I hope that my group’s work engaged our audience through subliminality and a sensation that comedy doesn’t need to be overt. A key component within our film I feel, is our different approach to the concept of ‘comedy’ as a mode and genre. My group and I wanted to contend that a modern understanding of comedy, and what ascertains something as ‘funny’, is not always obvious, and that entertainment and comedy do not need to be necessarily intentionally sought after in storytelling for it to be there, and for it to be a valid interpretation of genre application. While it was originally a contentious topic within even our group as the producers ourselves, ultimately, we wanted to put forward a contemporary view of comedy, one in which hearty laughter and overt reactions of amusement, are not necessary or innate in our contemporary understanding; while we were of course, mindful in needing to meet assessment criteria in making a product of the comedy genre, we wanted to analyse, deconstruct, and rebuild the concept of the comic within our film.

This hence inspired me to consider that If I were to continue developing our work for a wider audience such as in a film festival, I’d likely begin by extending our product’s screen time. Whether this was through a second ‘episode’ with our product acting as a pilot, or by extending the runtime as a short film, I feel our story needs more in order to truly take advantage of our audience and thematic reasoning presented in our narrative. I feel our touching upon the deconstruction of the comic genre through subliminal comedy wasn’t overly complex, and I’d like to develop this further. I feel one way I could strengthen our film through change would be the addition of narrative elements and by extension screen time; I fear our audience needed more time than was given to truly recognise and interpret how we deconstructed comedy, and what makes our film part of the comedic genre despite initial appearances. I would like to strengthen what I feel was a weakness of our film, that being narrative structure and character writing. I feel we ‘had the right idea’ with our application of comedy theory, but ultimately, I worry our film falls flat in certain areas due to an uncertain storyline that lacks a climax in my opinion. Our engagement of the audience may have faltered or may not have been as successful as it could’ve because of such unclear narrative structure, as well as surface level characters. If I were to personally continue development of the film, I’d like to explore more of the drama, coming of age genre in our film, and take more screen time to identify, differentiate and represent our characters, with particular emphasis on their flaws and struggles as humans (and in line with conventions of the coming of age genre).

Through watching both Rogue (Minh Thanh Nguyen) and Situation Tragedy (Nia Arora) respectively, I found the interpretation of the comic genre by each group fascinating. Through my own interpretation, Rogue contended with a more visually amusing / visual gag, silent comedy approach, and Situation Tragedy with more overt dialogue centred humour.

In Rogue, a more centralised idea of comedy was explored, with impressive cinematography and spy-film conventions emphasising this facet. For example, in the montage where Agent White explores Melbourne, the quick cutting and use of close up shots showcasing her absurd expressions within the mise-en-scene elaborates on the already comedic concept, and is amusing to the viewer. I appreciated how the film explored visual gags and silent comedy, and felt their expression of facial features, prop and actor placement, and generalised mise-en-scene, greatly enhanced their product’s comic value, and was a great strength in their production.

In contrast, I found that Situation Tragedy cleverly utilised media genre conventions of the sitcom genre, cleverly mixed in with elements of the murder mystery trope, and mockumentary genre. I found the film’s exploration of dialogue centric comedy interesting, particularly in contrast to Rogue’s use of visual gags in comparison. I felt the use of clever dialogue and both diegetic and non-diegetic sound enhanced the application of comedic elements within the film. For example, in the scene where the caterer is talking to the actor about how he is overtly putting a condom into the sandwich, dialogue of “chewing brother” can be heard; this links back to a prior gag, and emphasises it’s creative humour due to repetition and the original joke’s incongruity. The creative choice of framing each character’s interview section as a close up shot, similarly enhances humour as it adds an additional element of visual comedy, similar to Rogue.

Finally, I viewed Boxed Sizzle (Ruth Richards) from the Ready Camera One studio. I found the short form content method of presentation the group chose successful in portraying a modern sense of comedy. It reminded me of contemporary short form content like Vine and Tik-Tok, but with a more historical, free-to-air T.V. show twist. I appreciated this combination of past and present, and found the incongruity of putting a live baby in a box with the charismatic presenter noting that he “wasn’t meant to be a father” a good example of dark and subversive humour. I enjoyed how the group deconstructed modern and historical practices of comedy as a genre, and found it impressive they were able to do so with such a short runtime.