scene but change the offered justification to explore the impact a justification has on a scene.
SUGGESTION: Laser
PLAYER 1
The corrective surgery I am suggesting, Craig, will remove your need for corrective lenses. You’ll be able to leave your glasses behind.
PLAYER 2
That would be wonderful! I hate the way my glasses get all the attention.
I’ve kept the same first unusual thing the same..
PLAYER 1
Oh, you feel your glasses get more attention than you do?
And I’ve kept the framing response the same.
PLAYER 2
Don’t you? I mean, think about how many times you have mentioned my glasses in just this one appointment. It’s pretty much all you have talked about.
A brand new justification, a logical justification that proves the character’s assertion correct by citing the other character’s behavior back at them. This justification is still very similar to the first one, it still centers around Player 2’s nonsensical jealousy of a boring inanimate object. But the trigger is different, instead of proximity triggering the jealousy now the mentioning of the object sparks the jealousy.
PLAYER 1
Craig, I’m an optometrist. It is my job to talk about your glasses.
PLAYER 2
You sound just like my pool guy.
PLAYER 1
What do you mean?
PLAYER 2
I mean whenever the pool guy comes over it’s the pool this or the pool that. It’s like I’m not even there.
So the game we are playing is different, but not that different! We can imagine new second beats now. For example, a second beat at a restaurant might start with these first two lines:
PLAYER 1
…And those are our specials.
PLAYER 2
Well, I happen to think I’m pretty special too. Just as special as your silly food arrangements. I wish you would notice that!
Or how about a second beat at a bank?
PLAYER 1
(tapping on a keyboard.)
…And there we go, we’ve opened a new checking account for you.
PLAYER 2
Fine, but I wish you were open to learning a little bit more about me, not just my personal financial instruments.
A wedding?
(Four or five improvisers quickly arrange themselves in the classic wedding tableau with a priest in the center, the bride and groom on either side, followed by a best man and maid of honor.)
PLAYER 1
(Playing the priest.)
Please put the ring on the bride’s finger.
PLAYER 2
(In disbelief)
Is that all you see? How about looking the bling to the human beings doing the marrying here?
CPR?
PLAYER 1
(Rushing to Player 2 who is prone on the floor.)
Okay, stand back everyone, the defibrillator is charged, I’m going to shock him back to life!
PLAYER 2
Dammit! I’m dying! Can’t you pay attention to me instead of your stupid machines!
And on and on.
I prefer the second take to the first one. In the first one the comedy requires some item to be worn and options feels narrower. In the second one simply mentioning any physical object is enough, so almost any base reality can easily trigger the game.
And that is due to the justification itself.
You could visualize your comedy scene as a line moving through space, like a ray of light.
It moves in a straight line until suddenly something funny happens.
This demands an explanation, so someone in the scene offers a justification. Perhaps you could think of the justification as a lens that the light will now pass through (we might as well go with this analogy, since our scene is all about glasses anyway).
Depending on the design of the lens the line may move in any number of directions. If the lens matches the scene perfectly (or closely) then perhaps we could say it causes no distortion; it functions like a transparent window, allowing the line to pass through it without changing its course much at all.
And depending on your aesthetic maybe these are the best sort of justifications, ones that allow the scene to move forward in generally the same direction it was already moving in.
I’d say the first justification we examined was pretty on the nose. The funny moment or unusual thing comes when the character admits they are jealous of their glasses. The reasons for why are explored in the justification and there is something surprising about the first impressions rationale, but largely the game plays out how it starts, that the character is unnecessarily jealous of accessories they wear.
The second justification isn’t that different, but it is maybe a little more complicated. They are jealous of whatever the person they are speaking to is focused on, even if that thing is for their own good, like the defibrillator. It still results in the character becoming jealous though, so I wouldn’t say the lens of this justification diverts the direction of the comedy all that much more.
What about a thick lens? Could it divert our scene in a very unexpected direction?
SUGGESTION: Laser
PLAYER 1
The corrective surgery I am suggesting, Craig, will remove your need for corrective lenses. You’ll be able to leave your glasses behind.
PLAYER 2
That would be wonderful! I hate the way my glasses get all the attention.
Same first unusual thing.
PLAYER 1
Oh, you feel your glasses get more attention than you do?
Same framing move.
PLAYER 2
No, not really. I thought you wanted me to say that?
A new explanation emerges, but it only gets us a little bit of the way there. There is more explaining to do.
PLAYER 1
What? You thought I wanted you to be jealous of your glasses?
PLAYER 2
What can I say, I’m a people pleaser!
There it is, a pithy flexible justification that can apply in many different ways. It can and should be explored more, but the label for this justification is, “I’m a people pleaser.” It is a mantra or point of view justification.
PLAYER 1
Okay, but why would I want you to be jealous of your glasses? Why would I want that?
Top of Your Intelligence Response using a question to invite further explanation.
PLAYER 2
Huh, I don’t know. You seemed to imply I should want to get rid of my glasses. I guess I thought you thought I was jealous of them. I’m only human, I make mistakes all the time.
This doesn’t change the justification much, but the game just got a lot wider since Player 2 has explained that his people pleasing way of life isn’t at all limited to what people want. In fact, since Player 2 often makes mistakes, we can assume he also make incorrect people pleasing decisions frequently.
PLAYER 1
Wow.
PLAYER 2
I know.
PLAYER 1
So do you want to schedule the Lasik surgery?
PLAYER 2
Oh boy! Do I ever! I was actually hoping to schedule three Lasik surgeries.
A heightened move.
PLAYER 1
Three?
Player 1 notices and reacts.
PLAYER 2
Sure why not? If one is good, then three is great!
Exploration of the heightened move.
PLAYER 1
I wouldn’t advise it. Three Lasik surgeries could destroy your eyes.
Top of Your Intelligence Response.
PLAYER 2
Then forget it! No Lasik surgeries. I’m very serious about following your advice, Doctor.
Another move.
PLAYER 1
Are you just telling me what you think I want to hear?
PLAYER 2
Yes, I absolutely am!
A good example of not being coy.
PLAYER 1
Craig, do you even want to be seeing me as your eye doctor?
An invitation to even more absurdity
PLAYER 2
Honestly no. In truth, I think my eyes are fine. I’ve been wearing prescription glasses for over ten years based on an impression I got that my Dad wanted me to wear glasses.
Another move, heightening the absurdity even further.
This third justification diverts the game sharply. Jealousy never appears again in the scene, in fact it was never even there. The character simply believes in guessing what people want from him and supplying it.
Let’s revisit some of the second beats we imagined for the second justification to see how they would play out with this new one.
PLAYER 1
…And those are our specials.
PLAYER 2
I’ll have one of everything. No, make it two. I’ll have two of everything on your menu.
At a bank?
PLAYER 1
(tapping on a keyboard.)
…And there we go, we’ve opened a new checking account for you.
PLAYER 2
Awesome. Can I open another one? Can I open three more?
A wedding?
(Four or five improvisers quickly arrange themselves in the classic wedding tableau with a priest in the center, the bride and groom on either side, followed by a best man and maid of honor.)
PLAYER 1
(Playing the priest.)
Please put the ring on the bride’s finger.
PLAYER 2
Even though I only met this woman a few days ago and feel no real connection with her, I am happy to.
CPR?
PLAYER 1
(Rushing to Player 2 who is prone on the floor.)
Okay, stand back everyone, the defibrillator is charged, I’m going to shock him back to life!
PLAYER 2
(Leans up a little and whispers.)
This is what you want right? To be a hero? I’m fine, I was just taking a nap, but go ahead and shock me.
So now we have a vastly different game, the scenes will all play out wildly differently. If we were to illustrate it again it might look something like the below.
So that is why justifications matter so much. They define our games. They chart a path for our scenes sending us in as many different directions as there are justifications.
This post has been heavy on the diagrams, so let me leave you with a final one!
As you can see, your justification is where you can use your sense of humor to push your scene in a direction that is fun for you. The possibilities are endless and since I made a scientific diagram, there's just no way to dispute this fundamental law of nature!
Justifying in a scene with a personal motto feels really grounding.