Throughout this week my group began to form the very basics of our production; We discussed what sort of comedy we enjoyed and were inspired by, what sort of content we’d like to make, our goals and aspirations, and most pivotally, our roles in the project.

We each went through all applicable roles such as timeline manager, writer, main camera man, director  etc. and decided among ourselves based on our skills and attributes who would do what. We also each completed a mood board (mine shown below) as a way to consider visual inspiration and resources to refer back to throughout production.

Explanations (images read left to right e.g. Bo Burham is the last picture)

1. What We Do In The Shadows (TV show): love the awkward humour and absurdity of the concept
2. Our Flag Means Death: love the awkward kiwi humour and juxtaposition / incongruence of a pirate being loving and supportive to his criminal crew
3. Mean Girls: Love the absurdity in some parts such as the juxtaposition of “I love your sweater” immediately followed by “that’s the ugliest sweater I’ve ever seen”. Bitchiness can be funny and I like to see female leads and the relatable high school setting
4. Stanzi Potenza: I love their very blunt and awkward humour the deadpan expression and intonation of absurd but realistic jokes (they dig at real problems a lot using satire) are great.
5. Hazbin Hotel: Love the taboo crude humour mixed in with genuinely endearing moments and interesting story concept/ characters
6. Priscilla Queen of the Dessert: As a queer person I love queer movies, this also ties in to my love of bitchiness in movies I find it quite endearing. Love the absurd concept of a bunch of drag queens travelling across the dessert and the campiness of it all: also love the bright colourful aesthetic and memorable characters.
7. Kevin Can Fuck Himself: The concept really interests me as I love the dark twist and subversion of expectations.
8. Staged: the character interactions are chaotic and very funny; quick fast paced humour all at once overwhelms you and you can’t help but laugh. It’s also  surprisingly simple concept executed quite well.
9. Generic Stock Photo of Some Guy: I like this photo in particular when thinking about my group’s original idea about the life of a uni student. The person looks awkward and uncomfortable to be there but forced to put on a smile, similar to how I feel about going to uni sometimes in a comedic way.
10. Inside: Bo Burnham: Love the taboo and crude nature of Burnhams humour and how fervently he owns it. Also love how ‘Inside’ looks visually, the cinematography is impressive. 

Among our discussions of inspiration, one group member mentioned a few media such as Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now as sources to reference, which I will be looking into, and providing my own inspiration for the group to consider, this week.

Personal Communication, 2024

Thus far my group doesn’t have a concrete story in place, but rather a vague concept. We’re interested in mixing comedy and drama in more of a hybridisation (Jason Middleton, 2002) project rather than parody (Joe Toplyn, 2014) or satire (Meikle, Graham, 2012). A vague story outline we discussed was about the average life of a modern university student, with comedy tired to everyday life such as eating cup noodles, having 4 dollars to your name, dealing with roommates etc.

References

1. Middleton, J. (2002), “Documentary Comedy“, Media International Australia, 104(1), pp. 55–66.
2. Meikle, G. (2012), “‘Find Out Exactly What to Think—Next!’: Chris Morris, Brass Eye, and Journalistic Authority“, Popular Communication, 10(1–2), pp. 14–26.
3. Toplyn, J. (2014), “Parody Sketches to an external site.” in Comedy Writing for Late-Night TV, New York: Twenty Lane Media, pp. 239–261.
4. Conrad J. (1899) Heart of Darkness, Blackwood’s Magazine, UK.
5. Coppola F. F. (director) (1979) Apocalypse Now [film], Omni, Luzon, Phillipines.