Impressions and Storytelling

Hi there,

Well, today, we're going to branch out in "the arts." Because this blog is not just about my visual art, although that is a huge staple of it. This blog is about visual art, performance, discussions of process, meaning, and even music, on occasion. My brother is the musical one of the family, so I mostly borrow his music, but I will borrow, and look at, these, on occasion.

My subject today is doing impressions of people. This is part of my exploration of performance and character at large. The embedded video above comes from an Inside the Actors' Studio interview with Kevin Spacey. One of my favorite movies when I was in my teen years were LA Confidential and Glengarry Glenross. So I grew up following a lot of Spacey's work, and I was amazed when I fould this video.

For some reason, I really admire people who are able to do these impressions really well. My older brother is one such influence. For a long time, I have done impersonations with him, often in a casual or joking way, paying attention to the surface-level details. It is only recently that I have begun to understand this impression style as a legitimate craft on its own. So let me share with you some of what I have learned about doing impressions.

First, you can do impressions, vocally, physically, or both, of all sorts of people. The most-sought-after candidates for this are actors, celebrity figures, media spokes people, and political figures. Christopher Walken is usually first among choices for impersonation. Some of my personal favorites are Jack Nicholson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bill Clinton. People with heavy accents or very distinct vocal characteristics are easier to imitate. If a subject has a more neutral voice, it is much trickier, but if you know what to look for, it is possible.

I used to think that I didn't have an accent. I thought that people from Southern California didn't have any accent. I knew we tend to talk vaguely like Midwesterners, since that is where many early Californians came from. However, even if you do not have an accent that jumps out at people, you still have a distinct way of speaking and using language. I learned in a voice class I just took that it has to do with the way you pronounce verb and consonant sounds. If you are impersonating someone with a distinct accent, pronouncing these sounds without exagerration can really change your body chemistry, putting you in the frame of mind for the "character."

Anyway, the person you choose to imitate don't have to be well-known. You can do one of someone you know well, like a family member, close friend, or someone else. When you do, however, you might take a different tone with them, since you have to talk to them again. Here, it helps to joke affectionately about them, as I do. One of the people I enjoy riffing on is my uncle from back east, for example.

Voice acting professional Jim Ward shows some tricks of his trade.

Another level to this is the physicality of the subject person. Besides getting their voice down, what are their ticks? First off, what sorts of phrases or verbal habits do they have? This is what the above voice actor, Jim Ward, a well-known impressionist, picks up on above. He takes a subtle, defining characteristic of each of his subjects' delivery, such as Al Gore's sighs, or Woody Allen's nasal, twitchy tone, or Jack Nicholson's intense forehead involvement (I've learned that it's harder to incorporate this for us younger imitators), or Bill Clinton's using the "curled index finger" pointing to drive a message home. Then he puts the emphasis on that point, exaggerating it, and building from that mannerism. Now, sometimes, said mannerism could be a physical tick, or some word or phrase the person habitually says.

For instance, the uncle that I just mentioned, at every time where our family sits down to dinner with him, has us do this thing where he asks us all "What's the most embarassing thing you've ever done without telling anyone, starting with you?" He's got this low, grumbly voice, and invariably, whenever he does this at the dinner table, it is to someone across the table, so he will not have to participate.

There are also little phrases people fall back on. On this blog, I always open with "Hi there," and sign off with "keep wondering, folks." For instance, the current president, Barack Obama, at the beginning of nearly every thought, will say "look," or "let me be clear." These are good things to start off with. Then, if they have a tone that they usually take, such as hurried, or agitated, or that of the know-it-all, using that would give some weight to it.

This goes back to something the late, great George Carlin said in his autobiography, "The important thing in [doing an impression] is not just their voice, how they say things, but what the person would say." This is a staple of playing character types. Representing what your subject would say, or how they would say it, would be an interesting character study. I am fascinated by looking at people as characters. To show them openly and honestly, even if making fun of them, is the best way to do it. This does a service for your truth, and theirs.

This element of the truth is what separates just a casual, exaggerated impersonation from something that really looks and sounds like the person you're imitating. I like to talk like the person, but consider what they would say. This is where the storytelling comes in. You are telling a micro-story of what this person acts like, sounds like, and is like.

This is the same purpose behind acting. What are actors but storytellers. Their job is to tell the story of the person they play. They must tell the truth of the person's actions, speech and life. Being an actor, I have discovered, is a great job for people who love people-watching. I like people-watching, even though I have times when I get tired, mentally, and emotionally, from it. You can even get tired doing something you love.

Well, this is the first post of mine in the field of performing, formally or informally, a story. I have stories, large and small, that I like to tell when I draw, and when I do these impressions. My hope is that even though these stories are sometimes ficticious, they are not, in any way, false. I hope, when I tell a story, that it will be true, sometimes to fact, but always to life.

Anyway, what do you think? Do you have a story, book, film, play, or routine, that you really believed in? Did anything make you go, "Hey, that is really true?" Let me know, in the comment box below. See ya, and keep wondering, folks!