Theories of humour: The Comic Frame / Comedy Mechanics / Situation and Story
What is your understanding of the comic form and theories of humour explored this week, with reference to the reading(s), in-class discussion, and/or your own research?
The comedy theories/forms covered this week in week 3 were the comic frame, story sketches and humour techniques. From the reading ‘Comic Frame’ this week, I understand comic frame as humour that emerges from contextual elements, “the contextual cues leading the interpretation of a message is centrally important to how we make symbolic sense.” (Voth, B. 2014). This allows audiences to understand when things are meant to be funny which includes things such as jokes and puns (verbal), expressions (non-verbal) and absurd scenarios (incongruous juxtapositions). Comic frame seems to be the framework of what would make a media artefact funny to its audience. The other reading from the week, Toplyn, J. (2014), “Story Sketches”, helped me to understand how to construct a story sketch through his suggested formula in 9 steps.
This reading helped me to create the basis of my 3rd sketch.
How does your media artefact (sketch) respond to these constraints and concepts?
By following Toplyn, J. (2014),’s Story Sketches nine steps I was able to construct a sketch:
Think of a comic character with two or three exaggerated traits
CHARACTER 1: FRANTIC & UNORGANISED
Make your comic character want something
TO GET TO WORK ON TIME
Have someone oppose your comic character
A ROBBER
Have your comic character take several different steps to get what they want, each step more radical than the last
PLANNING ANOTHER DAY FOR THE ROBBERY TO OCCUR SO SHE’S NOT LATE TO WORK
Raise the stakes
THE ROBBER WANTS THE BAG NOW
Have your comic character do something really extreme
REFUSE TO GIVE THE ROBBER HER BAG
Have your comic character not get (or get) what they want
A NEW ARRANGED ROBBERY DATE
Throw in a final twist
IT’S A DATE DATE?
Add the dialogue
tick
(From week 2 onwards:) How have you incorporated peer feedback into your approach to further develop or improve your practice?
I tried to go a lot further out of my comfort zone on this one. I’ve never been good at writing scripts, particularly comedy (beginner) so this was a new one for me. This sketch was more creative and resourceful than my other sketches, aiming to improve as much as I can every week with the help of peer feedback and personal goals.
REFERENCES:
Voth, B. (2014), “Comic FrameLinks to an external site.” in The Encyclopedia of Humor Studies, Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, pp. 148–150.
Toplyn, J. (2014), “Story SketchesLinks to an external site.” in Comedy Writing for Late-Night TV, New York: Twenty Lane Media, pp. 221–238.
Berger, A.A. (2023), “The Semiotics of Humour: Universal Humour Techniques in Comedy WritingLinks to an external site.” in Audissino, E. & Wennekes, E. (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of Music in Comedy Cinema, Cham: Springer International, pp. 25–42.