Don’t Dilute The Game
I’ve been lucky enough to teach sketch writing classes at UCB for the past 4 or 5 years. In that time, like most teachers I assume, I find myself using a lot of metaphors to illustrate certain points, notes, or pieces of advice. Most of the time, the metaphor isn’t thought out ahead of time, but rather just comes out… and once started and I hear it come out of my mouth, it’s too late to stop it. So I just have to keep going and see what the hell I’m trying to say. If I like it, I’ll think about it more, refine it and perhaps continue to use it. If I think it sounds dumb I’ll say something along the lines of, “that was dumb, but the point is…” and then try again.
I have sketch metaphors involving mountain streams and Russian dolls and starting a few weeks ago, I now have one involving whiskey, with the main point being:
Don’t Dilute The Game.
When writing a sketch around a clear game (unusual thing) it is important that game is the main focus of the sketch and that all of the things we COULD write into the sketch to help play our game, actually helps it, not dilutes it.
It’s the same with a fine, expensive whiskey. There’s a lot of things we can add to a glass of whiskey - a few ice cubes, splash of Coke, garnish - but when we drink it, there should be no doubt that the main ingredient is still whiskey.
While writing a sketch around a clear game, we COULD add a lot of things to it. We could add an ice cube of a straight-man/men calling out the game, or another ice-cube of justification, or a splash of sub-game, or a garnish of jokes, but those should all be used to serve the game, not take away from it. If we add too many of those things we dilute the game, watering it down to the point the audience has no idea what the main ingredient (our game) is.
All of this, like most notes actually, speaks to the importance of keeping things SIMPLE, both in sketch writing and in making drinks.
