This week a large component of our mediamaking and production entailed presenting our WIP presentation (attached below) to our studio guests Hannah Camilleri and Stayci Taylor. We received a lot of valuable feedback, primarily related to centering our story and updating our dialogue.

Some feedback mentioned by Camilleri suggested that our ending lacked a clear message, and that it should come ‘full circle’. We took on this feedback and discussed our themes and messages in detail so we were all on the same page. Now, we are working towards changing the ending to emphasise Max and Charlie’s comfort and support in each other, which wasn’t as clearly presented before, through a shared activity like looking for the missing cadaver, Charlie buying groceries for Max etc. as Inger-Lise Kalviknes Bore (2011) states, “Instead, what we see, and no doubt what the audiences of the time expected and demanded, is variation within a set of conventions that embraced not only the story lines developed but also the characters involved and the technical aspects of production” characters are also of note especially when they relate to story; it’s of my opinion that a ‘good’ comedy is made through ‘good’ characters.

We also found that our script read didn’t illicit as many laughs as some other groups, and our group had a contended discussion about whether this was a desired effect or a facet of not enough comedic elements. We argued about our core genre being a ‘coming-of-age’ first, and a comedy second or vice versa, and if we needed more obviously comedic elements. Upon some further research, I found the quote “… the sitcom, it “invites the viewer to feel at one with the few dozen people s/he can hear laughing, and by extension with millions of others across the country”(45).” (Inger-Lise Kalviknes Bore 2011) encapsulates the sense of relatability and community our group is trying to portray; while the original quote refers to the sit-com genre, of which ours is coming of age, the notion of inviting the viewer to “feel at one” with the audience and content is reminiscent of a key message of community and empathy in our film.

After our discussion, we decided to update the script and focus on our traditionally non-comedic coming-of-age genre, and becoming more comfortable not implementing overtly ‘laugh out loud’ comedic elements as some other groups have. Though we believe excessive comedy is not necessary in our project, I remain conscious of the following quote by Shobini Iyer(2021); “Using comedy as a crutch, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” ultimately left audiences hard-pressed to extract a deeper meaning (in the film’s coming of age genre).” My group will need to be careful in ensuring the comedy does not outweigh the primary genre, or lessens the realism of which our film is based on.

John Morreall (1989) defines comedy as “a genre of repetition“. This, along with my knowledge of the incongruity theory, inspired our group to repeat our arguably most “successful” joke in our script read. The Perth accent joke is an example of incongruity, as realistically the average person can’t tell you’re from Perth by how you speak, so the juxtaposition of this dramatised fictitious element in combination with a realistic scenario of buying groceries, creates incongruous humour. Likeuse, if we repeat the notion of Charlie having a Perth accent throughout the film, the repetition becomes a staple in the comedy, and can enhance the joke’s effect.

WIP Presentation: Tiny Chairs

References

-Ireland S. (2010) ‘Brill’s Companion to the Study of Greek Comedy’, Brill, https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004188846_010

– Inger-Lise Kalviknes B. (2011) ‘Laughing Together? TV Comedy Audiences and the Laugh Track’, The Velvet Light Trap, 68(1): 24-34

– Shobini I. (20 September 2021) ‘The evolution of the coming-of-age genre in film’, The Spartan Shield, accessed 10/05/2024.  https://spartanshield.org/29522/arts-entertainment/the-evolution-of-the-coming-of-age-genre-in-film/

-Moder, G. (2019) ‘Comedy as Performance’, Palgrave Macmillan, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27742-0_13

-Morreall J. (1989) ‘Enjoying incongruity’, Walter de Gruyter, 2(1):1-18