https://vimeo.com/952306816 Milk Run (2024)

When we first began our initial stages of production for what would become Milk Run, in retrospect, it was a murky period of the project. It seemed our group had a lot of differing ideas about what could, would, and should work, meaning there wasn’t all too much overlap when it came to hard decisions when nailing ideas down. I recall not being entirely certain on what genre or mode of comedy I wanted to focus on, more as a tactic to keep my options open and try new things, not be dead set on something I’m comfy and familiar with. I certainly liked satire, gravitating to Caterson’s (2005) ideas around a deep topic, getting borderline analytical, ‘the most effective satire is ridicule of the most knowledgeable and intimate kind”. I very much think I’d be willing to delve into a topic of our choosing and make some nuanced points or observations, but that was also largely group dependent. Our collected idea became about representing a synthesized version of young adult life in a fish out of water, subtle comedy. Where there is nuance to be found, much of the themes came from personal anecdotes, which shifts that idea into something else, instead of purely fictitious.

Had we continued production on Milk Run, I think we could lean further into absurdity, as much of the film’s best parts come from this surrealness about the world, namely Charlie and his unnerving experiments. Had we progressed and lengthened the run time, I would try to capitalize on this character, using some of Palmer’s (1988/2018) ideas around Peripeteia and Syllogisms, in regards to more visual gags with some of his experiments, utilizing the props we scrounged together, I feel could be a great use that would add some depth to the character and use this opportunity that we could have. I think aside from that, some more focus on sound could be useful as a practical aside, as I think sound is incredibly useful in delivering humour, especially with the amount of vocal humour in Milk Run. On top of this, in terms of joke execution, I think we could take a more traditional approach to joke structure, as turning to Cassar’s (2018, p. 106) fundamentality of typical jokes as they were, there could be fertility in the classical steps; context, resolution, steeped in liminality, an uncertainty of where the story of the joke is going. Many punchlines in Milk Run are set up as such, but to Cassar’s message is the punctuation of this mystery. The use of misdirection for surprising gain. I think this would accentuate the out-of-placeness of Max’s world, where nothing seems to be normal. It’s only in retrospect that a lot of these thoughts are coming to me, which might be my area of improvement to do, as a level of foresight is always important in scenarios like these, however this could be a range of factors that change how I feel in reflection, as is the point of reflection. Either way, I believe the emotions that we set out to communicate around social isolation, youth, and ideas of place where transferred, and even if I do have ideas on what I think we could’ve done differently, I think it’s still an achievement how much we were able to do even so.

I’m not sure if it’s a good or bad thing that my tastes in comedy haven’t changed over the semester, but I am certain of my acknowledgement of its processes now. I find that exceedingly valuable moving forward and look forward to exercising it in my future works. Similarly with the practical side, I found collaboration to be rewarding in this class, the heavy emphasis placed on co-ordination with pupils puts an exciting twist on how we approach our weekly artifacts, and more latterly, the major media product. I found this rich and invigorating, as it is crucial to me to find an understanding of what other practitioner think, act, and more importantly, what they find funny. I believe it takes a range of perspectives to have the best breadth of humour, and participating in group work gave me an elevated concept of what it took to distinctivize my own work, and understand other people’s approach to theirs to shape my own voice. In terms of the participation, I think it’s pretty unspoken in how group psychology can work, a lot of times there’s been louder voices than others, conflicting opinions, and different perspectives on jokes that don’t always see eye to eye. There’s been a few cases in this class where such things have happened, but for better or worse, compromises are made and the job is done in the end anyway. Ultimately, I think I really value the work we produced, especially Milk Run, and reminisce on it favourably!

Caterson, S. (2005). A Preposterous Life. Griffith REVIEW, 8 186–192.
https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/ielapa.418026005601603

Palmer, J., Marx, N. & Sienkiewicz, M. (eds) (1988/2018), Logic of the Absurd, The Comedy Studies Reader. (1st ed.). University of Texas Press. https://doi.org/10.7560/315996

Cassar, M. A. & Sover, A. (Ed.). (2018). The languages of humor : verbal, visual and physical humor. Bloomsbury Academic. 105-140. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350062320