Inspiration

Producing a live comedy show

By Paul Holliday. I’m excited to be producing my first live comedy show, ‘A Little Bit Sketchy‘. And at the Lowry no less! It’s been quite a trek to get the show up and running and thought to share a few bits of my experience.

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Creator Of The Week: Al Jarrett

Welcome to a new feature where we scour the comedy universe for the most promising and innovative new comedy talent. We want to showcase new creators who are doing something a little bit different, or making use of new trends and platforms, so that we can all learn a little something.

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Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Balancing Comedy With Drama

‘Comedy-Drama’ is increasingly being recognised as a genre of it’s own, including a number of the opportunities we share creating specific categories for submissions. But this Nerdstalgic video argues that comedy and drama are already interlinked in the example of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, a fast paced and joke packed police sitcom.

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Why Comedy Feels Like The Internet

A new style of comedy is emerging. It’s a trail blazed by the likes of ‘The Eric Andre Show’ and Tim Robinson’s ‘I Think You Should Leave’. These shows reflect the themes, trends and behaviours observed in the online world, and it’s a rich vein of comedy.

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Could Coca Cola use humour to respond to Ronaldo?

On Monday 14 June 2021, Coca Cola lost $4bn in it’s share price after footballer Cristiano Ronaldo moved two of it’s bottles slightly to the left on a table. Such is the world we live in.

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Taskmaster: Finding Meaning In The Gameshow

The last decade has seem the proliferation of the panel show. It’s not been a welcome development for many, as opportunities for new creators of original scripted comedy have been squeezed out on mainstream TV.

Taskmaster is different.

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Chorts! 2020/21 Results

The winners of Comedy Crowd Chorts! 2020/21 contest, in association with BCG Pro, have been announced!

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How Dan Harmon Writes A Character

On one hand we’re often told that comedy is about structure, and on the other we’re told that truly innovative creators plough their own furrow and break rules.

Could there be a happy middle ground to seek?

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Producing Your Own Script – A Comedy Crowder’s Story

Hi. I’m Ed, I wrote my short Mockumentary script “Country Lines”, then recruited a team and project managed the process until the film’s release a few days ago. You can watch the film here. I’m going to try and talk through the pro’s and con’s of making your script, why I think it’s ultimately a good idea, along with some “quite good” advice about what I learn during the process.

Tell me a bit more about you, Ed.

Well, I’ve been writing comedy scripts for about 5 years. Taking courses, entering competitions, doing the odd smart phone character piece, you know the like. About two years ago I set myself the challenge of making three short films with all the stories set in my home county of Shropshire. I’d call the faux production company “Shropshire Investigates”, with the three films all being mockumentaries. Sounds alright so far. A bit This Country, but all good. I wrote and brought to life the first script – About two siblings inheriting a farm with a small, skeleton crew.

Now it was time to make the second film. I’d had the warm up of the first, this next one felt proper. I wanted to move things up a gear. The running time went from six to eleven minutes, I’d direct, there’d be a bigger crew, with a more complex set of scenes too.

But let’s rewind. You may not be as gung-ho as me, so here are some…

Issues to consider before making your script.

Our friends running the Sitcom geeks podcast have regular discussions on the pro’s and con’s of producing your own script. I’m sure they won’t mind me saying that the conclusion is generally not so positive as there are all of a sudden too many uncontrollables which might tarnish an otherwise good script. This is a huge consideration and here are others too:

Time

Writing a good script, even if it’s “just” a short film, takes long enough. It’ll take that time again, plus some, before your film is actually released.

I began writing my script at the end of 2019, and it’s finally out now (March, 2021). But many factors can play into how long it takes to make your film. Such as; script completion time, aligning many diary’s for rehearsals and filming, the potential abyss of the edit, your main prop; a tractor having a flat tire, a global pandemic, etc.

Money

We’re not talking about getting your mate to film you on their iPhone and knocking it together with iMovie. Money will definitely be a consideration.

There’s a big debate on your local actors and film makers Facebook pages about not paying much (or just expenses) for a film crew. I completely get that it’s an issue that needs to be treated with respect. See what you can afford, be upfront about it and if the script is good enough, you will be surprised the quality of talent who want to have their name attached to your credits

The Other Variables

Going back to the Sitcom geeks point made earlier – why risk your perfectly good script by getting half a dozen others involved who may unintentionally dilute the quality of the portrayal of your script? Well, yes, this can certainly be a gamble. But if you do a solid job of recruiting your team, getting the best crew you can, even with a small budget, then you will all of a sudden have a lot of talented people who will be pushing for this film to be a success.

My reasons for recruiting a team and making my short film.

Maybe some of these will resonate with you.

  • Getting a broader look at other departments involved in producing a film

I think this will be invaluable experience for me going forward. I was living a very sheltered life as a solo writer.

  • Networking

Living in Shropshire (Up to Birmingham, turn left, keep going, just before Wales) it’s hard to find other screenwriters or similar creatives

  • Fulfilment

When constantly writing scripts and sending them off, not hearing, or even if I did hear feedback, it never felt like there was a fulfilling end to all the work I put in. With this film I feel like I have a proper finished piece of work now. Like a painter, or a brickie.

  • Marketing myself

It really does all depend on the final piece being a fair representation of your work. Or better than fair, ideally. If so (and it’s a big if), then there is no doubt a film is a far better and easier way of bringing attention to your writing.

Recruiting your team

Other than your script, recruiting your team will be the most important factor in making your script.

Tom, our Director of Photography, was recommended to me. He was brilliant, as were all the team. Looking back, one of the most important pieces of knowledge Tom brought to me, was the use of a “casting call” document. This was an imperative tool in recruiting the team.

A casting call essentially gives all the details about your project such as the genre, planned dates for shooting, estimated running time, expenses paid etc, along with a kind of pitch document about the premise, story line and characters. This is the bible document that I used to send to people who would then have all the details needed to decide if it was something they would want to get involved with. Mine was fairly short at 2.5 pages and I’ be happy to share this with anyone if it might help.

With Tom on board and after spending a bit of time getting the casting call right, I set about using this document on the Comedy Crowd TV site (whoop), which is where I recruited one of the actors from, Sean – he messaged me after reading my project page on CCTV. Actor recruitment websites are really useful too (surprisingly enough) It was all pretty easy to set up the adverts and they are free too. The two or three sites are all similar and ask the same questions. With a bit of luck, actors will then apply for your role as you then look through their profiles. Our actress, Amber came through one of these sites.

Finally, social media. I mainly used Facebook, but I can imagine other socials may be useful. Facebook has lots of groups set up for actors and film crew members who are looking for projects to get involved in. Our music composer came through posting on one of these groups. Again using my casting call document… Have I told you these casting call documents are a good idea?!

I was amazed that we had over 30 applicants for the three main acting roles. All had sent in self tapes for certain lines within the film. I had such respect for their efforts. I gather that although my casting call document was really fantastic, that number of applicants was not actually uncommon for other film makers.

So that’s a bit about if making your script is the right approach for you and the recruitment side of things, now for the quick fire round.

Here’s some other tips after making my script

  • Just keep buying the team food and drinks when you meet up. This has served me well in everyday life too.
  • Unless you know a bit about editing, this stage of the process will blow your mind. You’ll feel like you’ve just been shown the internet for the first time. It’s a whole new world and I barely understand any of it still, but I do know editors are very important! Although don’t let that scare you off. Your script can completely change in the edits, communicate regularly with the editor to make sure your vision is followed as best as possible.
  • We had three, three hour rehearsals. They were great fun, and each of the actors had a completely different approach. Work with them separately in between rehearsals. It seems only when everyone is fully confident with their lines does the real chemistry start to happen.
  • Carefully, carefully plan your shoot days. They will fly by very quickly and those little details can easily be forgotten.
  • Performances come across much more relaxed when everyone has settled in. Plan time for warm ups at the start.
  • Get as many team members involved as you can manage! I could have really done with a hand on the shoot day to sort out bit and bobs, props, sound – bloody sound! We missed having a sound pro. That ended up being me. I’m not a pro and those booms are damn heavy!
  • Make sure you have a very supportive support bubble. Due to blessed Covid, we had to change locations which meant turfing my partner and daughter out of our house (they had somewhere else to stay!) for a day and a night. There are peaks and troughs in the project but in general it’s a consuming process.
  • Continuity of set and costume. Be wary of this over multiple days filming.

Thank you reading. I’m always keen to hear from potential collaborators or maybe just to have a chat about some of the above. Here’s my website with further details.

Also, twitter and the film’s instagram.

All the best,

Ed.

To set up a new comedy project and look for collaborators, or to set up your own creator profile and find projects to get involved in, head to Comedy Crowd TV.

O2 and The Comedy Crowd

We are delighted to have partnered with O2 to produce a series of original sketches showcasing up and coming talent from this fantastic community.

The partnership is part of O2’s campaign to “Do more of what you love”.

Living In A Bouncy Castle – Created by Luke Rollason and Kit Sullivan

O2 and The Comedy Crowd have partnered to enable new creators to make five original comedy sketches which are available now exclusively on Priority. They cover a range of topics including ‘When a Group Chat Joke Fails’, ‘When Fans Forget How To Fan’ and ‘ The Ref Who Can’t Stop Running Backwards’.

At O2, we have a long-standing history of working with up and coming talent. Now we’re bringing the comedy to your living room, through this unique collaboration with our partner The Comedy Crowd to share the talents of new comedy creators and help our customers take some much needed relief.

Maya Murrell, Head of Priority

To make these videos we brought together writers, performers and producers from the Comedy Crowd community, matching them according to their skills and comic style. Our unique approach of working with the community means we can produce tailored content quickly, plus it gives new creators the opportunity to showcase their talents. Creators can sign up for their free weekly opportunities newsletter here to find out more about how to get involved with The Comedy Crowd.

Operation Parcel: Sorry We Missed You – Created by Alice Etches

As a new comic used to playing to dusty rooms above pubs with audiences of 8 people, getting this opportunity to create and release my sketch with O2 has been unreal! It’s so exciting that O2 are supporting creators on the grassroots level like this. The whole process has been invaluable and it feels amazing to see my finished sketch on the Priority app!

Jessica Lee, Comedian

Priority is exclusive to O2 customers and brings a collection of invite-only moments to help them do more of the things they love. From exclusive treats and experiences, to early access to the most sought-after tickets in entertainment.

Customers can download the Priority app via the app store, or by texting PRIORITY to 2020. For more information, search Priority on O2 or visit https://priority.o2.co.uk/

To watch the five sketches on Priority click here.

How To Identify and Develop your Stand-up Persona

By Chris Head. My book, “A Director’s Guide to the Art of Stand-up”, begins by exploring ways of identifying and developing your persona as a stand-up comedian. This is your unique voice, outlook and identity that you present on stage. It stems from your actual self but is not identical with your off-stage self.

Finding this persona is key. It’s your on-stage character, a simplified, exaggerated version of yourself. Understanding this character helps you find the angle you’ll take on any given topic and the kind of jokes and material you’ll write for yourself. In effect you have a character you’re writing for. A character based on your actual self.

Finding this persona is the Holy Grail of stand-ups and typically takes hours of stage time to find, but I can offer some insights that can help in the process and might even speed up nailing your on-stage voice. In the first chapter of “A Director’s Guide to the Art of Stand-up” where I discuss persona, I explore status, archetypes, attitudes, likeability, shadow and self-awareness. I’ll introduce these in turn and then, below, is a link where you can read the entire first chapter for FREE (which covers some further angles) so you can start thinking about how to apply all this to your own act.

And in my brand new book “Creating Comedy Narratives for Stage & Screen” I further discuss stand-up persona in the opening chapter, considering positives and negatives and also persona games, both of which I also introduce below along with another link where you can also read this material for FREE. (Alongside stand-up, this new book also covers sketch and sitcom, and discusses improv too).

Let’s now go through these aspects of your stand-up persona in turn.

Status

What is your funniest status? In my model of stand-up’s status you can be:

‘high status’, ‘low status’ or ‘audience’s mate’.

In high status you look down on the problems of the world and your life (or simply on the audience) from a lofty position of insight and wit (eg Chris Rock). In low status you are put upon by the problems of the world and your life (or by the audience and the performance situation) and are struggling with them (eg Lee Evans and Brian Regan). In audience’s mate status you share the problems of the world and of life with the audience, and you laugh at them together. (eg Sarah Millican).

This approach can be finessed by considering a primary and secondary status. Stewart Lee is a high-status comic but, as he says, he is always undermining his status in order to not become objectionable! So he might be looked on as high-status (primary), low-status (secondary). And I identify Brian Regan as low-status above, and certainly when he acts out himself in various situations he plays the fool, but he is a great friend of his audience so perhaps he could more accurately be described as mate-status (primary) and low-status (secondary). And returning to Sarah Millican, there is certainly a strength and at times fierceness to what she does, so I’d see her as s mate-status (primary), high-status (secondary).

You may have some insight into your own status on stage, but even better ask people who know your act well how they see you, and have them reflect it back to you. When you have a clearer understanding of your status, you can more confidently embody it on stage.

Archetypes

In the book, I also discuss how the twelve Jungian archetypes can be keys to your persona. Again, rather than trying to figure out which archetypes you embody on stage, it can be more effective to ask someone else how they see you. They work especially well when used in combination. On p.8 of the first chapter you will find the complete list and an explanation of how they work in stand-up. But here for example are two: sensualist and sage. Bringing them together you get Russell Brand. Finding the two archetypes that you embody – or at a push, three! – can also help define who you are on stage.

Attitude

Next in the book (p.9 – p.11) I consider attitude. Your attitudes are key aspects of your stand-up persona. For example, here’s Al Murray’s Pub Landlord with a typically no-nonsense attitude: “We do not go in for philosophy in this country. We have our own system. It’s called wondering”. (You can find the persona of a stand-up character in the exact same way we are discussing incidentally).

In stand-up, an effective persona will have both positive and negative attitudes. The positive being why we like you and the negative being why we find you funny. Where an act is overwhelmingly negative there is something about their charm, cheek or sheer front that is appealing and enables at least some people to warm to them. At any rate the funny attitudes are the negative ones. There is precious little funny in positive, well-adjusted, reasonable, forgiving and sensible attitudes to things! Once you have the positive and the negative, the light and shade, on your ‘palette’ of attitudes’, it can be effective to jump between them as the Godfather of Alternative Comedy, Tony Allen, describes. (See below for more on positives and negatives).

Self-awareness & Likeability

In the opening persona chapter in my Director’s Guide to Stand-up book, I also consider self-awareness. There are two ends of the spectrum. How aware is the version of you on stage?:

  1. Self-aware. Insight into own failings. A high-status or audience mate stance.
  2. Totally unaware. Here you see yourself one way, and the audience see you completely differently. Eg, you see yourself as a hit with the opposite sex, the audience see you as a loser. The comedy comes from the gap between how you see yourself and how others see you. A low status stance.

Another aspect of self-awareness is this: is your on-stage character aware that they doing a comedy performance? Or is your character just talking about the world and their life without meaning to be funny? Or even knowing or realising why they are funny? This is a niche area, but can really pay off when you play the weirdness entirely straight (eg Emo Phillips).

I also consider the question of likeability in stand-ups. Stand-ups who have a likeable persona, are flawed with a clear shadow and yet aware of it (high self-awareness) and struggling to be better can be very likeable to an audience (for Brian Regan). These stand-ups care and want to be better but keep tripping themselves up.

If however a stand-up’s persona is comically unaware of their shadow (low self-awareness), then they are more tragically comic and less obviously likeable. Alternatively they can be aware of their shadow (their nastiness or rudeness or aggression) and simply not care. This can work (for instance Frankie Boyle), where the stand-up does behave appallingly BUT does and says the kinds of things we the audience would love to do if we were bold or reckless enough. They are aware of their shadow, don’t care and we love it.

But typically for the audience to laugh they have to like you – even acts that are deliberately nasty are still in fact liked by those who laugh with them. So try and identify what makes you likeable and do more of it. Self-deprecation is one potential route to likeability. Also, identifying your negatives and then balancing them with positives can help and also opens up the opportunity to switch from positive to negative (and vice-versa) which can amplify the laughs.

Positives and negatives

This very week I worked with an act who, despite having been going several years, feels he hasn’t fully developed his persona. On watching videos of his act it struck me that his issue is that he’s too nice! The audience like him and the material is good, but he hasn’t developed the negative side to create a comic friction with his positive qualities. Another way of looking at this is to think in terms of persona and shadow, where the shadow are the negatives that undermine the positives of the persona.

Sitting opposite him, I took the liberty of reading out a list of negative qualities I felt he could develop. (Having softened him up with some positive ones). I’ve compiled a table of 108 negative qualities and 108 positive that you can see for free via the link below to my “Creating Comedy Narratives for Stage & Screen” book.

In a class, I’ll get the group to pick three positives and three negatives for each comic. Then I’ll get them to stand up and share the attitudes that the group identified in them. This in itself generates much hilarity, especially when the qualities ring true for that person. For example:

“I am affectionate, cheerful and tolerant. But I am also arrogant cowering and resentful”.

Once you’ve identified this persona/shadow for your persona, how might you set about exploring it in action? One way is to pick a situation where you were expected to be positive but in fact you were pissed off about it (eg a work situation with clients or a family situation where you were meeting someone new). You then try and talk about it in a positive way to the audience but the negatives keep slipping out and revealing your true feelings.

In the writing of it, get yourself flipping from positive to negative, from persona to shadow, repeatedly. It’s these sudden changes that can make it really funny rather than having one negative attitude throughout.

Persona games

Finally, in my new book “Creating Comedy Narratives for Stage & Screen” I boil all of this down into my concept of persona games. Read all about this for FREE via the link below.

You can read the complete opening chapter about persona from the stand-up perspective in Chris Head’s book “A Director’s Guide to the Art of Stand-up” here:

https://bloomsburycp3.codemantra.com/viewer/5b6331436b2f0700011dd33b

And you can read the first 17 pages of Chris’s new book “Creating Comedy Narratives for Stage & Screen” here which includes the positives and negatives and Chris’ discussion of persona games.

https://bloomsburycp3.codemantra.com/viewer/607d587152faff0001578d16

Buy:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Directors-Guide-Stand-up-Performance-Books/dp/1350035521 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Creating-Comedy-Narratives-Stage-Screen/dp/1350155756

For more info about Chris and the courses he runs:

www.chrishead.com

Hide and Seek: Finding your audience online

By Eleni Young. Using social media when you’re posting to your friends and family is easy, you already have an audience who’s interested in you and you don’t have to think too much about what or when you post. But when you’re posting for an audience who doesn’t know who you are, social media can be a bit more tricky, just because Auntie Sue and Dave think your hilarious on your personal account doesn’t mean you’re going to get the same reaction on your Facebook or Instagram comedy accounts.

Identifying your audience

That’s easy isn’t it, it’s people who like comedy, d’uh! Yes, but there are billions of people out there who like comedy and there are hundreds of different types of comedy, so we have to be more specific. You know what you like, but do you really know what your audience likes? Targeting your audience to get those all important likes and follows isn’t just about throwing your content out there and hoping for the best, you need to be specific about who you want to reach and who is going to keep coming back for more. Here’s a few questions to get you started:

● Who are they? Is your comedy aimed at more men or women or both? How old are they? Where do they live? Peep Show is a great comedy, but dry humour tends to work better in the UK than it is in the US.

● What types/style of comedy does your audience like? If your comedy is similar to or has the same traits as other comedians or shows, target those audiences. If you ever do advertising on Facebook, it will ask you about audience likes and interests.

● Which comedy/TV personalities do they follow? Have a look at those pages/profiles to see what type of content they’re putting out. Are they always just posting their own content or are they doing live videos (Facebook Live or IGTV)? What hashtags are they using that could also tie in with your content? You don’t have to use everything they are doing (be smart with your content and ensure yours is still original) but you’ll be able to see from the level of engagement how their audience (your target audience) is reacting and if it’s something you could incorporate in your content.

● When is your audience online? This is a key question to ask yourself. There’s no point marketing yourself at 8am on Saturday if your audience don’t bother logging on until 1pm on Monday. If you have a Facebook page or business Instagram account, check your analytics and look for times and days for when your audience is interacting or viewing your content.

One of the best things about identifying your audience is that unless you diversify your content drastically you don’t have to do it again. Having said that, put 10 mins aside once a week to go through your analytics to check you’re still getting the right audience and getting the engagement you want.

If you decide to advertise online, you’ll be asked all these questions and more and it’s easier to work this out now than when you want to post an ad and have a ton of questions screaming at you on your screen.

Now don’t worry, it may seem like a mammoth task, but it’s really not. Grab a pen and paper and start scribbling who your ideal audience is, you’ll find that you already know these answers, it’s just that you’ve never had to write it down before. So, what are you waiting for?

If you want to find out a bit more about Digital Marketing I’m hosting ‘An Introduction to Digital Marketing’ on Thursday 22 October at 10:30am (BST) online, tickets are normally £15 but for Comedy Crowders use code IntroFr33 to get yours for free!