Sketch 4 – Beyond A Joke, Beyond A Genre – Harper Tabb

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Link to Sketch 4 – Parody

 

Sketch 4 was designed to use comedy as a mode, not a genre. In Layman’s terms, the skit is meant to be funny in a genre that isn’t usually or always comic. I realised this is actually one of my favourite attributes of comedy: finding comedy in shows, movies or pieces that aren’t necessarily designed originally to be funny (or vice-versa, funny things that become serious/emotional). An important part of this in the context of parody, is making sure “most people have seen it” (Toplyn, 2014). To elaborate further, making sure your topic is something that’s within the public zeitgeist, that means the likelihood of people knowing what you are spoofing is high (and hence, what your joking about likely being funnier).

That is the primary reason we parodied shows like A Current Affair and Today Tonight. They often over-sensationalize fairly mundane topics to begin with, but also dramatise the characteristics of the people within the story. As a result, we tried to exaggerate the frat-boy nature of the deaf character, Kent, and the gentle, mild-mannered and nice nature of the blind character, Lily.

I think also it was good to try and analyse the stereotypes of these formats and attempt to subvert them in a manner that was in some way original. I think it was vital for the sketch to ensure we found the line of making the show’s format part of the bit, along with the extreme persona of Kent, to try generate jokes from there. It was important not to punch down and that became extra obvious in the context of parody, as we needed to ensure we didn’t leave anyone feeling like they were the target of the piece. Small touches, like actually learning the (American) signs for what I was saying, really brought out an authenticity that honestly made it a lot funnier also. I think doing this in a standalone comedy maybe wouldn’t have been as noticeable, as the expectation of a gag or joke is higher in comedy than in other forms of media.

 

 

References:

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

Permalink Post for Assignment 1 – Beyond A Joke, Beyond A Genre – Harper Tabb

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Sketch 1: https://www.mediafactory.org.au/harper-tabb/2024/03/08/sketch-1-harper-tabb-beyond-a-joke-beyond-a-genre/

Sketch 2: https://www.mediafactory.org.au/harper-tabb/2024/03/15/sketch-2-silent-comedy-harper-tabb-beyond-a-joke-beyond-a-genre/

Sketch 3: https://www.mediafactory.org.au/harper-tabb/2024/03/22/sketch-3-harper-tabb-beyond-a-joke-beyond-a-genre/

Sketch 3 – Harper Tabb – Beyond A Joke, Beyond A Genre

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Link to Sketch 3 – Situational Comedy

 

To get it out of the way: my delivery of the joke/premise, in my view, is not funny. I think the concept is funny/absurd, but probably required a little too much set-up to establish actually funny jokes.

Which in some ways is my takeaway. We are encouraged to experiment in these classes, so I try hard to push myself to try things irrelevant of how likely I think they will work. This in my view is one of those times (this assignment even says only it might only have one or two comedic moments, which I think was accurate in my case). I had two ideas for this sketch, one being someone who was asked to fill in for a job for a moment in which they clearly aren’t qualified for, and another being scam calls to an emergency dispatch centre. In the end I combined the ideas, and perhaps that was part of the issue (too much to establish with too little time), but I think ultimately with an extra minute it would flow significantly smoother. I don’t dislike the concept or the way I did it, but the acting probably needed to be sharper and simpler for the time constraints. My group also said the idea was promising and something could be made from it, but time constraints may cause difficulties, which was obviously true.

But putting the situation through the “Comic Frame” as we learnt about in our week three classes helped me to identify the concept in and of itself was funny. Setting it up to be a “benign violation” (particularly as no parties are in imminent danger) and showing the premise to be intended as humorous in the form of the character’s naivety and nice-but-oblivious nature, helped me to establish some of the other details of the skit (like how will he escalate the scene with his attempts of solving his obstacle/situation). I sort of improvised the dialogue which I think retrospectively was a mistake, but the pre-production planning of the rest of it I think definitely helped me fit the form of situational comedy better, and definitely could be improved (and be funnier) with a less strict time restraint, prepared dialogue and some acting touch-ups.

It’s also just stupidly hard to be funny for the sake of it, and that’s something I’m still pushing myself on.

 

References:
AI scammer voice generated by crikk.com
Phone Sound Effect by Shiden Beats Music from Pixabay
Voth, Ben. “Comic Frame.” Encyclopedia of Humor Studies, vol. 1, 2014, pp. 148–50.
Warren, Caleb and McGraw, A. Peter. “Benign Violation Theory.” Mays Business School Research Paper, No. 2015-11, February 2, 2015.

Sketch 2 (Silent Comedy) – Harper Tabb – Beyond A Joke, Beyond a Genre

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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.

Sketch 1 – Harper Tabb – Beyond a Joke, Beyond a Genre

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Link to my first sketch: https://youtu.be/RmC_Q8LFsm8

I have had difficulties with getting my timetable sorted this semester, as a result, I was only allocated the class on Tuesday, which meant I missed Monday’s class.

But Wednesday’s class was enough for me to get the ball rolling with possibilities as to what I could do this semester.

This obviously being my first sketch, I tried to focus primarily on just making something I found funny that fit the assignment parameters. I wasn’t too focused on the technical aspects, and I wasn’t too focused on the quality, what I wanted to primarily focus on was being funny and not try to stifle my own ideas with perfectionism.

I was a bit inspired by old Vine humour. People were fitting jokes in a six second period that have now become pop culture phenomena’s and part of the social media zeitgeist, and platforms like TikTok have only expanded upon that, and the criteria for this sketch was under a minute. As a result, I was curious to try following a similar format: early premise of the joke (sad film like Titanic (Cameron 1997)), set-up (“who is cutting onions in here” line, trying to deflect attention from crying), and punchline (the fact someone is actually cutting onions). I think the concept of the joke works well (before I wrote 400 words explaining it with references). it surprises and subverts expectations.

The other thing that inspired me for my sketch was Six Small Essays about Comedy (Simons 2023), particularly his third essay: Why People Laugh, which reads as follows:

“Because they hear something surprising. Because they hear something familiar. Because they hear a funny sound. Because they want to. Because they think they’re supposed to. Because everyone else is. Because they recognize a certain rhythm or cadence as humorous. Because they’re uncomfortable. Because they’re frightened. Because they’re horny. Because they’re relieved to have been spared misfortune. Because someone is suffering who deserves it. Because someone is suffering who they believe deserves it. Because they realized something true about themselves. Because they realized something true about the world. Because they felt very alone for a long time and now they don’t.”

I think this lifted a lot of weight off my shoulders, things are funny because they are funny, and that trait is very human. If I find it funny, it is probably, in some way, funny. What my attention needs to focus on this semester, is finding the best methods and finding a rhythm that works for me, and my sense of humour.

References:

Cameron J (director) (1997) Titanic [motion picture], 20th Century Fox, United States.

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

A5 pt2 Studio Review – Harper Tabb

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I was curious to see what others came up with for their final exhibits, and I really enjoyed seeing how some of their work came together knowing how much effort they put into them.

 

From my studio (Uses of Photography), I was really curious to see how Jinli’s “Melbourne’s Palette” would look considering I had discussed the idea with her a fair bit and I really enjoy that type of use of colour theory. Her photos are gorgeous, and she has a really good eye for what those colours look best in when it comes to environments. Her purples have a real regal quality to them, her yellow more late-afternoon sombreness, blue more clear sky type, etc. Even as street photography, each comes with a feeling or aesthetic that is difficult to explain in words but can so easily be captured through photography, and especially colours. Really proud friend over here, with how they came out.

I was also keen to see how Mia’s “Wallice” idea came out. She wanted to do a style akin to the Spotify small videos that play in the app with a song, but with her own photography of live acts. I have a good friend from back home in Perth who does this for a career, and knew how fun and cathartic she finds it.

And I think Mia nailed what she was going for. I really enjoyed these and she definitely got the type of feel she said she was going for. The small music player overlay was a nice touch to give it that similarity to the Spotify feature, and I enjoyed how the imagery also got more intense as the music did, whereas the smaller, slower parts had more gentle transitions. Above all, the photography itself was also just gorgeous, love how she uses stage lights to really help frame her images.

 

As for a studio that wasn’t mine, I really wanted to look at Uncomfortable Filmmaking. There was a myriad of reasons why I wanted to look at it, namely that I think it focused on a part of filmmaking that I (and realistically probably a fair amount of inexperienced filmmakers) probably feel I am not that well-versed in, or able to do as fluently as I may like, in that discomfort and tension that can be achieved so well in films. I think it also seems to have taught how to replicate these – and not just through narrative but through filmic conventions and the breaking of them – in a way that leaves the viewer feeling uneasy.

Another reason I wanted to look at this studio, is I also – without really knowing what I was doing for it – did the cinematography for Coco Italiano’s piece “Daydream”, and was curious to see how it would be used.

I really liked how it all came together, and really enjoyed the splicing of the clips to create progressively more unnerving imagery. I won’t say much about the cinematography, other than aside from considering I didn’t really know what I was doing and was given one camera and a lamp, I thought it came out pretty well!

I also really enjoyed that is was a minimal dialogue piece, because I definitely think if I was doing the studio I would have leant into dialogue a fair bit and I appreciate people trying to make them without it. I think it takes a lot of skill to make something that unnerving with realistically nothing but lighting changes. Her vision for it was evidently clear and I could tell that from her direction of what she wanted me to capture.

The other piece I watched from that studio was “Do Geese See God” by Phoebe Hewertson, Jaden Arendtsz, and Joey Barclay. I enjoyed the direction of discomfort in this one, being more akin to a Yorgos Lanthimos or Michel Gondry film, as it was more about human feelings and how we express them abstractly in film form. I thought some of the shots were really clever, particularly with the unnamed main character (portrayed by Jamie Miller), and his traversal through spaces. I definitely enjoyed also its ambiguity, as beyond feeling disconnected from the world, which is its primary theme, there is plenty of ways to interpret the story. It was a clearly big project and I’m impressed with how it came out (especially at the end of a university semester!), and having seen Jamie’s acting before in a previous studio, I am definitely glad they got someone who can perform as well as he can, as walking and moving backwards through everything and everyone, cannot have been an enviable task.

 

Assignment 4 links – Harper Tabb

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Assignment 4 photos:

https://rmiteduau.sharepoint.com/sites/UsesofPhotographyStudioSem22023/Shared%20Documents/Forms/AllItems.aspx?csf=1&web=1&e=8dj35Y&cid=4fada845-4060-49ce-899b-7721f3495b22&FolderCTID=0x012000E7427538E06A8549ADAE2619F0839F8B&id=%2Fsites%2FUsesofPhotographyStudioSem22023%2FShared%20Documents%2FStudent%20ASSIGNMENT%20SUBMISSIONS%2FASSIGNMENT%204%2FHarper%27s%20Assignment%204&viewid=8ebb2cb0-b671-4486-a5fd-5300b7f251ac

 

Reflections:

Week 7: https://www.mediafactory.org.au/harper-tabb/2023/10/18/uses-of-photography-week-7-reflection-assignment-4/

Week 8: https://www.mediafactory.org.au/harper-tabb/2023/10/18/uses-of-photography-week-8-reflection-assignment-4/

Week 9: https://www.mediafactory.org.au/harper-tabb/2023/10/18/uses-of-photography-week-9-reflection-assignment-4/

Week 10: https://www.mediafactory.org.au/harper-tabb/2023/10/18/uses-of-photography-week-11-reflection-assignment-4/

Week 11: https://www.mediafactory.org.au/harper-tabb/2023/10/18/uses-of-photography-week-11-reflection-assignment-4-2/

Week 12: https://www.mediafactory.org.au/harper-tabb/2023/10/18/uses-of-photography-week-12-reflection-assignment-4/

Uses of Photography – Week 12 Reflection: Assignment 4

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One key thing I learnt this semester was I know more than I thought, but also know nothing at all.

I have some experience with photography prior to this class, and had even done gigs as a photographer before, but I think I just knew how a camera worked and the conventions of photography. I’m not necessarily certain I had control over these, though, just I was aware when the universe sort of aligned to give me them. This semester I have a greater appreciation for how to manipulate them, though I’m definitely still not perfect at it. But walking around the streets of Melbourne, I definitely found myself at times going “this should be a good photo, why isn’t it?” and being able to manipulate it more. It did, however, still make me want to buy a Sony A7, and getting to use one in class did not help stem that urge any further.

 

I think I’d like more time for the Assignment 4 project, but not for the reasons students might normally say that. I think for the nature of the assignment, I wanted to get good observations and really get a pulse for where and when to expect things to occur (and be brave enough to get close enough to photograph it). But I think, doing this over the course of a week or two (and particularly a post-AFL-grand-final week), meant the city wasn’t necessarily brimming with life like it had the weeks prior, but even more so, I think street photography collections are rarely caught in the space of a few outings. People spend weeks and weeks there to get acclimated and really try and find the small details, and I think I’d like to have done this assignment with maybe six or seven weeks to really properly immerse myself and get what I want (and as mentioned, be brave enough to get it). An element of that was almost guaranteed to be learnt for this assessment I think, but now knowing it, I’d definitely like to do it over a longer period (and hopefully catch some meaningful days, like the AFL Grand Final day when a Victorian team wins). I also have a tendency to want to experience those moments myself and not through the lens of a camera, so there is an element of balance to that too which having done this assignment I now believe I have a greater understanding of.

 

I think my view of photography as a medium as a whole shifted this semester. Between expanded photography, AI, studio and street photography, I found myself a lot more engaged with diversifying from my strengths, and even if my subject matter was comfortable, in my methods I was deliberately challenging myself to go further than what I may have previously. And I think I enjoyed that experience more than I was expecting, even if I was perhaps a little disappointed I didn’t get more “I’d hang this up”-type of photos than I hoped. I definitely feel more confident with a camera, and even though my assessments this semester may not entirely reflect it in my view, I think I am a better photographer than from when I started, and that is largely due to my expanded view of the medium and its capabilities, and the tools I have at my disposal to create them.

Uses of Photography – Week 11 Reflection: Assignment 4

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Seriously beginning to hate controlled, box lighting.

Not for what it actually creates, it can be gorgeous, it’s just finnicky. I spent an earlier week trying to plug away at it and the reason it wasn’t working was more or less “sucks to suck, Harper.”

So it was definitely cathartic watching Brian also struggle with these as it meant I wasn’t stupid and it does, in fact, just sometimes not work.

The actual photographs were nice though. I am curious to try experimenting with reflective light more, because seeing light reflect and bounce back towards the subject produced more light than I was expecting. Also would like to get more controlled lighting (particularly softbox lighting) experience, as I think it created some really gorgeous photos and it’s probably something I’m a bit more inexperienced in.

Was also interesting seeing how people stylised headshots. I definitely had an aesthetic in mind when approaching taking photos, but honestly didn’t really consider how one might approach it differently until other people started doing theirs. This seems obvious, and maybe I am just running out of steam creatively this semester (I definitely am), but was nice to sort of think even the simplest of photos can have such variety in creative choices.

I also enjoyed seeing how everyone else was going, and providing feedback to one another. Really enjoyed my chat with Mia in particular as her focus on music photography happened to be something I knew someone back home does professionally, and was able to give each other some inspiration (or at least she gave me some). In the last few weeks of semester, those kinds of suggestions are a lot more valuable than perhaps we give credit for, because it definitely gave me a bit more of a thought on how stylistically I can do some things, and just generally speaking getting engaged with the assignment to a point of wanting to share and see how others are doing.

Uses of Photography – Week 10 Reflection: Assignment 4

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I wasn’t here for this week, so as a result I don’t have a lot to say about classes.

As a result I mainly focused on myself, but even then, I found myself weirdly demotivated.

Well, I suppose not weird. It is week 10 of second semester, it’s not like this is a time that is conducive to being fully energetic and balls-to-the-wall creative. But I feel a bit flat, to be honest. Not entirely uni’s fault, lots going on, but I thought I’d actually talk about it, considering I wasn’t in class for whatever did happen in class this week.

 

To discuss further on what I said in a previous reflection, I think a large part of this assignment I would feel a lot more comfortable naturally getting the photos through observations that occur over months, not a week or two. Though I did miss an opportunity after Collingwood won the premiership to get photos there, I think that could have been quite good but perhaps if it was too many of them, would have overridden my theme. But generally thinking, I almost wish the assignments were done in reverse, because I think my motivation and ideas at the beginning of semester would be a lot more consistent before it is crushed by the reality that is life in your student twenties. Obviously this is all impractical at a minimum because it means people would expect to be good at a subject from the get-go rather than giving them 10 weeks to learn it, but that’s not the point, the point is my feelings.

What does give me inspiration though was Vivian Maier and looking through some of her photos. I understand they were taken over a lifetime, so my point very much stands, but it does open my eyes just how many gorgeous photos she took and how they she saw the world. Creativity comes from inspiration, and maybe I need to rethink my inspirations?

Who knows, but here’s what I do know: I’m a bit tired now, keen to have it all done.