This is one of the Improv Commandments I posted previously. “Thou shalt not buy, sell, barter, or teach.” This commandment exists for your good and for the good of your improv.
The big issue with buying/selling/bartering scenes is that there are really only two possible results. (1) The exchange takes place. Some sort of good or service is acquired. (2) The exchange does not take place, and the audience has probably just watched a sales pitch, price haggling, and now there is nothing to show for it. Whichever route the scene takes, the end result is the end of the scene. If the basis of a scene is a transaction, once the transaction is complete, there is no scene.
It is easy to unintentionally fall into a buying/selling/ bartering scene. You initiate a scene wherein you are a shopkeeper, and your scene partner decides to be a customer. There are things to do with that situation BESIDES trying to buy or sell something, but buying or selling is often a gut reaction to a shopkeeper/ customer relationship.
Teaching scenes are also easy to fall into. You hire a new employee, go to the park with your son, wish to achieve enlightenment, and suddenly your teaching someone to use a fry cooker, teaching someone to hit a baseball, or learning how to achieve enlightenment.
In a teaching scene, one person is giving instruction, and the other person is pretty much either doing it right or doing it wrong. If they’re doing it right, what happens next? If they’re doing it wrong, there might be a comedic interlude where they do it really, REALLY wrong, but the span of time between “lol, he’s doing it so wrong” and “bored” is surprisingly short. The end result of a teaching scene is typically the person being taught learning the skill and then … that’s kind of it.
Now, if you were doing a training montage, where the training was part of a larger goal for the scene, that would be okay. Training montages are awesome, and if it was part of a larger thing, that would be even better.
Unfortunately, teaching scenes often do occur in the “Father and son enter. Father tells son it’s time to learn to bowl. They bowl.” format, which isn’t often really exciting or interesting to watch.
If you ever find yourself in a buying, selling, bartering, or teaching scene, don’t be afraid to try to take it somewhere else. Ask to see the back room, invite the salesman to lunch, find a way to use whatever you’re acquiring or learning. Ask the salesperson/ trainer to help you on the big task you need this equipment or information for. Find an action or a motivation, and run as far away from bartering/buying/selling/teaching as you can with it.
