By Dan Page.

Back to Life is genius.

The acting, the writing, the cinematography, the up-close and personal sound….everything is simply brilliant.  I am in awe of Daisy Haggard, Laura Solon and the whole cast and crew.

But the thing I like most about Back to Life, and arguably why it works so well, is how it breaks a commonly accepted wisdom around the way main characters tend to act and behave.

You see, Miri Matteson doesn’t make bad decisions.

Most, if not all, sitcom plots revolve around an opportunity arising or a problem occurring (the ‘inciting incident’) which the main character(s) subsequently make a series of questionable (if not downright awful) decisions about in their attempt to gain glory or avoid disaster, along the way reaping the (often negative) consequences of their choices. And it’s usually a bumpy ride, with each character suffering along the way.

Really? Is that true? I’d argue self evidently so.

If in each Only Fools episode Del Boy saw an opportunity to make a quick buck then made a really good decision which resulted in him getting the money, before deciding to put it safely in the bank rather than wasting it on a hare-brained scheme, then by episode 12 he’d be a millionaire and the show would be over.  Equally if any of the characters in Friends stopped telling increasingly bigger lies that spin out of control (arguably the plot of most episodes), then the show wouldn’t have been half as fun.

And these decisions often come about because of the character’s main flaw. The thing that prevents them from ever really reaching their goal. Lister’s laziness means he’ll never become a better person, Fleabag’s selfish anxiety means she’ll always struggle with relationships, and Sheldon’s lack of empathy means he’ll never become as well respected as Einstein.

But in Back to Life, arguably the only bad decision Miri Matteson makes is cutting her fringe badly.  EVERYTHING else she does makes sense in the context of her mission to make sense of her life and the world she finds before her.  Equally Miri doesn’t really have an obvious flaw.  In fact, she’s tremendously likeable, pragmatic and sensible and does a pretty good job of saying and doing sensible things.  

Yet despite all this, Miri Matteson suffers EACH and EVERY episode.  

So why is this? Why does a genuine, well-intentioned, sensible, clear-thinking character suffer? And how do writers Daisy Haggard and Laura Solon pull off this trick?

Four reasons:

1. Every other character (bar one) thinks that Miri is a bad person who does bad things. They’d already made up their mind. So it doesn’t matter what Miri says or does – they simply won’t believe her (even her parents struggle with this).  Which means it doesn’t matter if she is flawed or not – everyone else believes she is.

2. Every other character (bar one), does make bad decisions driven by their flaws.  Her selfish mother can’t stop her affair with Miri’s sex-mad (and now married) ex-boyfriend Dom.  Her obsessive compulsive dad focuses on rituals and rules in order to avoid facing up to reality, naive businessman Nathan can’t even run a fish and chip shop in a seaside town (and hires the most hated woman there to work in it) and best friend Mandy lies to herself and everyone else to deflect from her past.  And the consequences of THEIR actions are affecting everyone else, especially Miri.

3. Within this ‘mad’ world there are two ‘sane’ characters – Miri herself and next door neighbour Billy. By giving us two rational people trying to do sensible things for the right reasons in amongst a town’s worth of flawed fools, the writers generate both difference and heart. The former being the engine room of comedy, the latter of likeability. And both of which combine to give pathos. Crucially though, even though Miri discovers Billy to be an island of solace in a sea of hate, her relationship with him is still complicated and painful.

4. Arguably the biggest reason why Miri suffers every episode is because she did make ONE very bad decision in the past. And it’s the consequences of this decision that constantly (and indeed will forever) spill over into her life. So perhaps Miri is, after all, a classically flawed sitcom character, with all her bad decisions rolled into one.

And yet to argue this last point would, in my opinion, itself be flawed.  

For it’s revealed over time that Miri’s ‘poor’ decision in the past was (spoiler alert) both not of her own making and not in itself a bad decision.  You and I would probably do the same in the situation she faced. To emphasise this, Miri finds herself put under pressure in another situation that results in a similar outcome.  And yet once again, her actions are honest and not ill-willed, but an understandable decision when backed into a corner, as opposed to some inherent flaw-driven reaction that singles her out from anyone else.

So the way I see it, Miri Matteson doesn’t make bad decisions. And in virtually any other sitcom this would be a bad decision. But here it’s…well…genius.

Dan Page is a writer, script-editor and Chief Egg at Why Did The Chicken? where he offers professional script-notes, 1-2-1 mentoring and original, talent led content. Say hello via dan@whydidthechicken.com.

His new show The DesignSpark Podcast explores the comedy past, present and future of some of the hottest topics in tech. Episode 1 launches May 20th on iTunes, Podbean and Spotify.

Each month a figure from the comedy industry runs the rule over the fresh new comedy shows featured on Comedy Crowd TV. April’s pick was chosen by Head of Comedy Entertainment at UKTV, Iain Coyle, who cast his eye over the “Sketch” shows on the channel and selected Michael Spicer!

Michael has produced a series of sketches called ‘The Madonna Front Door Tweet Man Show’. His work is smart, relatable and brilliantly performed.

We all know there are thousands of amazing comedy creators making hilarious, original productions. And putting them on YouTube, Vimeo or social media, with no clear direction or purpose. Just waiting for an opportunity. That call from a broadcaster who spots them drifting in the giant ocean of media content.

A call that seems so unlikely to come from the few channels broadcasting comedy shows by the same established industry names.

Well not anymore. It’s time for change.

It’s time for a channel to bridge this gap between traditional TV comedy and social media.

A channel commissioning lots of high quality, original content by emerging talent that fans love.

Genuinely encouraging diverse perspectives by providing a bias free platform to create and be seen, not just filling quotas.

And showing comedy that isn’t afraid to take risks.

This is how a comedy channel should be. Which is why we’re making it.

It’s called Punkanary, the world’s first comedy channel powered by the “crowd”. Bringing creators, fans, producers and broadcasters together in one place.

Punkanary is already a buzzing community platform with over 1,500 comedy fans and 150 shows signed up.

And now we are introducing an exciting on-demand channel that will sit alongside the Punkanary platform you see today and showcase only the best new comedy.

To kick start the Punkanary movement we are offering fans who share our vision for the future of comedy the chance to get first look at this channel, and bag a whole year of access, all for only £7 (regular price will be £12).

There are only a limited number of places, so don’t miss out. Be part of the comedy revolution, and see the first exciting shows on a channel made specifically for comedy creators right here:

Join the comedy revolution here

By Joz Norris.

I’ve found this blog very difficult to write, weirdly. The initial draft essentially waxed lyrical about some of my comedy inspirations when I was growing up (Marion & Geoff and The Trip in particular) and praised the fact that neither of those were obviously mass-appeal, marketable ideas, but both of them really doubled down on creating a feeling, on telling a sad story through a comedic lens that would make the audience feel things and rethink their relationship with the world around them.

Then I talked a bit about how I’d always tried to go back to that idea with every piece of comedy I’ve ever made – the question not of “How can I make a version of this idea that as many people as possible will enjoy?” but rather “How can I make a version of this idea that communicates exactly the feeling I had that made me come up with it?” And then I read the whole blog back and said to myself “Oh, honestly, who cares what you think? Why does any of this matter?”

It’s tricky sometimes knowing which of the voices in your head are telling the truth. So, as I always do, I went back to the original idea of what I was trying to express in this blog and tried to work out how to neatly express that idea, with as little waffle as possible, and start it from scratch.

I guess I find myself concerned these days with the notion that “comedy,” as an idea, has an increasing overlap with an industry that seems more concerned about the creation and proliferation of content than it does about communicating and expressing original and sincerely-felt ideas. This is not a blanket rule for the comedy industry as a whole and I don’t want to imply it is – comedy is full of hard-working, brilliant people trying really hard to express ideas of incredible complexity and originality and depth. But it’s a worrying social trend that is gradually changing the way audiences approach what comedy is and what it should be doing, I think.

And that’s why I often go back to Marion & Geoff. I discovered that show at 13 and found myself glued to it every time it was on, hanging on every word of it, and laughing until I ached while also feeling this huge, yawning, abyss-like feeling opening up in my chest at the sadness of it all. The final shot where Rob Brydon walks away from his car with his kids created a feeling in me that nothing has ever repeated (until the final episode of the first series of Flowers a couple of years ago), and I think maybe put me on a collision course with the life I ended up leading.

I fell in love with the idea of comedy being this medium that didn’t exist for simple entertainment, but it existed to reframe human experience as somehow ridiculous. It could show you the saddest things in the world and show them to you as though they were somehow daft, or stupid, and open up these incredibly deep wells of feeling inside you and reframe your entire relationship with yourself. I think my whole life has been trying to catch up to that feeling, and comedy is the lens through which I do it.

Everything I’ve ever made has in some way involved my going back to that and asking myself – how do I get that feeling across through this idea? How do I create that feeling in my audience? I think because I’ve been so fixated on that question, I haven’t always succeeded. Sometimes I’ve made work that’s too wrapped up in itself, and self-indulgence is a terrible thing because at the end of the day, what you do has to be about the people watching it, not about yourself.

At the Fringe this year I went with my best friend to see Paul Currie’s show Hot Donkey. My friend hasn’t always been a fan of some of the more self-indulgent comedy shows I’ve done, but was enchanted by Paul’s show. Even though some of the content of Hot Donkey is similar to some of the take-no-prisoners weirdness-for-the-sake-of-weirdness stuff you might see in a more self-indulgent show (pouring milk into somebody’s belly-button, say), the whole thing is done with so much obvious love and care and respect for his audience that you never feel for even one second that what Paul is doing is being done for anybody’s benefit but yours. But I would challenge anybody who saw Hot Donkey to come away from it and not agree that that show was created in order to express a very specific feeling that Paul himself felt very intensely.

I recently shot a comedy pilot of a script I’d developed and co-written with anti-comedy legend Ed Aczel, one of the most naturally funny people in the world, which was sponsored by Tiger Aspect. Their involvement came off the back of a previous short me and Ed made in which we played two sweet, stupid, ineffectual, harmless idiots wandering around not knowing what they were doing, achieving nothing and having no impact on anybody else’s lives whatsoever, and then it ended. There were no jokes to speak of, and nothing that on paper seemed very funny. But what it did do was perfectly articulate the notion that was always at the centre of what I do – that people are ridiculous, and nothing matters very much.

It’s the first time a big production company has become directly involved in going into production on an idea of mine, and granted, I’m a long way off actually making a whole comedy series of my own yet, but it meant a lot to me that this show of commitment on their part didn’t come off the back of a lot of hustling or a concerted attempt to make something popular with an obvious in-built audience of its own. It came off the back of me and Ed trying to make something quite sincere, that worried about what it was trying to say first, and about what other people would think of it second, if at all.

Again, I still don’t really know what I’m trying to say with this blog. I think we’re at a point where it’s easy to think that comedy is about being relatable, or popular, or making things that speak to as many people as possible. And on the occasions where I’ve become too self-reflective, too insular and too insistent on my own ideas, I’ve been hugely indebted to the producers, directors and collaborators I’ve worked with who’ve brought me back to earth and reminded me to consider other people and figure out how to make an idea accessible to them. But I also think the most important thing is the feeling you had in your heart and your chest when you first decided to do this, and that’s what everything has to come back to.

I’ll try to sum it all up in a nutshell with a recent experience – a few weeks ago I had a bad customer service experience and was ranting to a housemate about it. I was midway through the sentence “They couldn’t even be bothered to apologise,” and was at peak frustration, when I dropped a sealed carton of orange juice I was holding, which landed pointlessly on the ground with a dull thud, and I had to temporarily stop being angry, kneel down and pick it up. I felt in that instant the most piercing version of that same feeling that I’ve ever felt.

It turns out I didn’t need to be making all this stuff for all this time – the same inherent sense of how ludicrous we all are, and how little we ought to be worrying about things, can be summed up in a second of misplaced frustration and simultaneous clumsiness. So my new rule is – if what I make doesn’t make me feel like I just dropped some orange juice while ranting about a bad customer service experience, I don’t see the point in making it. I hope everybody works to similar rules.

http://www.joznorris.co.uk/

@JozNorris

Facebook: Joz Norris Comedy

Sounds like the dream right? Brooke, Caitlin, Carrie and Fiona make up Belladonna Comedy. They run their own popular satire website and are shortly releasing their first book “New Erotica for Feminists”.

We had the pleasure of catching up with them and finding out how they did it. There’s some great advice in here for new creators, and their story is a brilliant example of using modern media creatively to break into comedy. Here’s the Q&A:

So how did The Belladonna get started and what’s it all about?

The Belladonna is a satire site (www.thebelladonnacomedy.com) we launched in February 2017, “by women and non-binary authors, for everyone.”

We were each part of a private Facebook group for female comedy writers, and there was increasing discussion about how there seemed to be a dearth of reputable satire sites that accepted outside submissions from contributors (this was around the time The Toast, National Lampoon and The Onion’s celebrity gossip site StarWipe stopped publishing, and Reductress stopped accepting outside pitches in favour of sourcing new writers by seasonal packets), and even fewer that celebrated or nurtured women’s talents and voices.

A number of members in that group mentioned they’d stopped writing comedy entirely, because their early efforts had been met with unnecessarily cliquish or exclusionary behavior, or negative feedback, or no feedback at all. Other members had occasionally piped in to suggest that women from that group should start their own publication, but no one had taken the reins.

Then in November 2016, Carrie Wittmer posted “I want to start a website, who wants to start one?” Fellow writers Caitlin Kunkel and Fiona Taylor responded with interest, an email chain was started, and Caitlin brought in Brooke Preston (who Caitlin knew and had previously taught) to complete the team.

We set to work immediately, setting up the site’s infrastructure and branding (by illustrator extraordinaire Marlowe Dobbe: http://marlowe.dobbe.com/) and building an initial handful of trusted contributors, before launching in February 2017. We’ve been steadily growing and publishing since (and performing, having created Belladonna Variety Hours all around the Eastern US) to our current fanbase of roughly 35,000 worldwide.

Why did you choose to host it on Medium?

Medium provided us a free and relatively unencumbered way to manage an independently branded site, with many contributors, with next to no start-up costs. We paid for our domain name (which points back to the Medium site for now), our brand suite, and a few other modest (and optional) costs, but Medium allowed us to hit the ground running. There’s also no coding required, it’s all relatively simple on the front and back end, with a wide range of metrics to gauge a piece’s success.

That said, we’ve always considered this just our first home rather than our permanent home–we’re working toward migrating to our own site where we can accept ads and not be at the mercy of Medium’s often shifting business model.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve experienced running The Belladonna?

Like most satire editors we know, we each have another other day job or five. We haven’t yet monetized the site (though it’s something we’re always discussing and planning for) or moved from Medium, so none of us makes a dime from the site just yet. We also put the lion’s share of income from our events back into the site’s expenses at this stage. So we’re carving out time from our already busy work and life (and now book!) schedules to make this happen, because it’s something we feel extremely passionate about, and also we possess insatiable cravings for debt and insomnia.

What positive impacts has it had?

The very best part of creating The Belladonna has been the chance to give a platform to so many wildly talented writers, at all stages of their careers, from so many backgrounds. To date, we’ve published well over 200 writers on the site–ranging from some of satire’s top names like Riane Konc (The New Yorker) and Kimberly Harrington (author of Amateur Hour) to many who earned their first-ever byline with us. We also provide a private Facebook group where writers published on our site can share bylines, opportunities, meetups, feedback requests and encouragement with one another, a newsletter to anyone who pitches us full of resources and advice, and constructive feedback on every submission.

We regularly get emails from submitters who write to thank us for sending them the nicest rejection letters they’ve ever received, which spurred them to keep going. We don’t sugarcoat the truth, but we believe in kindness, tact and helping women and non-binary writers, and seeing a writer feel empowered and strengthened even in a rejection from us makes us proud of what we’re building together. Each rejection from us should be a step toward writing your next great piece.

What is the landscape looking like at the moment for online comedy writing?

Well, it’s 2018 in America, so we’re all sort of figuring out the best way to parody the never-ending dumpster fire in which we’re now forced to live our daily lives. (I believe you call those “skip fires” in the UK). Beyond that, we’ve been encouraged to see a number of great, mutually supportive satire publications on the rise, like Weekly Humorist, Points in Case, Little Old Lady Comedy, Slackjaw, Flexx Mag, RAZED, WhoHaHa and many others. And iconic old guard sites like McSweeney’s are seeing record traffic and reaching long-time monetization goals.

We’re also seeing a wider swath of non-satire publications open to running online satire pieces, from Real Simple to Parents to Men’s Health. (Plus, those places tend to pay!). Two of us (Caitlin Kunkel, who created the program, and Brooke Preston) teach satire writing on the faculty of the famed Second City, where full class sections of eager students try their hand at satire each month. So the talented writers are there, and the audience is there, and good God, the satirical targets are there, but there’s still a lot of question marks in terms of the best way to monetize and sustain a site long-term in a way that can pay staff and contributors alike.

So your book is “New Erotica for Feminists.” Got to ask, why did you choose to write about this topic?

It’s something closer to ‘the topic chose us.’ We were deep in daydream schemes about how to potentially monetize The Belladonna (a frequent topic of conversation for us), cheekily dreaming about having our favorite flavored sparkling water company (LaCroix–wildly popular in the US, a real cult following) somehow just foot the bill for everything and send us truck (lorry) upon lorry of the stuff. And why not have, say, Tom Hardy make those deliveries? Is that not how corporate sponsorship works? Perhaps we don’t understand commerce after all. One of us said (in jest) ‘you know, that’s our million dollar idea–that sounds like erotica the women of New York would pay good money for’. We decided then and there to write a comedy piece in that vein–what would erotica for feminist women look like–and it flowed out of us so quickly and naturally as we realized all the ways actual romance and porn tropes are in service to traditionally cisgender male desires and urges, and the women are largely there as objects to be had rather than protagonists.

Which groups of people are the biggest fans of the content and do you engage with them directly?

We like to say the book is for “feminists and those who love them” (who should ideally also then be feminists). We’ve had a number of men pick up the book with a comment like “I know I’m not the target audience for this” but once they read it, they totally get what we’re trying to do, and find it just as funny as the women do. If you believe women should have equal rights and enjoy comedy, you’re our target demographic.

That said, a number of Americans have committed to mailing a copy to their mean old Republican Senators as a kind of troll move, an unorthodox application of the book we nonetheless deeply support.

What did the book publishers want to see when they approached you and how was the process of securing the deal?

We were incredibly fortunate in that our UK publisher first approached us after reading the McSweeney’s piece. We had about a week’s worth of conversations and then a deal was struck. We realize how very privileged we are and how rarely that happens.

The US side of things was slightly more involved, as we had to shop ourselves around to try and land a parallel deal for the same book, ideally on the same timeline. First off, publishers wanted to see an idea that a lot of people had already connected to. So we had that part down with the mega-viral success of the original McSweeney’s piece – we had developed a premise that we felt we could write endless jokes on, and we had social proof that people connected to it. They also wanted to see some evidence of platform or reach, to show we had enough of a following to make noise around the launch and compel people to buy books. Between The Belladonna, McSweeney’s (in which the original article appeared) and The Second City where Brooke and Caitlin teach, we met that threshold. It’s important to think of platform not only as one’s own site or blog but also all the tangentially related people and places who are guaranteed to get involved in promoting your book. So if you work for a BBC show that you know would help you promote your book, or help organize a comedy festival with a large social footprint, even if it isn’t directly related, publishers might include those as part of your platform.

In addition to that, they also wanted to see a (mini–still nearly 80 pages!) book proposal. That’s a document that lays out a LOT of information, like how we would expand the original sub-1,000 word piece into a 12,000 word book, comparable titles and how they sold, our platform collectively on The Belladonna and individually, and our thoughts on who the audience for the book was, advance blurbs and more.

Our shorthand for who should buy it is “feminists and those who love them.” Basically, if you believe that there are inherent inequalities in society that need to be addressed, and you want to both laugh and fume at the same time, we highly recommend this book. We think the jokes and situations we satirize will be familiar to a lot of people, whether the twist is having a doctor finally believe your pain, or a version of the Genesis story where Eve doesn’t listen to a talking snake, or just that someone breastfeeds in public and no one cares. You know, things that are currently fantasies. In fact, the entire US title for the book is “New Erotica for Feminists: Satirical Fantasies of Love, Lust, and Equal Pay.”

We were fortunate in that there was large interest from US publishers, and in one magical week we met with them all and heard about their vision for the book, the promo, timeline, and how they would reach out to people. We then received bids and our agent helped us to select our final publisher. It happened very quickly – we wrote the piece in February, and by the end of March we had written the proposal sent it out, met with everyone, picked a publisher, and signed out contract. It was heady and surreal but also VERY exhausting, since we were all still working full-time jobs the whole time!

What one tip you would give yourself as an aspiring comedy writer starting out now?

Trust that the opportunities will appear when you are good enough to take full advantage of them. So rather than focusing on getting representation, or someone to send you the SNL packet right after you learn to write a sketch, focus on writing and creating work in a variety of media, and then finding the best way to showcase it.

None of us would have been ready for this book opportunity and the incredibly fast writing and editing schedule if we hadn’t been writing on deadline for years, and editing on our own site for a year and a half at that point. It was the quality of the initial piece that got us meetings, but the professionalism of our proposal and presence in those meetings (as well as the years of work we’d put into building strong personal and collective portfolios and platforms of work) that led to our deals.

This takes the pressure off younger writers, because all they have to do is to focus on writing the best work they can, consistently, rather than focusing on excessive networking and the opportunities other writers seem to be getting.

Also, do everything you can to lift up other talented writers and performers. Adopt a “community, not competition” mindset. When your friends are successful, they’re likely to hire their trusted friends. And when you’re successful, you’ll need trusted collaborators to make your vision reality and to help enthusiastically spread the word about it.

Start now by helping people without asking for anything in return, building relationships and making yourself known as a great, reliable collaborator.

Where can people find your book?

In the UK: Waterstones, Amazon, Apple Books, Sceptre’s website, independent booksellers and (in theory at least) everywhere books are sold. Ask your local bookseller to carry it!

In the US: Amazon, Apple Books, Penguin Random House’s website, Walmart.com (online for certain, in-store tbd), and a wide range of independent bookstores, including, Powell’s Books, Women and Children First, Politics & Prose, Books and Books, The Book Loft, Little Professor Book Center, The Ripped Bodice and more.

Brooke Preston, Caitlin Kunkel, Carrie Wittmer, Fiona Taylor are the Founders and Editors of The Belladonna and authors of the satire book “New Erotica for Feminists“, out Nov. 15 in the UK and Australia on Sceptre (Hodder & Stoughton) and Nov. 13 in the US on Plume (Penguin Random House).

By Jon Holmes.

In 2017 comedian Hari Kondabolu created the documentary “The Problem With Apu“. It was a made-for-TV doc that addressed the racial incoherence of a fictional character: Apu Nahasapeemapetilon.

While I don’t claim to be of any sort of minority, I certainly always admired The Simpsons and still to this day will cite the show as my comedy upbringing… Although I haven’t seen the show for many years now I never personally believed there was an issue with Apu. In fact, rather I saw him as a character that was there to educate viewers in amongst a town full of clowns (and not to mention, numerous other stereotypes).

This was a character who in my time watching the programme had helped me to understand immigration, veganism, and arranged marriages – topics only whispered in the early 90/00s, which all seem more topical than ever right now. I would go in to watching The Problem With Apu with a feeling of “Did This Really Need to Get Made?” – I certainly recognised the issues that a character like Apu will bring and understood why people would find them triggering, but my dilemma came from me actually rather liking the learned father and business owner, and I couldn’t help but think that other, more deserving shows could be accused of misusing minorities for the sake of a cheap gag (The Big Bang Theory for one).

With that being said, The Problem with Apu made a huge splash: Everyone was talking about it: The Simpsons unofficially responded to the issue with an off the cuff visual gag that no-one would enjoy; Apu voice actor, Hank Azaria would go on to discuss it on Colbert, and Matt Groening released this half-assed statement.

“The Simpsons is sick and this contest is crowdsourcing the cure.”

Rather like Comic Book Guy exclaiming “Worst. Episode. Ever”, regularly I will go on to Twitter to vent about how poor and unimportant I believe current day Simpsons is – a mere ghost of its former self that diminishes its own legacy with each new and unfunny season. A show that refuses to die: A boxer that just won’t retire, a programme with food on its face that everyone else laughs at – and no longer with. Shankar was right. The Simpsons was sick. But this sickness would take the form of common old age.

No, I didn’t approach this as a man offended by a character; but rather a former fan, disgruntled by the show’s serious lack of care in handling a scenario like this, the tornado of outrage that had come from this 30 minute film and the show responding to it in such a blasé way was what drove me to writing my script.

It had reminded me of what a pathetic yellow bellied (- that was intentional) animal The Simpsons really is these days. Before I had ignored the show for its lack of relevance but now in the limelight due to angered fans with a voice, rather than deal with the issue in a jovial and satirical way like they used to on a weekly basis, the show instead surrounded itself with yet another shitty joke that bit in to the honeydew of nostalgia – and was met only by chirping crickets.

I went in to this particular script competition with a dogged determination to get the “voice” of the character, and to give him a fitting and just ending. One that a show that has been on the air for longer than I have been alive would be proud of. An ending that would easily slot in to the lore of The Simpsons, whilst being respectful to the people who the character had hurt.

My first steps were rewatching all of the main Apu episodes. I made up a small list on the back of a notepad that I had stolen from a previous job, which I’m sure read something like a haiku from a serial killer:

JAMES WOODS

APU GETS MARRIED

22 SHORTS ABOUT SPRINGFIELD

EIGHT BABIES

VALENTINES DAY

PAUL MCCARTNEY

This helped refresh the character in my head again (and hey, gave me an excuse to watch golden age episodes and claim they were “research”).

I always knew that I didn’t want to physically kill the character – it seemed (ironically) disrespectful, somehow. I, as a previous fan, felt the character deserved more of a send-off than being squashed by an anvil. No, I knew that in my script, Apu would simply leave the town behind. Springfield and Apu were both far different entities than when they had begun. The two had evolved, and outgrown each other. I knew that I would have to incorporate that in there, and really try to hit the bittersweet beats of the character never being seen again.

As a white, straight man from Bristol, during the blocked times, struggling to figure out what to do with the next scene, I would regularly have second-thoughts where I would question even if I was the correct kind of person to write a piece of this subject material. Eventually coming to the conclusion that anyone should be writing a story like this; providing it was dealt with in a respectful and, more importantly, hysterical way. It didn’t matter where the voice was originally coming from, as long as it was good.

I knew that this was a personal story for me as such a big fan, and I had to approach it from that angle. I knew that as I put that final full stop, it was the last I would ever see of the character, having in my mind, written the last line of dialog that Apu would ever say. I knew from that moment that I’d also retired The Simpsons in its entirety for myself as well.

I sent the script and didn’t think much of it. This was a worldwide callout, and just writing for an already existing show was a cool experience in itself.

Eventually I received an email telling me that I had been shortlisted as a finalist – of two hundred scripts, my piece, titled “Who Really Needs The Kwik-E-Mart?” had made it to the top 15%.

Months passed… I waited, and worked on other projects… the deadline would be pushed back… and then finally last week I received an email from the competition organisers telling me that I hadn’t gotten it. Gradually, as time passed, it began to hurt the more that I thought about it – but this is just how competitions work. I have no regret or bitterness towards the winner, and offer them my congratulations with their success. I know that Mr Shankar is going to make something really damn special – something that I anticipate just like I would have done with any other new episodes in The Simpsons’ glory days.

ComedyWire has been kind enough to let me attach the spec script that I sent to the competition below, which can be read on here for free.

Jon Holmes

An interview with Steve Whiteley, creator of the comedy character Wisebowm, recently commissioned for a 30 minute BBC Radio 4 pilot.

OK so it’s a 26 minute video, but that’s just because there is so much gold here for comedy creators. If you don’t want to watch 2 blokes chatting for that long and want to skip to your favourite bits, here’s a breakdown of what we discussed:

0:45 – 3:40 – How it started: from garage MC to early YouTube comedy sketches and poetry readings

2:09 – Butt Jam – not to be missed

4:00 – 5:40 – Early traction for online sketches

5:40 – 6:26 – Producing on a budget

6:30 – 8:00 – Collaborating and finding a team

8:00 – 12:34 – Character stand-up and first Edinburgh experience

12:35 – 14:55 – Entering competitions: Chorts to Musical Comedy Awards and Edinburgh take 2

15:00 – 16:14 – Building the world around the Wisebowm character

16:17 – 18:30 – Speaking to the BBC

18:32 – 20:00 – Pitching and working with comedy coach Chris Head

20:00 – 21:30 – Creating comedy for Radio

21:32 – 22:43 – Other projects, including Wisebowm mixed tape and a comedy film

22:45 – 25:17 – The one piece of advice to yourself starting out: enjoy the process, don’t focus on the result

25:18 – 26:15 – How to stay in touch with Steve Whiteley and Wisebowm

Want to become an indie comedy creator like Steve? Start by entering your 2 minute Chort here or showing us your comedy stylings on Punkanary.

By Martin Jordan

I have been an amateur stand up comedian on and off for just over a year. Or nine years if you count the time between my first and second gig because that’s how long it took to overcome my first gig at the London Comedy Store’s king kong.

Yes, I am now fully aware that is not a smart place to do your first ever gig. You may be thinking ‘why would I want to hear from someone so inexperienced’. Well cast your mind back to when you lost your virginity and told anyone who would listen about how much of an expert you were in the sack / back seat of your parent’s car. This is your karma. Also, the process is still fresh in my mind. When I hear Chris Rock explain his first gigs I feel that he is so far removed that he has romanticised it. And also, he’s Chris Rock. I can’t relate to someone that funny.

Audiences are different
If you are anything like me, you have listened to hundreds of interviews with comedians and you will have heard them tell stories of how they bombed in a room using the exact same routine that destroyed the night before. Well it really happens and it’s so confusing it will make you question if comedy is even a real concept.

But what I didn’t extrapolate from these stories is it may work in reverse; so the first time you try a joke out it might not work but it might be a hit in another room. I had this one joke, I was so sure it would work that I put it as my opener two sets in a row and it tanked both times. I hate giving away my jokes for free, but you guys seem ok. It was this:

‘Me and my wife were having sex the other day and she really got into it. She wanted to experiment. She said ‘what can I do that the girls in your porn videos do’. I said, um…. ‘have an orgasm?”

It was heart-breaking when it tanked because jokes become personal to you, even when they’re silly and impersonal. So having to kill one hurts. I decided to try one more time but moved it from the beginning to the middle of the set and to my relief it got a decent laugh.

Everyone is different but I can’t help but take it slightly personally when a set doesn’t go well, but it hurts less reminding myself that audiences are different. Knowing that the greats went through the same thing. Feeling that pain and turning it into determination makes you feel part of the gang. It makes you feel you’re made of the same thing as your heroes. It’s a good feeling so don’t be afraid of it happening, and when it does; don’t hide from it, feel it and learn from it.

Do not rely on support
This is not to say you won’t get support. I have had plenty. Some of my friends have even offered their services as groupies. But it is more to let you know that your dream is yours alone. Nobody is as invested as you. This is important to clarify because you need strength to do this. There’s no teacher to tell you off or manager to fire you if you decide to flake. You need to find and maintain the strength yourself. If you get support on top of that, fantastic, but you should not rely on it.

It’s like when you order a Chinese takeaway. You may get free prawn crackers, but if you set your heart on it and all they bring you is your rubbish order, you’ll end up ruining a perfectly good Chow Mein with the ghost of unfulfilled expectations.

Also, not everyone you expect to support you will. I have seemingly lost a couple of good friends purely because I am pursuing comedy. I am working on the assumption that this will pass with time, but I can’t guarantee that. They went from warm hearted close friends I could always rely on to bitter and distant overnight. Like the opposite of scrooge. Like if you watched ‘A Christmas Carol’ upside down or in a different time zone or something. I’m not 100% sure on the science of reversing a character arc but you get the point.

It is a real shame, but let’s be very clear; friends that don’t support your biggest dreams are not your real friends, and dreams come with sacrifice.

You will change
I fit a lot of comedian stereotypes. I am an introverted, socially awkward, over thinking, straight white male. After my first few gigs went well, something in me changed. While my sexuality, race and gender remained largely unchanged, other aspects of me did not. I felt a lot more calm and as a result I became more confident in social situations and I worried less about how I was being interpreted.

This may all sound positive, but I can’t help but feel it was these qualities that drove me to comedy and that losing them maybe made me lose some motivation.

Of course these qualities never actually left, they just appeared to improve for a while, kind of like racism when Obama was president. But some part of me had changed forever. There is a scene in ‘The Wire’, where young Michael kills his first person and Chris says to him ‘anybody, no matter who he is, you can look them in the eye now’. That’s how I felt after the first gig. Philosophically that’s how I felt, I’d never actually make eye contact with someone until I’ve seen them naked over for over an hour. That is in accumulated time not one hour continuously, I’m not crazy. Anyway, I have definitely emerged changed.

I feel better in many ways, but maybe my art will suffer. Maybe my relationships will. Who knows. But like I said, dreams require sacrifice and if you really want this to work you need to commit and not turn back.

It does get easier
The first couple of gigs I did drained the life out of me due to the mental energy it took to write and rehearse and the emotional energy it took to go through with it. When you have a regular job and a wife and young child at home it can be hard to justify using up all this energy on a hobby that only really benefits yourself. I suppose the hope is that the audience also benefits, but if I’m honest with myself, they could probably live without the knowledge that my wife doesn’t have orgasms. The good news is, it starts to take up less and less energy the more you do it.

There was a glorious moment that happened during one of my earlier shows where I suddenly felt that I didn’t care if it went well. I felt comfortable with the possibility that I might bomb. Which led me to say out loud ‘I don’t care if I bomb’, which was out of context, not funny, but true at least. Ever since then the whole process became easier. I do not stress about rehearsing so much or having fully formed ideas. I spend less energy convincing myself to do it and therefore can do more and more shows without worrying about burning out.

Everybody is different of course, to some it’s effortless and to some it will never be easy. But I would say if after a few shows you still feel that you can’t conjure up the energy needed, just push yourself a little further, and you’ll find it takes up less and less.

Trust your instincts
If you think you’re funny enough to be a stand up. You need to keep that confidence. There will be people that just don’t get you because they aren’t your audience or don’t understand what you’re getting at when you explain a stripped down version of your joke. That doesn’t mean it’s bad. Maybe you just didn’t explain it well enough or that particular individual didn’t get where it was going. Some people need a whole sandwich while some of us are happy just eating pure cheese.

I’ve been told a joke is bad and then performed it onstage and it’s worked. In fact, I recorded my first 5 minute set the day before my first real performance for a friend to give me advice. His response was ‘It’s funny but not laugh out loud funny’. That’s not even advice. That’s like asking for sex tips and someone saying you’ve got a small dick. Imagine if I was weak in that moment and took that to heart. I might never have stepped on stage. That exact unchanged set went really well. I trusted that it was funny and that my friend was being fooled by the out of context nature of the recording.

I’m not saying ignore all advice but you’re the one up there risking it all. Also, the uncomfortable truth is; the second you get down from your first gig, you know more than someone that has never done it. That’s not a reason to feel superior, but it’s a reason to trust yourself.

You set the terms
The first real gig I did I told nearly nobody about and went on my own. I kept this pattern up for a few gigs. Some of my friends were offended I didn’t invite them. But I would not have been able to go through with it had they been there. It was removing some accountability and it was key to me. This caused an internal fight as I didn’t want to upset my friends but also wanted to make sure I didn’t create a situation that would make me uncomfortable. It’s me that’s taking all the risks and it is far too easy to talk yourself out of it, so removing all possible excuses is important. I was trying to create the best possible scenario to help me succeed.

I would say don’t feel obliged to do it any which way. It’s your choice. Do not risk the success of your dream to appease somebody else. If they are good friends, they will understand. Don’t go in any direction your uncomfortable with. As stated before, the whole process is driven by your own strength, exposing yourself could hurt you and your dream, all to appease people that should support you regardless.

Follow Martin Jordan following his stand up comedy dreams @notreallyLTD on Twitter and Instagram

The first episode of Friends is widely regarded as one of the greatest openings to a sitcom ever.

4 distinctive characters have lines in quick succession. They respond to one another. And they do so in a way that brings out the biggest flaw, the biggest comedy catalyst, in each of their distinct personalities.

Chandler is the funny one. Joey the stupid one. Phoebe the crazy one. Monica the serious, competitive one.

2 characters are absent. They are introduced as the episode progresses.

Rachel breezes in wearing a wedding dress. She is self absorbed and vulnerable.

And Ross?

He has just been left by his wife Carol, who has announced she is a lesbian.
He is serious and moody. He is an awkward geek. And he is immediately wrapped up in a story that will define him until much later in the series.

He is one half of Ross and Rachel.

These characteristics remained consistent throughout the early seasons. While the characters clearly developed over time, their main comedy traits established in episode 1 were always their biggest sources of humour.

Except for Ross.

Defined inescapably by his relationship with Rachel through unrequited love, jealousy, happiness and back again. He is a bit of a drip, and slightly annoying.

Fast forward to the final episode of Friends. By now Ross has had a near death experience (a car backfired), reclaimed his favourite salmon sweater, been dumped by Janice for being too whiny, judged Mona for not leaving him sooner, had brilliantly white teeth and a startling fake tan, struggled to remove his leather pants when the lotion and the talc formed a paste, danced on the blooper show for Dick Clark’s Rock and Eve, and made a move on his cousin:

Ross VO: “Say something. Anything. This is the longest anyone hasn’t spoken ever”

Ross: “I haven’t had sex in a very long time”

Ross VO: “Yeah you really shouldn’t have said anything”

In short, he became very funny.

So what happened to Ross? How did he become a man who was proud of the nickname “Mental Geller” rather than seeing it as an affront as he surely would have done in early seasons?

The real turning point came in the episode shortly after the collapse of his marriage to Emily.
After a few episodes struggling to hang on to the thread of hope that his marriage could be saved, Ross finally gives up. He is broken.

Well, almost broken.

Ross has one thing left in the world to keep him sane. His turkey sandwich with a moist maker – a layer of gravy soaked bread in the middle of the sandwich.

Unfortunately, a colleague at work eats Ross’ sandwich, despite seeing “a joke, or limerick of some kind” attached, explaining that it was Ross’ sandwich.

To make matters worse, the sandwich was quite large, and most of it was thrown in the trash.

This is the breaking point for Ross. It’s also the turning point that he doesn’t look back from.

David Schwimmer plays this episode superbly. He is given a tranquiliser on account of his rage, and is asked to take time off work.

Now he has finally hit rock bottom.

The sedated, spaced out Ross under the influnce of his tranquiliser is a constant part of the character from then on, replacing the uptight characteristic that limited his humour beforehand.

He is now cut from the shackles of “Ross and Rachel”, and subsequently “Ross and Emily.” He has nothing to lose.

His inner geek is free to be unleashed and wreak havoc on any unsuspecting date, colleague or Friend.

He no longer takes himself too seriously.

Although the change can be clearly marked in this way, it was only a subtle shift in both the writing and performance of the character that created it.

There is no doubt that Friends was all the better for the emergence of the true Professor Geller.

[icegram campaigns=”12930″]

If you want to write comedy do you have to get involved in all the performance stuff too? Stand up is daunting and surely very far removed from writing a sitcom.

Actually, that’s not true. They are more connected than you might think.

Ray Romano is best known around the world for writing and performing in Everybody Loves Raymond, where he plays a version of himself based on his experiences with family life. You may have heard of it.

Yet in a podcast discussion with fellow comedian Pete Holmes, Ray spends almost the entire time talking about his enjoyment of stand up, and how that is the true marriage and life of a comedian.

Stand up comedy and live sketch comedy allow a comedian to do something that is such a rare privilege on screen. Write, perform, cast, direct, produce and have full creative control of the comedy.

So why wouldn’t you do it?

Writing often doesn’t go hand in hand with getting on stage and performing. It can be uncomfortable, scary. And what if it turns out you aren’t funny after all?

Except that you know you are, because you understood exactly where the beats and comic timing should go when you wrote that script. The difference here is you don’t have to rely on someone else to do it right, you can make sure it is perfect yourself.

There are some obvious advantages of getting on stage too. When writing for someone else it can be difficult to get feedback. When performing your comedy on stage you get it straight away from your target audience. They are actually there and you can see the reaction to your jokes. The testing opportunities are superb. You can tweak a joke here or there and try it again the next night. Or even do exactly the same material and just test whether the audience was the difference.

It also forces you to be on the look out for funny things to include in your set. The best mindset for anyone creating comedy.

Trying other disciplines is about appreciation and flexibility. Don’t rely on someone else to do something until you have some knowledge and experience of doing it yourself. What better way to learn about writing for an actor than to experience performing your own writing, or performing someone else’s writing first?

Here’s another surprising example of comedic flexibility. Henry Normal is famous in comedy for not being famous. He is the writing and production partner of Steve Coogan, and one of the main writers on the superb British sitcom The Royle Family. He is never on screen in either, and yet Henry Normal started out in live performance reading poetry, which is where he now focusses his time.

How about Friends. The biggest sitcom of all time. Written and produced by Marta Kaufmann and David Crane, neither of whom feature in the show. They met in acting college.

And there are many more. In fact most people you can think of in comedy have tried their hand at various roles in writing, performing, directing, and producing at some stage.

There is something to be said for being a master of your specific trade. But increasingly the benefits of being a jack of all trades are coming to light.

If you want to master comedy, there is a whole world out there to explore. Don’t be scared to try it.

Michael James Dean is the founder of comedy production company Posh Dinosaur Productions. He has recently finished taking their latest film “Already Dead” on a successful year long film festival run. Now he’s taken the time to answer questions on setting up a production company, making a short comedy film and entering festivals.

There is huge value in here for anyone who wants to do this themselves. We think this is a fantastic resource, so lets get straight into the Q&A:

POSH DINOSAUR PRODUCTIONS

Why did you set up your own production company and what are the benefits of doing it?

In 2011 I sadly lost my father to cancer and I was filled with an enormous sense that I was under achieving. I had always wanted to make a career in film & tv and for many years I had worked as an actor in self funded projects and with minimal success in auditions. I fell into a severe low and I found the only way to push out of that was to fill my days with writing. I had always created and had written several scripts for stage and screen and found it was the perfect way to pull me through the grief.

I sat down and had an idea to create a show based around the idea of a young man who was diagnosed with Cancer on his 30th birthday and is giving twelve months to live. He decides rather than give in to the inevitable he is going to write a bucket list and complete all the things he can on the list, the idea was that each episode the audience would decide what from the list he would choose. I met with someone who was interested in helping me with the project and in our first meeting she told me that nobody would listen to me as I was essentially a nobody, sounds harsh but it was true. How could I justify a large budget idea when I have no track record. She suggested I create my own production company as it would mean I would be taken seriously, harder to ignore the president of a company right?

Sadly the project never came to fruition, however it got me through a tough part of my life and in turn the decision to create Posh Dinosaur Productions was born. I started the company with one goal to help create opportunities for those who found it hard to break into the industry.  Nearly four years on I am proud to say we have people that have worked alongside us that have gone on to bigger things including working in Hollywood.

We have grown slightly and it is an on going battle with funds and exposure but some of the happiest memories I have are from working with the amazingly talented cast and crew on our sets. The aim hasn’t changed but it has evolved as we move towards creating unique, exciting content that can reach larger audiences with the hope of larger budgets and better opportunities for creatives across the world.

Who else is involved in Posh Dinosaur and what skills do you need in a production company?

Fundamentally I run all the day to day workings myself, I talk to new clients, writers, directors, financiers, reviewers etc. The company is my vision and in we aren’t a funded company so the buck starts and ends with me. It’s both a stressful and a rewarding role but I love every new challenge I have faced.

Of course I couldn’t do any of it without the talented creatives I have worked with on all my films. I use freelancers for all my projects, I have a core of trusted creatives who I know I can always turn to including founder of production company Invisible Darkness Ricky J. Payne who has helped me create everything Posh Dinosaur has made. Darren Ruston is an extremely talented actor who I have worked with on all our projects. Also he has an extremely deep knowledge of acting and it amazes me that he is not a household name as a super talented, passionate individual. To list all those who have helped during the founding of the company I would be here forever.

In terms of key skills needed for a company my advice is to find a great producer, someone who knows how to find the right money for the right project and who can really pull a project through. If you know someone who is a social media guru this is essential in the modern age, you will not get any traction no matter how amazing your work is without someone who knows the best way to promote your work. I spend hours posting, emailing, requesting reviews and features and many times you can come up short, to have someone who can cut through all that is a god send.

Have people around you that you can trust for their honest opinion, they don’t have to be in the industry just make sure they are not your family or close friends but someone you know who can tell you honestly if they don’t like something. We can all have blurred vision sometimes and we steam ahead thinking our ideas is the greatest thing in the world but if someone had just told us to dial it in or take another route we would probably end up with a better outcome. Think of all those X-Factor hopefuls who could have saved themselves some embarrassment if someone they knew told them they sound like a cat in bag. I have several people I can turn to with my scripts and who I know will give me honest feedback on all of my work, it makes me a better creative and it pushes me to work hard.

Find yourself a group of people you love to work with whether they are runners, writers, sound designers it doesn’t matter they will fill your creative cup up and pull you through the times when you feel uninspired.

Even if like me you start on your own you will find people who value the same things as you. Learn what it is you want from your company and be honest with what you believe in, once you find that people will find you.

ALREADY DEAD – PRODUCING A SHORT FILM

How long did each stage of the process take (writing, filming and editing / post production)?

I wrote the short over two months in 2015 however with every script it changes and develops as you move into production. You will find yourself making changes right up to day one of shooting, things change; locations fall through, actors drop out, time runs out and you have to adapt.

Pre-production I always set myself around 3 months to complete. There is no doubt this could be done far quicker but because we were on a low budget I always feel if you give yourself extra time you can usually find low budget alternatives to what you need. There is a lot of waiting around when money isn’t on the table. This phase included casting, crewing, props, location and shoot prep.

The shoot took 5 days in total spread over various weeks in June 2016 they were fairly swift as we used one location for each day of shooting and due to the documentary nature of the film we wanted it to look rough and ready.

Post production took around 6 months again because of working arrangements, this period included several cuts of the film, a sound designer from the super talented Filipe Periera, music by Ed Harris and a colour grade which was the hardest part as I was particular on how I wanted the film to look and feel.

We screened a cut of the film to a selected audience in March 2016 with anonymous feedback, which I advise anyone to do. It is the most valuable experience you can have as a creative ultimately you will be showing this to an audience and if you get 70 people in a room and 60 of them tell you your ending sucks you have a problem on your hands. Luckily we had some great feedback and nothing we couldn’t change in post-production.

Finally we had our first festival on June 12th 2016. Of course your work doesn’t stop there as we placed our film in festivals for a year before we made it available online and that includes marketing material, press kits, reviewers, bloggers, screenings and networking. We started in June 2015 and I am still promoting the film now in June 2017 so it has been a long process.

We have a feature film version of the film that we are working on at the moment so the journey for Already Dead continues onwards!

Where did you find the actors for your script?

I use a variety of methods I have a pool of actors I know from working as an actor myself and from previous projects so if I feel they are right for the part I get them in for an audition or a read. I work in various roles behind camera on other projects and this means I am able to meet actors on set, this mean I can invite them to audition or read. I also use Shooting People, Casting Call Pro, Social Media any outlet I can. You will also find that when you start creating actors come to you as they are always looking for a new challenge.

If you are talking about named actors this can be far more difficult, obviously you need to have a great script to hook them and then you have to get past the agents, if you haven’t got a budget this becomes an extremely up hill battle unless you know the actor or know someone who knows them. Having said this that shouldn’t stop you contacting actors agents after all they want their clients to work and if they see a great script they are not idiots. I know several people who have secured name actors just by contacting their agents and the stars align for them. My advice is if you get a star use them to get your budget up but don’t assume they are the key to success it’s the script and all the other elements that make a great movie not just De Niro.

FILM FESTIVALS

How did you choose which film festivals to enter?

Choosing which festival to apply for is a long process. With my first film I did what most people do and that is apply for every festival I can afford. Well the money soon dries up and you’ll get rejection after rejection. Why? Well because you’ve enter festival that screen 5 short films but accept 3000 entries and you’ve entered a comedy into a drama heavy festival. You have to research your festivals, look at what they have programmed in past years, how many shorts do they accept? How many are UK short? Do they favour premieres? What’s their audience? Also know your audience, be honest with yourself is it a Horror or a Thriller, is it a gross out comedy or a romantic comedy. Once you know what your ideal audience is you’ll know what festivals are the right fit for your movie.

A great tip I got taught was never enter a late deadline. I’ve done it. You panic, it’s a great festival and you want a shot, but the truth is they have probably already chosen the line up and your money is just going to waste. Save the fee and use it on another festival there is always next year if you missed the regular deadline.

The large festivals like Sundance, Cannes, Slamdance etc are extremely hard to be a part of because everyone wants to get involved so when I apply for these I see them as betting. I accept that my $50+ is probably just going into thin air but if I get accept it will be a huge stepping stone so it’s a gamble I choose just in case. There is nothing wrong with giving it a good, just don’t do it for all the large fee festivals if you don’t have the budget.

So research is the key here get an excel table ready and find out about all the festivals you want to apply to find out if they fit your film and if they are a perfect match send them off. Ultimately there is no golden rule to getting into a festival. Just like you have different opinions to your friends and family, judges and festival programmes have their own tastes. If the right person sees your work and it hits them that’s all it takes they will fight for the films they love. Creating the best product you can is all you can really do.

Also a side note with the rise of online streaming and self distribution many filmmakers are choosing not to enter festivals but inside use their budget to market and online release or use a regulator to try and get their film on Netflix, the film industry is changing rapidly.

If you do get accepted into festivals and you can attend I urge you to do so. I have been accepted to so many film festivals that I just couldn’t attend due to funds and have missed out on some amazing opportunities to network. You don’t want Harvey Weinstein to see your film, ask where you are, only to find out you aren’t there. He will just move onto the next filmmaker he loved. Festivals are built to help you network, you and your team put in so much hard work you should get out there and tell everyone about it and you never know you might meet the person who will push your career to the next level, or your future spouse, or best friend. Who knows?

What are your top 3 tips for success at film festivals?

My three top tips for success at a festival

1. Attend (If you can) Show your support whether you made or are a part of the project, network the hell out of everyone that is there and enjoy seeing your work on screen. You honestly never know who you will meet or what you will learn from seeing other filmmakers work.

2. Don’t try and make a film that will win at festivals just make the best film you can. So many people try to second guess what festivals will want and they end up making a paint by number bore fest that nobody is interested in. Stay true to your own voice and work your butt off to make the best possible film and if it isn’t the best don’t enter it until it is.

3. Target your money. As self funded filmmakers you are likely to have little funds and most will have been spent on the production. Use that money wisely by researching every festival meticulously to ensure that money is well spent.

Can I add a 4th?

4. Don’t worry about it. Honestly your film might get accepted to 50 festivals or it might get rejected every step of the way, honestly don’t let it get to you. It’s like everything in this business you have ups and you have downs. Knowing that you love what you do will push you through and if Jeff the festival programmer doesn’t like your film screw him because not every great film won an award or played at a festival. Have confidence that your work is great, make it great and tell the world about it. We sacrifice a lot to work in this industry and if you work hard you’ll get there in the end.

Thanks for letting me answer these questions hopefully they will help some of you and if you have any other questions feel free to contact me at info@poshdinosaur.com

By Lauren Johnston

The Twisted Capers (who also go by the name of Myles, Connor, Tom & Lauren) first met at university, except Myles and Connor; they first met in the womb. Studying the BA TV & Radio course at the University of Salford, it wasn’t until the second year that they all met as presenters on the local television station That’s Manchester. After that seemed to go well, it was around a year ago that they decided to have a go at forming a sketch group, creating videos for online platforms.

The name ‘Twisted Capers’ was pulled from a Matt Berry lyric in ‘The Hangman’ featured on his album Opium. With Matt being a huge inspiration to the group, it was only right to steal from him, as all great art does…

There was already an exhibitionist streak among them: Myles and Connor were in the final of Britain’s Got Talent in 2010 as part of boy band Connected, Tom was a finalist in sketch writing contest Sketch In The City and had already been making his own solo comedy work, and Lauren once got her trousers pulled down in ASDA in Grantham.

Having had encouraging feedback from Facebook and YouTube videos, after launching with Stuffed Crust – a short musical based on the intimacy of a pizza delivery – the next thing the Capers must do is perform live. Being poor graduates, Manchester Fringe this summer is the perfect opportunity and it’s not too far north (i.e. Edinburgh) which is handy because Connor doesn’t have a head for heights.

After a scout around the city and a challenging decision between two fantastic venues, the Capers chose the Lounge at Gullivers pub on Oldham Road as their Fringe home for three nights – the 7th, 8th and 9th of July. The convenience of a projector, lights and a sound system were the contributing factors, as well as the central location. This means short sketches or music videos can be played between live sketches to allow for character changes.

To introduce the night with a short set is the brilliant stand up Tony Wright, finalist of the Student Chortle Awards 2017. Coming together, the Twisted Capers hope this will be an hour of upbeat merrymaking in the greatest city of them all… now all they need to do is rehearse.

In the meantime you can check out all of the Twisted Capers’ sketches online by visiting their Facebook page and YouTube channel.

https://www.facebook.com/twistedcapers/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWO2hdNGAhwK1Dj-da5-0tA