ACTION
TRAP: It takes the first 20 seconds of the scene for you to warm up.
COMPASS: Improvise the top of the scene.
When you bake a cake what's the first thing you do? Turn on the oven to get it to optimal baking temperature before popping the cake in. Did I mention I love food analogies?
Just like the oven warming up, improvising dialogue before launching into the scene as written, means you start connected versus warming up half way through the take. Just leave a beat between the improvised dialogue and the text so you can edit appropriately.
For the science geeks out there: When a human improvises, the creative centres in the brain activate and the critical areas shut down, which means you're far more likely to be genuinely responsive.
Want to know more? Look up the TED talk by Charles Limb, ‘Your brain on Improv’.
“Listening is fuelled by interest and curiosity. It is a discipline and an action in the world, and the results are nearly magical. Hearing can restore. To be heard, really heard by another person, is to be healed.”