A1 Beyond a Joke, Beyond a Genre

Week 1 Post

Week 2 Post

Week 3 Post

Beyond a Joke, Beyond a Genre – Week 3

Slang Barrier

 

1. 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 focus this week was ‘The Comic Frame / Comedy Mechanics / Situation and Story’. To help understand these theories, we watched a lot of sitcoms and late night sketches from SNL. It was interesting to learn some of the mechanics behind these late night sketches. They are usually created on the same day they are performed, it is usually the same cast with a possible special guest, and the same storyline can be used to generate a ‘new’ sketch. Joe Toplyn wrote, ‘the host plays straight man in a scene where a comic character disrupts the show for some reason’ (2014) , highlighting one of the common storylines they use for the sketches. The ‘comic character’ could be anyone and anything. That was something else we explored in class, the checklist of a story sketch. This checklist is a great guideline to creating a successful sketch, especially because it solely focuses on the description of the ‘comic character’.

2. How does your media artefact (sketch) respond to these constraints and concepts?

Below is the ‘Nine Steps to Creating a Story Sketch’ which was written by Joe Toplyn in the book ‘Comedy Writing for Late-Night TV’ (2014). I must admit, I did not complete the entire list before filming my skit… I should have filled it out. I could have added a lot more depth to my story rather than it just sitting on the surface. There was not really a twist at the end and my character didn’t do anything extreme. 

However, my comic character did have a clear trait that I feel I executed well. She has a thick Australian accent in which her partner can not understand. Not only is she saying phrases that he can’t understand, but she is also requested a very basic dish for dinner which people could laugh at. The entire sketch is pretty corny and could have be developed further, however hopefully it still generates a few laughs.

(I have added to this list since filming – point 6 & 7)

Story Sketch:

1.Think of a comic character with two or three exaggerated traits

Strong slangy accent, clueless and carless

2. Make your comic character want something

She wants a simple dinner, a snag sambo! … sausage sandwich 

3. Have someone oppose your comic character

Her partner is posh english and doesn’t understand what she wants. 

4. Have your comic character take several different steps to get what they want, each step more radical that the last

She suggests what to put with the dinner, then another dinner option, she will then laugh it off and go make the dinner herself

5. Raise the stakes

6. Have your comic character do something really extreme

She breaks up with her partner because he doesn’t understand. or they both start crying cause they don’t understand each other

7. Have your comic character not get or get what they want

He makes dinner and comes back with what he thought a snag sambo was, but it is something totally wrong

8.Throw in a final twist

9. Add the dialogue

3. How have you incorporated peer feedback into your approach to further develop or improve your practice?

My feedback from last week:

• Needed the melody to be more obvious
• Could have just kept wearing the squeaky shoes
• Could have exchanged for new shoes and they be worse
• Sandals could have squeaked as well, all he shoes are squeaky!

My sketch this week is quite different to last week however the feedback was still useful for future work. We discussed how to add more humour, it would have been more effective to do something more unpredictable. For example, instead of taking the shoes back to the shop, the girl could have just continued wearing them even though they had a loud squeak, wearing them in a public place like the supermarket where other peoples reactions may have heightened the situation.

 

Reference:

Story Sketches. (n.d.). In Joe Toplyn, Comedy Writing for Late-Night TV (pp. 221–238). https://rmit.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/view/delivery/61RMIT_INST/12324770510001341

Beyond a Joke, Beyond a Genre – Week 2

Squeaky Shoe

The form of comedy that we explored this week was silent comedy. Silent comedy is not necessarily ‘silent’, rather it is content which humour is generated through visual performance. An example that we looked at in class was Mr Bean. Mr Bean has minimal dialogue, yet he is an iconic figure in the modern comedy world. It is his facial expressions, lanky body movements, opposite emotional reactions and childish nature that get audiences laughing out loud. After viewing the first 10 minutes of Mr Bean s01 ep01 (1990), we were able to discuss more findings of the way comedy is generated. Mr Bean takes an exam and the whole duration he is attempting to copy the answers from his peer. With a focus on timing and rhythm, anytime that he is being sneaky… which is a lot of the time, he moves in slow motion with his eyes wide and eyebrows up. As soon as he is spotted his movement is exaggerated, fast and he may even make an indescribable noise. This contrast in timing ultimately results in more amusement.

In class we also discussed our reading about the ‘Benign violation theory’ (2014). A diagram of the theory was provided which assisted with my understanding;

Benign is when something ‘needs to seem OK, safe, acceptable’ (Warren, C. & McGraw, A, 2015). If you watch a clip and someone falls down a flight of stairs and dies, you aren’t going to laugh… well I hope you wouldn’t. However, if the person falls and then gets back up like nothing happened, it is funny because benign has been added to the violation of the fall. There needs to be a balance of the two factors in order to be successful.

My sketch, ‘Squeaky Shoe’, depicts a girl who has bought some new shoes, trys them on, and boom, they are super squeaky. I was inspired to make this skit because I HATE squeaky shoes. I had attempted to squeak a familiar beat with the shoes to enhance the humour, however after watching Tony Zhou’s video essay, ‘How to Do Visual Comedy’ (2014), I decided to experiment with another element. Zhou identifies 8 things that Edgar Wright does in his film, 1 of those things being ‘action synchronised to music’. So I decided to include the riff of Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke on The Water’ into my skit. It plays quite suddenly and seems somewhat random so I am interested to see what feedback I receive.

Feedback from my previous sketch allowed me to be more focused on exaggeration and timing. While my peers liked the length and character of my ‘fart’, they did suggest that I could have added a pause or two to build more laughter and surprise. They also commented that my character could have played into the fart more, highlighting that it is in fact a fart and that can require some movement of the body.

My sketch for this week has a lot more movement. Instead of my character simply walking back and forth, she moves around and even does a little dance. I still wanted to play on what we discussed last week, which was the element of familiarity. I am sure many people can relate to my character and admit to doing some silly movements to test out if the shoe is the right fit.

Reference:

1. Warren, C. & McGraw, A.P. (2015), “Benign Violation TheoryLinks to an external site.” in Attardo, S. (ed), Encyclopedia of Humor Studies, Los Angeles: SAGE Reference.
2. Zhuo, T (2014), ‘ How to Do Visual Comedy‘, Vimeo

Beyond a Joke, Beyond a Genre – Week 1

1.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?

‘Theories of humour, with a focus on Incongruity/Surprise’

For the first week, we have been discussing and exploring our own perceptions of what “comedy” is. It was quite interesting to hear the similar responses from the whole class. Overall, everyone agreed that comedy is both something that we engage with because of familiarities and/or surprise. For example, people can be amused by watching someone struggle with gym equipment because they too have had those struggles, and they can also be amused by aspects of surprise, like all the gym eqipment being items of food?… a strange idea but that could be funny? As well, our reading, ‘Six Small Essays about Comedy’ (2023), by Seth Simons highlights how comedy can be absorbed for different reason…’Why People Laugh…Because they hear something surprising. Because they hear something familiar’.

I am already starting to realise that comedy has many layers and can be taking in so many different ways depending on the person. I am very excited to explore this subject and I know that there will be many obstacles of truely understanding how comedy works.

I have linked a TikTok clip which reflects my point of how people will laugh because they can relate to a message/meaning, yet also be surprised due to surprise or in this case, absurdity…

TikTok made by @Shiv Wlson

2. How does your media artefact respond to these constraints and concepts?

My sketch for this week is something that has been done before, making use of the “fart” sound effect. I felt childish making this work and quite doubtful; is this something I should even be producing at university? I will say, after watching a few of Tim Robinson’s sketches in class, I feel as though a lot of comedy has a solid base of childish mannerisms. In the clip below, Ronnie is being rejected from the show because of his obsession with the zipline. As he is being asked to leave, he groans and cries like a child thats had its toys taken away… very funny stuff.

I have watched my sketch back a few times and the amusement has defiantly mellowed. The surprise of the long, passionate fart is what is funny about the clip. Once you know the fart is there, it is not so funny. If my performance was more detailed, more facial expressions, more movement, the clip could have had more comical depth to it.