Through this week’s reading I found the technique “cutting of the absurd” Jason Middleton (2002) discusses both interesting and highly relevant to my group’s (as well as my own previous) work.

“From  the assessment of these various critics,  the increasing use of humour in documentary film-making  in  the 1980s and 1990s raises significant  questions about  the ethics of how  the  objects of this humour are represented.”

This quote in particular similarly interests me as previously within the course, the ethics of comedy have not been extensively discussed. It was touched upon through the benign violation theory origins (Warren C. & McGraw A. P., 2015), and briefly in readings such as “The Logic of the Absurd” (Palmer J. 1988).

However, I feel this exploration of more modern comedy morality is relevant in the academic study and production of comedic media.

“Rhetorical continuity implies that a cut between two different scenes will create a juxtaposition that contributes to the film’s  overall argume”.

The concept of Rhetorical continuity I feel is especially prevalent in my group’s work. For example, in the scene where the producer is ranting and not writing anything on the whiteboard, in tandem with the dramatic backing track, evokes humour through rhetorical continuity when it suddenly cuts out to the “normal” groundskeeper doing an interview.

Over the past few weeks I’ve found that I enjoy making dialogue centered humour, and emphasising character reactions to enhance comedic effect. For example, in my week 1 video, I really enjoyed zooming in on the absurd facial expressions of the characters reacting to the strangeness of my character, I personally found their reactions more funny than the original written jokes. Likewise, I also found that when given the chance, I like to work with deadbeat and dark humour. For example, I enjoyed working on week 2’s video due to darker dialogue lines such as “we all know you CEO’s have tiny brains and little empathy”; I found the comedic satirisation of real issues entertaining and more fulfilling in my work.

References

•  Middleton, J. (2002), “Documentary Comedy“, Media International Australia, 104(1), pp. 55–66.
• Warren, C. & McGraw, A.P. (2015), “Benign Violation Theory” in Attardo, S. (ed), Encyclopedia of Humor Studies, Los Angeles: SAGE Reference.
• Palmer, J. (1988/2018), “The Logic of the Absurd” in Marx, N. & Sienkiewicz, M. (eds), The Comedy Studies Reader. Austin: University of Texas Press, pp. 51–54.