Improv requires your audience to be informed about what improv is. With stand-up, anybody can sit down and watch stand-up and laugh at jokes.
I know my audience, and they're not people that the studios know anything about.
And one of the things that's interesting about how they're doing the show is that the audience almost knows more than the characters do in some of these scenes, and the extent of that is unique. So it's grown into a different show in a way. It's sort of grown into a different experience watching it.
On the craft level, writing for children is not so different from writing for adults. You still have to have a story that moves forward. You still have to have the tools of the trade down. The difference arises in the knowledge of who you're writing for. This isn't necessary true of writing for adults.
I think HBO seems to have an extraordinary clever knack of catching the pulse of its audience. It really, really knows its audience.
Who doesn't love a 'Lifetime' movie? I think that they know their audience so well.
Audiences know the form in their bones, they know that romantic comedies end in an uplifting way.
You know, we have our own audience, and it's not like - they just know we're not going to do certain things.
It's unfortunate that it's not realistic that you can get people to come to a movie theater not knowing anything about the movie.
Maybe the actors that used to turn down William Goldman's scripts - where he wanted them to stretch and grow, and he was mad at 'em, and said, "Why won't they be a real actor?" - maybe they just knew their audience. It's too bad.
It is unlike the quintessential thriller where someone is up to something and the audience is speculating. 'Johnny Gaddaar' is the opposite of a thriller. In this case, the audience knows right from the outset what transpires and who the likely culprit is. It is a suspense caper.
A comedian needs to have his own filters, needs to know his audience, how far he can push things.
I find that here in the States, audiences are generally less knowledgeable, from the cognitive point of view, though they are emotionally more receptive.
In New York, you couldn't wish for a nicer audience, or in L.A., Chicago, Boston. But when you get into secondary markets, they don't have a clue.
I enjoy writing for both kids and adults, though I think I'm better at children's stories because I was a teacher for so long, and I know that audience well. The process is no different whether I'm writing for children or adults. Really, the elements of making a good story are the same.
I think test screening works at its best when the audience knows what it's getting.
But you can't really know your audiences so well.
