BEEF: Improv Tools For Screenwriters

This week, we're going to discuss Beef, a fabulous limited series created by Lee Sung Jin.We will use Beef to explore two related and extremely valuable concepts for screenwriters: Game and Escalation.  Game and Escalation are concepts that we're taking from improv. But as we look at the screenplay for Beef, you’ll see that the same tools used for improv can also be hugely valuable for screenwriters. Usually, when we think about Game, we think about it as the funny thing in the scene.  If you're doing something funny, they teach you in improv to do it again. That becomes the Game.  And Escalation means you don't just want to do it exactly the same way again. You want to do it in a slightly different way that escalates it. You want to keep on building up, up, up, up.  Now, many people think of Game as a comedy thing.It’s obvious how you might Game if you're writing a sitcom or a sketch. But what if you’re writing a drama? What if you’re doing a historical epic? Do you still need Game? Does Game matter outside of comedy?  I'd like to suggest that dramas, and limited series like Beef, which mix dramatic and comedic elements, have Game, too, and that understanding Game is vital to writers in all genres.  Game is also part of the way the audience tells themselves the story of who the characters are, of what's really happening in the story, of how the character is changing or not changing, and of how the character is relating to other characters. Game and Structure are connected. When you become a master of Game, you also become a master of Structure. When you become a master of Escalation, you also become a master of Structure. So, we will be talking about all of that and more in this podcast. Note that there will be a couple of spoilers for Beef. But we’re going to limit most of our conversation to the way the pilot is structured so that we can start to understand how Game works and how Escalation works. And I’ll warn you before we get to any major spoilers for the rest of the season… Now, before we get rockin', there's some stuff I want to talk to you about that is coming up at the studio that is hugely valuable to you. So, if you enjoy this podcast, check us out live every Thursday night for free. We have a wonderful class with hundreds of writers from all over the world called Thursday Night Writes. So I'd like to invite you to join our community, where you can learn for free from me and top members of the Jacob Krueger Studio faculty.  We discussed the idea that Game is a concept taken from improv. If you are a screenwriter, if you've taken any of our classes, you know that we integrate many concepts from improvisation into screenwriting.  There’s a good reason for that: because most of what we are doing as screenwriters is improvising on the page. We are faced, just like an improv troupe, with a blank page. We might have a sense of who our characters are, but we also might not. We might have, like an improv troupe, just a suggestion, a word, an idea, a premise, a hook…  maybe just an image that came into our minds. We have the barest sense of who are characters are.  The truth is, even if we've done a whole outline and think we have figured out everything,