The link to my Silent Comedy Sketch (week 2)

The first thing to get out of the way: yes, I know it is more than a minute long. My Dad is visiting and not born an actor, but I wanted to use him, so his sequences just took a little longer. I think though that it adds charm and I think the format for the joke works well, and considering we were told to use the time best appropriate for whatever format of joke we chose, I decided to trim it to about 1:10 and leave it there.

I have a little bit of history with silent films before, I acted in one in Year 11 with a live orchestra (which preceded a Buster Keaton film) which was pretty fun, and Modern Times is a favourite film of mine, so I was fairly across the conventions of silent film.

But it was my first time making one, and I found honestly the hardest part was just getting an idea. I ended up going with the first one I had.

I really wanted to avoid making a silent film for something that needs context as I didn’t have the time limit able to commit to that, so I am hoping the TARDIS is common enough knowledge in pop culture it needs little explaining, because ideas in the short form were next to none, despite my several hours of “research” watching Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Rowan Atkinson.

My main sort of goal was to subvert subversions, which I termed in class as something of a “double-pump”, to use a basketball term. The idea that I need to lead them one way and then, totally take them away from the area that it was heading, while also avoiding the obvious alternative. I think I somewhat achieved it, probably as best as I could for the time limit and the budget ($0). My secondary goal was not to make it overtly rely on performance, because silent comedy thrives with great, theatrical actors, of which my Dad and I are not. I was also trying to harness something we spoke about in Tuesday’s class, which were “Benign Violations” (Warren & McGraw, 2015), and I think this may be the definition of a Benign Violation.

I was inspired by the old silent films to use music however, as adding it I think created a far better tempo than the atmospheric sound. It also meant I was able to far more easily progress time in the short, as I didn’t have the ability to cut to new settings/scenarios efficiently due to the time limit.

I just wish I had managed to think of a more succinct idea.

References:

Music by Oleg Kyrylkovv from Pixabay
Warren, C. & McGraw, A.P. (2015), “Benign Violation.” in Attardo, S. (ed), Encyclopedia of Humor Studies, Los Angeles: SAGE Reference.