(Higher quality version (4K) will be posted on youtube on Wed 5th June)

Beyond a Joke, Beyond a Genre: Final Reflection 

The studio prompt for this class was: How can we creatively think of comedy as a mode within (and beyond) genre, form, and media?

Throughout the semester, I personally developed a deeper understanding of the comic form and experimented (admittedly not very well at first) with different genres of comedy, and later, incorporating comedy as a mode within other genres. It was through these learnings and practice that I developed the idea of ‘Situation Tragedy’. Situation tragedy was a way for our group to mesh as many of these ideas as cleanly as possible into a funny, captivating, entertaining and unique piece. We did not want this piece to simply play out as one joke going for a while, we were ambitious and wanted to challenge ourselves with our writing. 

Our piece drew inspiration from several areas, including but not limited to American Vandal, Community (specifically the ‘Ass-crack Bandit’ episode), true crime documentaries, and sitcom aesthetics. We were aware that through these inspirations, our piece would technically be a parody of the true-crime documentary, but we wanted to blur the line as much as possible by making it a sincere and dramatic storyline. Whilst not being too similar, we drew on our learnings from week 6, in which we watched part of ‘American Movie’, and learned how comedy can be incorporated into other genres without solely relying on it. 

One of these key ideas was hybridising through a technique called ‘cutting on the absurd’, in which “Each cut emphasises the comicality of the line of dialogue that just preceded it, and the audience’s laughter creates a bridge to the next shot” (Middleton, 2002). Since our project was creating parody by trying to closely replicate true crime documentaries, we were careful with our writing to create comedy on the cut, rather than relying on an absurd scenario. I believe this to be one of my major shifts in understanding of comedy throughout the semester; Whilst you can get laughs from a funny situation, it becomes tiring unless there is clever writing to match it. 

In my other reflections, I talked about the benign violation, which is a theory that states “humor occurs when (1) a circumstance is appraised as a violation, (2) the circumstance is appraised as benign, and (3) both appraisals occur simultaneously” (Warren, 2015). This has been a major takeaway for me and is reflected in my work throughout my semester, including the scenario in our short film, in which a character is violated when there is a condom in their sandwich, but the benign is that it is not a truly harmful incident. 

However, even with the understanding of this early theory, it was not a joke we could ride for 20 minutes in our final piece, but rather a joke that was a setup for a chain reaction of jokes. There is a specific example of investing in a joke early that I find hilarious, which is in ‘Bojack Horseman’ season 3, when a character buys thousands of spaghetti strainers and alludes to ‘a big payoff’ because it keeps being mentioned throughout the season, and then finally after multiple episodes, is a hyper-specific scenario in which they are needed. 

In our piece, we attempted to add rewatch value through similar jokes/setups like this and would love for an audience to notice these small details and find humour even on a second watch. 

Whilst very proud of the final work, there was most definitely room for improvement. Given the style we were trying to replicate was that of a crime documentary, I would have loved to have more focus on other stylistic points in that genre. If we had more time and potential resources, I would have loved to have had crime-scene recreations that are so obviously dramatised, monochrome, clips with actors, which is a style I have seen consistently in programs like ‘Four Corners’ and ‘A Current Affair’. I feel this would further the solidification in the audience’s mind of the in-universe sincerity towards the situation from the characters. In hindsight, we also could have polished the sitcom aspect a bit more, rather than having a few lines of dialogue and then the incident, once again to continue building the reality of that universe and the characters in it. A more realistic sitcom would make it more believable that there are in-world consequences and stakes, which given the bizarre nature of the incident, would further the comedy.  Or even better, have three layers, one in which it is a cast for a fiction, a second layer in which the documentary is very real, and a third in which there is a similar feeling to ‘Tiger King’ where “the characters themselves were so incredible that the people felt like they were straight out of central casting for a fiction show” (Trump, 2023), only in this instance be true. 

Working in a team for this project was realistically the only way to get it done by the deadline. Before this semester, I had only really completed individual pieces, seeking feedback from friends and family to improve my work. Once we began working more collaboratively in week 4, I began to realise the benefits of working in a group, specifically in the planning and writing stages. For the week we explored satire, bouncing ideas off group members was incredibly helpful, and created a final product we were very happy with, especially given the short time frame to get it done. This also was true for ‘Situation Tragedy’. The writing process was long, but working collaboratively allowed for a broader spectrum of creativity and refinement that is not achievable when working solo. In the editing stages, there were moments of creative conflict, but it was handled well and whilst the final product may have not matched each individual’s exact vision, it was still greatly beneficial to have other people to talk through ideas with, and made sure that we did not miss any small errors that may have otherwise gone unnoticed. 

In Summary, my own personal understanding of comedy has grown throughout the semester, and my ability to write and create comedy within a genre and as a mood has changed exponentially. The theories explored throughout the semester are all something I believe we weaved into our final piece well, and whilst there is room for improvement as there is with all things, ‘Situation Tragedy’ stands as a testament to the learnings throughout the studio. 

References: 

1. Middleton, J. (2002), “Documentary Comedy”, Media International Australia, 104(1), pp. 55–66.
2. Trump, M. (2023). Making a Scene in Documentary Film: Iconic Filmmakers Discuss What Works and Why (1st ed.). Routledge. 
3. Warren, C. & McGraw, A.P. (2015), “Benign Violation Theory” in Attardo, S. (ed), Encyclopedia of Humor Studies, Los Angeles: SAGE Reference.