Full time guys, are looking for new ways to get new material and new ways of using it to improve their shows. So today I thought I'd talk about my method for getting more bits of funny business, and what I do to put it all together.
Where do you find your own material?
The number one place to find your own material is on the pitch. The more time you spend on the pitch the more material you will have. I have many sources and I'm going to list some of them here. But it's not so much where, but how I find my material.
I get inspired from things I'm exposed to. Like regular people on the street, my audience, T.V. Cartoons, or even other performers sometimes. For instance sometimes other performers might inspire me. I say inspire me, I never knowingly steal material as a rule of mine, but I do listen in my head for the premises and the patterns when I hear lines or see bits. That enables me to turn it around and rewrite it to fit my show and maybe even grow into something.
The important thing to understand here, is that the line will not be the same. I do not steal material.
I'll give you an example, once I heard Tim Eric say his famous opening line, "Smart people show over here, everybody else, is just walking by."
I loved that line so much I came up with an opening line that went like this, "If you want to have fun, stick around, otherwise just walk off snooty."
Later that line changed into, "Alright everybody settle down I'm here now! OK fine, I know what your thinking, so I'll do a couple of tricks first, that way you can see if I'm any good, if you even want to watch me, I might not be any good."
The point here is, the line is different, but the premise of the line is exactly the same, my line fits my character and the theme of my show. Anyone who has seen my show, knows it is not a smart people show.
Another thing one may have noticed from the example, is that a small line evolved into a much larger line, in fact the line is so long now, that in my show, it goes on into a five minute routine.
Essentially what I do, is I say things that are in my head and if the people like it, I keep it in the show, if they don't like it, I don't.
Some of the best bits I get, are crazy responses from the audience when I go out on a limb. After I get this material, I just try to recreate the situation with the next audience, to try and get the same results or better. Sometimes this even results into the next audience thinking I'm a mind reader. I think playing with the audience is always a good idea, the more you go outside of your comfort zone and experiment, the more opportunities present themselves.
Don't be afraid to say things.
Even Hecklers have a large body of material for the performer, just bursting at the seams in fact, sure some of it's not funny, but maybe it has a good premise and just needs a little tweaking.
Another place I get material, is from the tricks themselves, every magician knows that most tricks need patter or mime to complete the misdirection, and guess what, that's material, and that material has the potential to work itself into a routine of it's own. These kernels of patter can be grown into new plots, stories, and premises. Sometimes I even abandon the the effect, because the new story is so good I need to create a new effect that would better illustrate the better story.
Once you get into these habits, you will create a huge body of material that sometimes has to be cut back for appropriate showtime, which of course is a good problem. Having too much is better then not having enough.
I think the key to stringing bits into routines is to make sure the story makes sense. Try and imagine the story as being true, of course it's better and even simpler to string it together if the story is true.
One last source for material is, my show itself, if I need the audience to do something like wait, look, move up, or what ever, that gives me another kernel to work with. I could just tell them to come around the front or I could ask them why their standing behind me so creepy like that. I thought of this line because first, I had to move them around to the front, and second, because they were being creepy standing behind me like that.
Anyway, about this time in the article, many of my readers may be thinking this is all a little too abstract, but I assure the reader, once you get out there trying these exercises, and comeback and read this again, it will all make a lot more sense, unless it doesn't, because my crazy's leaking out again.
Anyway, that was me thinking out loud, have fun and I'll talk to you later.
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Your Pal.
Jimmy.
