What are some specific rules, theories, phenomenons you've uncovered over the years?
"I ask every producer I meet if they need TV specs they say yeah. They all want a 40 inch display that's 1080p and 120Hz. So, I quit my job at the West Hollywood Best Buy."
- Screenwriting Friend
Comedy is hard. Cinematic comedy, harder. The higher the concept, the better - Liar, Liar, Tootsie, Some Like It Hot (Sorority Boys, Juwanna Man, not)
And then execution, knowing how to exploit the humor in your concept.
The best example of non-high concept comedy I can think of is The Graduate (could be argued it's not non-high concept), Monty Python & The Holy Grail Animal House, and There's Something About Mary (The Farrelly's best movie.) According to one of the writers of Animal House, it took three writers about three years before a shooting draft.
The reality of the comedy in the Graduate is probably one of my favorite examples of what it means to be funny on film. Dustin Hoffman is just being a college grad.
You don't necessarily have to be funny to write film comedy, but you have to think funny, think very funny.
UK is right about "the funny." I wrote sketch comedy and some things we thought were going to kill and instead died on stage.
But for surefire laughs: a fart gag. Fart gags kill.
If you can't play baseball, yes, you can get some coaching and you might be able to get an opposite field broken bat hit every now and then. And you might learn how to get the ball to the first baseman on a hop, but you're not a baseball player.
If you have to ask how to write comedy, I think you're gonna have problems. I doubt Woody Allen, Larry David, The Farrelly's, whoever,... were unsure. They just knew they could do it. They probably made mistakes and got better, but it was natural.
BUT THAT'S JUST MY OPINION
"Entertaining the world is a full time, up at dawn, never ending siege, the likes of which you will never fully understand."
Billy Thrilly 2005
You don't necessarily have to be funny to write film comedy, but you have to think funny, think very funny.
I'm in the middle of writing a comedy script, my first, so that no way makes me an expert on it. But I think the main problem people have writing comedy is that they try to hard. Some of the most simpliest things can be funny. In the worst try at a comedy script I ever read, every time the writer thought he was being funny, he made the characters laugh about it. This was a real turn off. I find that it hits the audience harder when the characters are oblivious to the humor.
Steph
"Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." --T.S. Eliot
Situational comedy is easier for me to write than one liners, then again a good funny moment usually lends itself to a good one liner at the end. It just takes three weeks to find it.
Running gags have to be handled just right and have a killer moment/line at the end or they cause people to gag.
Great jokes are the ones you never saw coming.
It's kind of fun to do the impossible - Walt Disney
I am a believer that writers and comedians are born, not made, but that's easy for me to say because I'm funny.
Exactly.
If you can't write comedy, you can't write comedy. If you can write comedy, then yeah, I guess there might be a thing or two you can learn to get better, but not much. Not much, people.
Thank you!
Vote Thrilly 2016!
"Entertaining the world is a full time, up at dawn, never ending siege, the likes of which you will never fully understand."
Billy Thrilly 2005
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