FastCompany Magazine

The official Tumblr of Fast Company.

Improv emphasizes showing over telling, a principle that often manifests in a technique known as “the invisible game” on Key & Peele. The central joke of these scenes is ladled out, beat by beat, but never spoken of. “The audience loves to figure things out,” says Key, who has extensive professional acting experience and a unique physicality honed by emulating silent masters such as Chaplin and Keaton. “They love it when a performer leaves a trail of bread crumbs for them, and they get to participate in the comedy.” Innovation through improvisation: How Key & Peele busted the forumla and created something new

Improv emphasizes showing over telling, a principle that often manifests in a technique known as “the invisible game” on Key & Peele. The central joke of these scenes is ladled out, beat by beat, but never spoken of. “The audience loves to figure things out,” says Key, who has extensive professional acting experience and a unique physicality honed by emulating silent masters such as Chaplin and Keaton. “They love it when a performer leaves a trail of bread crumbs for them, and they get to participate in the comedy.”

Innovation through improvisation: How Key & Peele busted the forumla and created something new

“In my experience, what’s true as a woman is very different from some of the more cliched ways we’ve represented women over the years. I want to tell a more complex story. I want to tell a more empowered story, a more joyful story, a more sexy story …  There’s an opportunity to create a new way of looking at women in the culture, and that’s by example.” -Connie Britton, No. 13 on our list of Most Creative People in business

“In my experience, what’s true as a woman is very different from some of the more cliched ways we’ve represented women over the years. I want to tell a more complex story. I want to tell a more empowered story, a more joyful story, a more sexy story … 

There’s an opportunity to create a new way of looking at women in the culture, and that’s by example.” -Connie Britton, No. 13 on our list of Most Creative People in business

How Ron Swanson became Ron Swanson.

My first meeting with Mike Schur, one of the two creators, about Ron Swanson, we almost opened the meeting by saying, “Well, this guy has a kickass mustache.” And I don’t usually wear a mustache. I think Mike had once seen me at an audition forThe Office with a mustache, so that was where we started.

There was a side of my demeanor—I’m not always stoic and expressionless like Ron, but sometimes I am. So I think Mike took that plainspoken, no-bullshit side of me, and liked that color a lot. They found it incredibly hilarious that someone would have a wood shop and make things out of wood for fun so they laced that into the character.

Read more->

Boardwalk Empire’s Terence Winter on the surprising effect of truth in television. He says that killing one of his key and most popular characters was “the hardest decision I’ve had to make in my career.” But he did it because he feels he owes audiences a truthful show. “First and foremost you want to be truthful as a storyteller. So I said if we are going to tell this story truthfully and not as a ‘TV show,’ then he has to die. Even though it was very inconvenient for me as a showrunner, I felt I had a duty to be real so I had to do it. Anything less would feel phony. ” In fact, just before Nucky shoots Jimmy in last season’s finale, they have this exchange:  Read on->

Boardwalk Empire’s Terence Winter on the surprising effect of truth in television.

He says that killing one of his key and most popular characters was “the hardest decision I’ve had to make in my career.” But he did it because he feels he owes audiences a truthful show. “First and foremost you want to be truthful as a storyteller. So I said if we are going to tell this story truthfully and not as a ‘TV show,’ then he has to die. Even though it was very inconvenient for me as a showrunner, I felt I had a duty to be real so I had to do it. Anything less would feel phony. ” In fact, just before Nucky shoots Jimmy in last season’s finale, they have this exchange: 

Read on->

“There are definitely fictional families that I’ve almost felt like a part of,” says Kirk Demarais, the artist responsible for a series of portraits of fictitious families plucked from pop culture. “The Brady Bunch is first to come to mind. Thanks to endless repeats of those 117 episodes, my brain was practically fooled into thinking I was growing up alongside Greg Brady and the gang.”

See them all->

Scooch over Lena Dunham, all the real girls are now on Sundance: “You haven’t seen sexy in a wheelchair,” says one of the stars of the new Sundance Channel reality show, Push Girls, about a group of telegenic best friends in Los Angeles who are paralyzed from the neck or the waist down. Premiering June 4, the 14-part documentary series follows Angela, Auti, Mia and Tiphany, a band of struggling Hollywood dancer/model/actresses, as they doll up in high-heels and make-up, work out, drive themselves around town, talk about sex, relationships, career aspirations and personal goals, flirt with strangers, debate the pros and cons of having babies with boyfriends and husbands, and navigate the daily challenges of life in a wheelchair. Read more->

Scooch over Lena Dunham, all the real girls are now on Sundance:

“You haven’t seen sexy in a wheelchair,” says one of the stars of the new Sundance Channel reality show, Push Girls, about a group of telegenic best friends in Los Angeles who are paralyzed from the neck or the waist down.

Premiering June 4, the 14-part documentary series follows Angela, Auti, Mia and Tiphany, a band of struggling Hollywood dancer/model/actresses, as they doll up in high-heels and make-up, work out, drive themselves around town, talk about sex, relationships, career aspirations and personal goals, flirt with strangers, debate the pros and cons of having babies with boyfriends and husbands, and navigate the daily challenges of life in a wheelchair.

Read more->