I recently completed my Clocked! class at The City with my class show on November 2. This a review of the The City’s Clocked! class.
Summary
The City’s Clocked! class was the first class I’ve taken that taught a specific improv form (you don’t get into Harold’s until the later classes at UCB). And while the class helped me learn the form of 30 second scenes, it also did wonders for my regular improv skills. For the advanced improvisers out there looking to learn how to get into scenes faster and remove the fluff, this class is a great way to do it.
Course Details
Length: 6 3-hour classes + show
Cost: $175
Instructor: Aaron Haber
Description: From the Improv Resource Center:
Want to sharpen your scene work skills and build your brain into a lean, mean improv machine? Take my Clocked class.
Based on the long form I created and performed in Chicago, Clocked tests your improv skills with 100, 30-second scenes followed by 10 minutes of 10-second scenes. The result is a furiously paced improv performance that doesn’t leave you time to think.
Review of the Class
Unlike the classes I’ve taken at UCB (Improv 101 and Improv 201), Clocked! isn’t as formally structured. There was no syllabus provided, and the class focus each week was determined by where we were in relation to being able to perform the format: 10 minutes of 30-second scenes, 5 minutes of 10-second scenes, 10 minutes of 30-second scenes. Even still, the instructor had a strong sense of where we needed to get to by the end of the six weeks.
Performing 70 scenes in 25 minutes requires getting to the point of the scene as quick as possible, basically becoming 3-line scenes on steroids. Naturally the form helps you learn to remove the fluff from your scenes, but it also helps you learn to explore different ways to heighten scenes. Performing short scenes encourages the ones with strong games to come back for second, third, or even eighth beats. By exploring one area so thoroughly, it helps you understand where scenes can go, so instead of A to C, you get A to F to M to Z, all in a natural way that the audience can follow.
Review of the Instructor
The City’s Clocked! class is an advanced improv course, and Aaron Haber is an advanced improviser’s director. I could tell in the first class some of the other students were put off by his no bullshit, direct style of directing and teaching. As someone who is confident enough in my base level of improv, I welcomed the brutally honest notes as a way to further improve my improv, but I think it proved to be a little too much for some people, as a class that started with 10 students ended with 6.
Aaron doesn’t have the advantage of having a training program already defined (like at UCB), so the class is limited to his own personal knowledge. In fact the Clocked! form is one that was created by Aaron. This actually provides a nice contrast to some of the structured classes elsewhere, and works because Aaron is clearly a student of comedy–he trained at the three main improv schools in Chicago (Second City, iO, and Annoyance), and has performed in or directed more than 1500 shows.
Top 5 Notes
Aaron was able to teach me a number of things, below are the top 5 notes, quotes and suggestions:
- General improv rule of thumb – give one piece of information then let your partner speak.
- Scenes are about relationships. They should also be the most important scene/moment in that relationship.
- Start all scenes with action and intention.
- “You are no longer allowed to judge yourself, that’s why you have a director.”
- “Improv is like text messaging – you have to be short and to the point.”
