Youtube Video: https://youtu.be/P7_-FLsMZXo?si=hoO_cjlD1K44Eean

This week’s topic was hard to get my head around. Especially because our main focus has been to think in a comic frame for the past 5 weeks. This week was learning about how to hybridise different genres and use all the concepts we learnt in earlier weeks to add comedic elements to the work. 

In class the examples that were shown were documentaries vs mockumentaries. From my understanding of it, mockumentaries make fun of documentary conventions, using made up characters with exaggerated personalities, fake scenarios etc. On the other hand, documentary comedy is a documentary all in all, with real actors, real situations but utilises editing, funny people, timing etc. to show comedy. In ‘American Movie’ (1999), there were many times where post production helped with the ‘rhetorical continuity’ (Middleton, 2002) of the piece. A funny line or Mike Schank came onto screen and abruptly ‘cutting on significance’ (Middleton, 2002) to the next scene which emphasises the joke or dialogue. Relying on timing and post production to create the humour. I realised I’ve used this technique many times but never knew what it was called.  

This week my group and I decided to make an action film more specifically a fight scene. In order to keep to this genre we used fast camera movements, punching sounds, dramatic music, pov shots, in between fight dialogue, a villain (costumed with a black coat and dark glasses) and a hero. What made our video comedic was how there’s no real context to why our two characters are fighting, how serious the scene is even how regular our characters looked and knowing how to dramatically fight (breaking a norm or expectations). Our experiment took a lot of workshopping while filming, figuring out the best camera angles, lighting, and ways to keep continuity. Overall, there was a fine line between parodying the action tropes and hybridising the genre but I think our group did well in keeping to the genre. 

Over the past weeks, I realised it is easier for me to workshop ideas and jokes when it is a collaborative process. There’s times where I have doubted my ideas but it ended up getting laughs. I learnt that it is after you show someone your work or say the joke is when you know if it’s been received well or not. I am excited to make a short story for my final project because acting is not me.  

Reference: 

Middleton, J. (2002), “Documentary Comedy,” Media International Australia Incorporating Culture & Policy, 104 (1), pp. 55–66.

Smith, C. (Director). (1999). American Movie [Film]. C-Hundred Film Corporation; Civilian Pictures; Bluemark Productions

Video link: https://youtu.be/dBXBMeDpU_Y?si=0Dam_yfDawtPnmtf

This week’s topic was satire and reality comedy. It was quite hard for me to understand exactly what satire was because although I have come across satirical media before, I often get it confused with parody media. I learnt that satire and parody are both modes of comedy, it can be adapted to different genres. Where parody is using the product of the piece of media already, looking inward, satire looks outward to social issues in the world to mock and attack said issues. 

What helped me understand this more was the three examples shown in class all surrounding the same idea but using satire in different ways. The social issue they all tackled was drug use. The one that stuck out to me most was the episode of ‘Brass Eye’ (1997). Where it satirised the cliches of British television programs with dramatised scenarios on drug use; the kids in the addict school, absurd graphs that have no correlation satirising scientific research, casting celebrities to play on the satirical nature of the episode. 

Therefore, with this knowledge, it helped us inform our direction for this week’s hybridization experiment. Keeping in mind the overall feedback in class, I think this week our group did well with our audio and camera quality. We were able to use Zoe’s DJI camera which had an inbuilt gimbal and handheld microphone. Putting aside time outside of class to discuss our roles and formulate ideas was very helpful in getting everything done and how we liked it. 

One thing that we did implement from last week’s class was the hat-on-hat concept when writing our script. To not over-complicate and overcompensate our jokes because sometimes less is more. Our script was also very unserious but Zoe was able to present it in a serious way and therefore that contradiction turned out to be funny. We used a voiceover, absurd facts, b-roll footage and ‘live’ interviews to emulate news programme’s conventions. Our chosen topic was to satirise the fact that the news and media always finds new ways of reporting on things that can give you cancer. The overall social issue of the media’s role in perpetuating a problem and simplifying research studies into bite size information. While the target of our satire was the medical industry and their research. 

References:

Morris, C., Baynham, P., Linehan, G., Mathews, A. (Writers) & Cummings, M., (Director). (1997, February 5). Drugs (Season 1, Episode 2) [TV series episode], Brass Eye. Talkback

YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/5AeK4eZlc9Q

A parody is ‘the process of re-contextualising a target or source text through the transformation of its textual/contextual elements’ (Archer, 2016).  My take on the definition is taking a piece of media that is commonly known to the general public and using comedic techniques and conventions to ‘poke fun of’ and recreate the original work. My experience with this mode of comedy is based on music video parodies back in 2010 but parodies can comment on many different genres as well; news, movies, tv shows, social media content etc.

Parody is also a mode of comedy, where it is not inherent to the genre. What helped me understand this concept was taking the western genre and applying a parody to it. It still has conventions of a western film; wide open landscape, a hero and villain, but it is also comedic. This can be applied to any genre. 

This week we were able to meet comedian Hannah Camilleri, teaching us her process in creating comedy. There were many things that she talked about but the main things that stuck out to me the most was being specific about the feedback that I want to receive ,because sometimes not all feedback is warranted. Also when idea generating, making lots of iterations of one idea because that first idea isn’t always going to be the best. Finally, using repetition of the same joke and hammering it in, can be just as effective as coming up with lots of them. 

In regards to our media sketch this week, Chloe and I were able to efficiently work together to get our parody skit filmed, edited and published on time. We started by generating ideas in class using Toplyn’s (2014) 9 step guide in ‘creating a parody sketch’, hopping on call to finalise our ideas and the roles of each person. I was responsible for editing and creating the voiceover. Most people have seen the famous David Attenborough’s nature documentaries but we ‘added an angle to the video’ (Toplyn, 2014) by filming and narrating the main subject, Jordy, as if he was a wildlife animal. I studied the ‘stylistic elements’ (Toplyn, 2014) of Attenborough’s documentaries, mimicking his iconic tone of voice and pace of speech, incorporating it in my voiceover. Adding common words like ‘species’, ‘primate’, ‘natural habitat’ to help the audience connect to the original piece. Overall, a fun topic to explore. 

References: 

Neil Archer, A. (2016). Beyond a Joke: Parody in English Film and Television Comedy. Bloomsbury Publishing. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350985506

Toplyn, J. (2014), “Parody Sketches” in Comedy Writing for Late-Night TV, New York: Twenty Lane Media, pp. 239–261

Week 1: https://www.mediafactory.org.au/anna-duong/2024/03/08/beyond-a-joke-be…eek-1-reflection/

Week 2: https://www.mediafactory.org.au/anna-duong/2024/03/15/beyond-a-joke-be…eek-2-reflection/

Week 3: https://www.mediafactory.org.au/anna-duong/2024/03/22/beyond-a-joke-be…eek-3-reflection/

Youtube Video: https://youtu.be/uJHtHhzf89I

This week I learnt about comic frames, sitcoms and its formats and some steps in creating a story sketch. 

According to Voth and Smith (2002), comic “frames are the constructs humans use to view, group, and interpret experiences with reality.” Therefore the establishment of a good comic frame influences the story and jokes being told and without it it can ruin the context or even the whole sketch. An example that was shown in class, an episode of Kevin Can F**k Himself, stuck out to me when there was a shift in the frames. The conventions of the sitcom; a laughing track, the all so familiar set of the living room, the brightly lit and colourful colour grading, all together created a strong comic frame. The then intentional tonal shift to Allison, Kevin’s Wife, perspective within her everyday life and marriage, strips away the comedic frame that was set before and almost leaves a sour taste in the audience’s mouth when returning back to the sitcom side. 

This week I was heavily inspired by building my comic frame through the conventions of a sitcom, using this as my comic frame. Adding elements like an intro music, a still of a house, the sound of a live audience and the fade into black transitions were all intentional. 

Additionally, I kept in mind Toplyn’s ‘The Nine Steps to Creating a Story Sketch’ model in his ‘Comedy Writing for Late-Night TV’ (2014) to develop my ideas for this week’s sketch. Although not following it fully. For example my comic character, Aunt Suzie, is extra nosy, a clean freak and very condescending, all exaggerated traits. Aunt Suzie pushes the mother character and goes straight to Anna’s room which is something extreme and a violation that guests do not conventionally do. I wanted to include a final twist that they did end up eating dinner in Anna’s room which is unconventional and therefore could be funny. 

Lastly, the question ‘if you were to cast a different character in the week 2’s sketch differently, how would it have affected the sketch?’ was asked by one of my peers during peer feedback. This question influenced me to create a comic character who is an aunty, conventionally middle aged, but casted as my little sister. Dressing her up to make her look older, heels, and mix match clothes made the contrast all the more funny. 

Reference:

Smith, C., & Voth, B. (2002). The Role of Humor in Political Argument: How “Strategery” and “Lockboxes” Changed a Political Campaign. Argumentation and Advocacy, 39(2), 110–129. https://doi.org/10.1080/00028533.2002.11821580

Toplyn, J. (2014), “Story Sketches” in Comedy Writing for Late-Night TV, New York: Twenty Lane Media, pp. 221–238

Reflection:

Youtube Video: https://youtu.be/TzxlJ_srv5Y

This week I learnt about two other theories of humour. 

The creator of the relief theory, Sigmund Freud, believed that laughter was a way to release pent up ‘animal spirits’ (J Morreall, 2009), psychological tension and alleviate anxiety from within (Meyerowitz, 2023). I understand why this is a theory of humour because when we laugh at something funny we feel a sense of relief. Although like we learnt last week laughter can be triggered in so many other situations, it doesn’t take into account other factors like environment, social, cultural and more.   

In regards to the Benign Violation, this theory suggests that humour arises when something that is benign and a violation happens simultaneously. This type of humour works because it ‘could be a method of reassessing negative events in comical constructive and more affirmative ways’ (Harm et al., 2014). I believe that this theory helps to show that humour is subjective and complex. Different people may perceive the benignity and violation elements differently because of their individual perspectives, experiences and cultural backgrounds. 

My media artefact was based on this week’s topic of silent comedy. In class we watched the infamous first episode of Mr Bean. The sketch might not have been silent but it lacked dialogue. It made up for it with other elements such as performance, timing, repetition and laughing track. These techniques helped to inform my work. I showed my sister returning back from school, knocking on the front door to get in. She becomes angrier, climbing through the window, only to find the door unlocked. I directed my sister in her performance, making her facial expressions more exaggerated to heighten the intensity of the situation. Additionally, I contrasted the happy upbeat music with epic music to show the goal or the objective of getting through the door. I also kept in mind the relief theory, where tension is built as my sister struggles to open the door, and it is released with a simple solution at the end. 

Furthermore, peer feedback in class helped me further develop my skills in this skit. My peers gave suggestions of different angles for the camera, extending my skit and emphasising the actor by adding close up facial expressions. Something that I could have done better is to stretch out the ending of the skit, to really focus on the fact that the door was unlocked the whole time. 

References:

Harm, J., Vieillard, S., & Didierjean, A. (2014). Using humour as an extrinsic source of emotion regulation in young and older adults. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 67(10), 1895–1909.

Meyerowitz, R. (2023). Sigmund Freud: Later models-identification, internal structure, and the ubiquity of loss. In Mourning and Metabolization (1st ed., pp. 58–95). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003266631-3

Morreall, J. (2009). No Laughing Matter: The Traditional Rejection of Humor and Traditional Theories of Humor. In Comic Relief: A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humor (pp. 1–26). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

Link to my media artefact: https://youtu.be/GmxubBxEnH0

In this week’s class of Beyond a Joke, Beyond a Genre we explored the overarching question of ‘What is comedy?’. In class, we attempted to answer this question in table groups and we came up with the rather simple answer of ‘the art of making some amused’. We firstly defined it as ‘the art of making someone laugh’ but after more discussion we realised people can find something funny but not verbally laugh, a nonverbal remark. Therefore bringing us to our definition. 

Although, I came to realise that comedy is not an easy subject to define because comedy is very subjective. We are all different and experience the world in different ways, so what I may consider funny may not reflect to the next person. I also came to realise comedy depends on the situation you find yourself in, the people that surround you, the environment and many other factors. 

I learnt that people can laugh without a sense of joy. What stuck out to me from Simon’s (2023) ‘Six Small Essays about Comedy’  was the idea that people can laugh because they are uncomfortable, frightened, horny, think they’re supposed to, relieved to have spared misfortune, someone who is suffering and deserves it or someone who is suffering who they believe deserves it. Overall, comedy is not just what we find funny, triggering a good feeling but is also underlined with so many other emotions. 

My media artefact explores the idea of incongruity which was discussed in class. Setting up an expectation, a norm, a prediction for the audience and then deviating from that and therefore triggering a comedic response. Inspired by Key and Peele’s (2015) ‘The Substitute teacher Mr Garvy’ comedy skit whereby they set the expectation that the substitute teacher would correct themselves after pronouncing a students name wrong and deviating this expectation by getting angry, I set the expectation that I was training to lift some heavy weights. I demonstrated this by putting on a sweatband, doing some star jumps and stretches, with the help of the infamous Rocky Balboa theme song ‘Gonna Fly Now’ (1977) playing in the background. This expectation was set but then I deviated from it by filming my partner who is bigger and stronger than me, pretending to be me, lifting weights. He is also of darker complexion and therefore the clear distinction that it is not me lifting the weights is more comedic. 

References:

Comedy Central UK. (2015, August 25). Key & Peele Substitute Teacher Mr Garvy  [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/zRpsRKuyi3Y?si=nh6KFZlJ235IuqF9

Conti, B. (1977). Gonna Fly Now [Recorded by Bill Conti]. On Rocky: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. United Artists Records. (Original work published 1977).

Simons, S. (2023) “Six Small Essays About Comedy,” Humorism, <https://www.humorism.xyz/six-small-essays-about-comedy/>.

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