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

By Stevie Cooke.

I’m the first to admit, I’m a submissions junkie. If you’re anything like me, you’ll spend your time trawling through the internet finding any open opportunities that might be suitable for your work. Or not – sometimes I’m not fussy, I’ll enter anything just to get that submissions high…

A few years back, while endlessly searching for hits, I started to notice that theatre had loads more open opportunities than TV, film or radio. And specifically loads of things called scratch. I know right, what the hell is scratch theatre?

Well it turns out, it’s not theatre for the itchy, but an odd name for a great kind of theatre that all writers should get involved with.

The basic format of a scratch theatre piece is it’s around ten minutes long, no set, minimal props and a small cast of two or three – so you can see why it lends itself to comedy. On the night, the actors will have rehearsed for a few hours before with a director and will be reading from a script. A scratch night usually showcases around eight to ten short plays in an evening. The idea of scratch is that it’s a sounding ground for new material, a chance to see work on its legs in front of a real audience.

So one day, while I was trawling, I decided to submit a surreal comedy two-hander to a scratch night, and for the first time ever, I saw my writing performed. And that was it. I was hooked.

Page To Stage – the scratch night where I first saw my work live (21st April 2016)

As a writer who feels instantly nauseated at the idea of performing, it can be hard to find ways to get your work in front of people. Through scratch I learned so much that I couldn’t learn from the page – like which jokes land well, how many words an actor can get out before needing a breath (not as many as you can type), and the places where people laugh accidentally (it was a serious moment guys!).

But scratch nights are also one of the best ways to discover actors and directors who get your work and can help bring it alive. I am still working with an actor who performed in that first scratch piece all these years later.

After doing the rounds for a bit, I decided to take the plunge and see what it would be like to put on a scratch night myself. It was hard work, but also a hell of a lot of fun. All you need is a room above a pub, scripts, actors, directors and most importantly, some friends who will come along to help you drink enough on the evening so the room above the pub is free. And there you have yourself a scratch night.

One of the great things about putting on a scratch night yourself is it allows you access to opportunities where there might not be so many, and the control of putting on your own work. Although that said, scratch night opportunities come up frequently in all big cities – they’re not just for us Londoners. Now you know what they are, you’ll start seeing them everywhere.

But the inevitable cost of putting on a scratch night is that your ego will get thirsty and you’ll need a bigger hit. Hence why myself and another scratch devotee thought it would be a good idea to move onto writing and producing our own full length show. It’s not easy, but we’re proof that you can prise open doors to the industry yourself. All you need is endless positivity and enthusiasm to see you through. And friends to turn up to see your shows.

So, ahem, self-promotion warning – if you fancy coming along and seeing our full-length production that celebrates the last 100 Years of women’s rights, that started from the humble beginnings of scratch, we’d love to see you there. And not just because we need to put a lot of money behind the bar…

By Stevie Cooke – @steviecooke1985

100 Years – Monday 3^rd December, Southwark Playhouse, London.

Three thirty-minute plays come together to create a unique evening of theatre that explores the last century of women’s rights. Stevie’s piece ‘The Flour Girls’ is a surreal comedy that looks at the night in 1970 when British feminists flour-bombed the Miss World contest – from the perspective of two bags of flour…

Tickets: https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/events/100-years/

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).

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 Jon Ornoy, Producer and Director, Animal Mother Films.

As an independent producer, figuring out how to do a lot with a little is pretty much the name of the game, and as I now embark on producing my first narrative feature film that maxim is only proving more true. The other guiding principle that I have always followed with my work is that I’d rather take on a smaller project and achieve it at 100% of my capabilities instead of attempting something more ambitious, over-extending my resources, and ending up with a product that doesn’t quite hit the mark.

I had these ideas very much in mind when I first optioned James Pickering’s script for All Joking Aside. I recognized in the script an eminently scalable project that could work with almost any budget I’d be able to raise, without affecting its core strength which is the relationship between the main characters of Charlene and Bob.

Set in the world of New York’s stand-up comedy scene, the film tells the story of a young woman pursuing her dreams of becoming a comedian, and the unlikely friendship and mentorship she finds with the jaded, former comic, who heckles her off the stage at her first open mic night. No one has any superpowers, there aren’t any mobsters, and Charlene never gets naked, but nonetheless, I feel that the film will have a strong mainstream appeal. This is a very conscious content choice for the first of what I hope will be many future feature film projects.

Taking Advantage of Infrastructure

I’m fortunate to live in Vancouver, Canada, where film and TV production has exploded over the last few decades into an industry worth C$3.4 billion a year, and employs around 60,000 people (like myself). While the majority of that production is in the form of shows from the US, the trickle-down benefits are significant for indie filmmakers, who get to benefit from a diverse selection of rental houses competing for business, and a very deep talent pool of artists and technicians who have been trained by Hollywood. While I can’t compete with the wages that these larger productions offer, we can provide opportunities for crew to gain experience in more senior positions within their departments, which they can later parlay into advancement within their unions.

We are intentionally shooting the film in February when the industry is traditionally at its quietest and crew is more readily available to take advantage of an opportunity. So while we will be providing some value in return for people’s time, I still think it’s really important to show your appreciation for the many days they’ll be giving to the production, which to me means a) doing as much of the prep work as I can in all departments, and b) feeding people as well as we possibly can.

Create Your Own Funding Opportunities

Apart from casting, the biggest thing that’s occupying us right now is the planning for the crowdfunding campaign that we’re launching October 10th to close the last piece of our production financing.

With the range of excellent DIY alternatives to Kickstarter and Indiegogo now available, we have chosen to bypass those sites, and are building our own WordPress site with a Woo-commerce plugin that will handle all of the perks and transactions. Our feeling is that unless we’re fortunate enough to get featured on the homepage of one of those big platforms, and can benefit from the extra exposure that can offer, we will be driving all of the traffic to our page, so why give up a percentage of our hard-earned dollars or even risk getting nothing at all if we don’t hit our target?

This way we have customized the campaign to our needs, keeping our audience focused on our website, AllJokingAsideMovie.com, as the one central repository for everything you want to know about the movie. The money notwithstanding, the other big benefit of going through this process is the way it forces you to hone in on your target audience and messaging to them, which are investments that pay off significantly once it’s time to send the film to market.

Don’t Give Up

Making a movie is always an exciting and nerve-wracking affair, especially when you’ve got a bunch of your own money on the line, but just like the comedians we’re portraying onscreen, once you’ve been bitten by the bug it’s really hard to get it out of your system. Please stop by the site anytime to see how things are coming along for us, and best of luck to all of you out there making your own films.

By Peter Wright.

You’re about to go on a journey from horticulture to comedy commissioning… buckle up, it’s going to be quite a ride (or scroll to the bottom for a summary of what we learned).

Look out for:

– Vegetable violence advocated
– Analogy creep
– Pun based callback (capitalised for easy detection)
– Mild profanity x 2
– Unnecessary timestamping

It is 11am. You are sat alone in a small, white walled room. It is featureless barring a table, sat upon which are two plates containing items that will be your focus for the next five minutes. To your left, adorning one plate, is a deep red, succulent radish. Raw. Its bulbous shape is pleasant, almost relaxing. It exudes radishy virtuosity.

To your right, another plate, another vegetable. This time a potato. Perfectly oval, unblemished. Uniformly tanned. When nudged it returns to its previous position with grace. Upon nudging it again, perhaps by accident perhaps not, you expect it to cus in your direction. But no… it is unflappable.

Two prized specimens. Your task is to pick a winner. Voluptuous radish or sturdy potato.

What criteria do you use to judge this contest? Both are patently vegetables, with a simple shared purpose. But they are intrinsically different. What constitutes pure radishness is starkly different from optimum potatality.

It seems rational to start by assessing each against it’s breed standard, prodding and poking like a Crufts judge examining an unfortunate Schnauzer. We know already that these epitomise the ideal of their respective class. So how now to pick a winner? Could you factor in the utility and popularity of all radishes and potatoes? Surely then an average potato would have a fighting chance against a perfect radish. Is that a bad thing?

It’s tricky. You might even be questioning the point of it at this stage. Stop it, we’re not done with this yet.

There’s something else to consider. The attributes of our competitors can only impact the judging process to a limited extent. The rest is you.

If you are a signed up member of the Radish Appreciation Society how does this affect your judgement? Are you pre-disposed to seek the advancement of radishes amongst all vegatables, or do you cast a more exacting, critical eye over the radish, determined that it should not besmirch the reputation of radishkind? Maybe you are partial to neither. In which case do you waste no time pouring over intricacies and simply toss a coin, happy to remain ignorant to whatever it is others might find engrossing about radishes and potatoes?

Of course any sane human would enquire as to whether there was financial compensation for this obscure task, and upon receiving a reply in the negative would pick the potato (with the sound rationale that it could be used immediately as a more effective projectile or bludgeon against the lunatic who compelled them into the room in the first place).

What was all that about?

T’was a long winded and mostly unnecessary analogy to illustrate the difficulty of ranking things which are fundamentally different. It is impossible to remove bias when judgement is down to an individual or small group of individuals passing subjective opinion on creative work.

A History degree dissertation, the Man Booker Prize, FIFA Player of the Tournament. Horticulture. Comedy.

Like when we picked 5 winners from 270 comedy videos in this year’s Chorts! competition.

For the unacquainted, a Chort! is a short comedy video, maximum 2 minutes in length. Their purpose is to show off a comedy character or idea to gauge if it has potential for further development. They are designed to be quick to make and easy to watch, unlike the traditional approach of writing a full script. As long as it aims to be funny, is under 2 minutes and not grossly offensive, then anything goes, which produces a huge variety of vegetables comedy.

Like the modern primary school sports day it’s a competition with winners but no losers.

It’s about learning how to turn your idea into something people can experience and enjoy. And if they don’t, or if the execution doesn’t quite land, understanding how it could be better. We required every entrant to specify their target audience and encouraged them to go and test it with that audience and see how people respond. If their target audience don’t love it, then a set of judges outside of their audience definitely won’t.

We planned for 5 champions, who will each be guided through a process to take the next step towards making their Chort! into episodic comedy. We have expert advice and practical support primed in areas such as production, scripting, performance and audience building.

We needed a judging process but we weren’t so courageous or stupid to do it all ourselves. Last year we recruited fellow creators to help with narrowing down a shortlist, and then outsourced the picking of a single winner to a live audience at our screening event. This year we reached out to 5 experienced and influential contacts in the industry. This, we felt, would give the result real credibility. We sought diverse perspectives on our industry panel, mindful of the variety of vegetables and horticulturalists this competition attracts.

The problem with using an industry panel is that they are busy people, who wouldn’t appreciate a spreadsheet of 50, let alone 270, videos thudding into their inbox. We needed a shortlist. So we actually gave ourselves more work this year in creating that shortlist, a fact that became apparent as we watched with delight and then trepidation as double the number of the previous year’s entries rolled in.

270.

270 needed to be whittled down to 10.

Bugger.

At this point I should introduce the team tasked with this. Jon and I founded the Comedy Crowd having written a sitcom together. We share an a very similar comic taste. We are senior millennials, weaned on single camera realist comedy like The Office, The Royle Family and Peep Show. We are part of a demographic that has an innate, if largely unreasonable, suspicion about studio comedy. We have seen ‘When The Whistle Blows’ skewer so many that came before and, astonishingly, also came after it. We have to be persuaded that an accompanying laugh is that of a studio audience, and not a button press. We need creators to answer Dave Cohen’s rallying call and show us that studio comedy can be innovative and exciting again.

In the last year we have brought a new member to our team. Omar provides nothing of value except that he brings a new perspective – that elusive Welsh Bangladeshi voice that comedy has been crying out for. We were relying on him to check our bias. (I jest, Omar is part of an excellent comedy production company and brings valuable business experience. He also does law stuff).

We were well set to cast an eye over these entries that people had put so much effort into. Apart from having zero female, LGBT, non UK based, under 30 or over 40 perspectives we had everything covered.

The breadth of entries was spectacular. Animation, mockumentary, multi camera. Absurd, realist, satirical. Feminist, Conservative and even chefs.

The astute among you will have identified our problem. We were root vegetable men being asked to judge from a basket that included more beans and legumes than we were comfortable with. We were staring at the radish and sweating uncontrollably.

Having towelled ourselves down we decided to be explicit about our criteria. We decided shortlisted Chorts! must have 3 characteristics:

– Funny as a stand alone comedy
– Has potential for series development
– Identifies a strong target audience

We now had some structure to our thinking, but each of these criteria were still highly subjective.

To start the process of narrowing our shortlist we decided that we would come to a decision on each entry independently using a simple yes or no, red or green. With two or more ‘yes’ responses going through for further consideration. We strained to ensure that we didn’t look at each others’ responses on the master spreadsheet before watching a video, but from my perspective a combination of Excel ignorance and a laptop built for simpler times quickly thwarted that.

I had been on holiday during the first week of judging, and Jon had made laudable progress. As I opened the spreadsheet of comedy joy imagine my surprise to see a column amply seasoned with yellow. I assumed correctly that ‘M’ meant Maybe. There were lots of Maybes (Maybies / Maybe’s?). Bugger. This was going to be hard.

As I started making my way through the videos, I was determined not to succumb to uncertainty that had afflicted Jon. As much as this was subjective blah-de-blah, we had to make decisions with the best of intentions and have faith that this committee would pass horses rather than camels. That’s what I told myself.

Some of the Nos are easy. Not because they are terrible (very few are), but because I understood the style they were aiming for. They just fell short on writing, performance or production. These entries are usually fun to watch, and show great potential but, unlike other genres, pure comedy has to amuse. Not necessarily make you laugh, but you certainly have to smile. An inch is as good as a mile in this regard and if it doesn’t cross that line, it can’t be considered.

Other Nos are more difficult because I don’t understand or enjoy the style. I struggle to enjoy comedy that relies on being very absurd. In these cases I end up in a cognitive struggle trying to work out whether its me or the content that’s missing the point. Ideally we would have spoken to the target audience for these shows to get their perspective, but with 270 videos and needing to shower every few days that’s a challenge.

Some of the Yeses (Yes’s / Yesses?) are straightforward. I love a mockumentary well executed, so I can spot one (have a gander at this all you ‘This Country, Office, PJDN’ fans). Easy PEASy.

On other occasions something I thought was a certain Yes, received a blunt No from my less learned colleagues. We would battle that out later.

Then there were the Maybes. How am I qualified to judge a feminist animation aimed at the LGBT community, based in New Jersey? This is well executed and there’s certainly an audience for it, I’m just not it. This sort of thing kept happening, and my well intentioned ruthlessness was utterly blunted. Our Chorting spreadsheet became a scrolling sea of indecision.

It was time for a scrum down to end it all. Our team of three scheduled a meeting for a wildly optimistic single hour. What followed was three men fumbling around trying to create a gourmet menu with an eclectic range of ingredients, some of which they didn’t like or had never tasted. The resulting platter would be put in front of Michelin starred judges. You try weighing the merits of brilliantly executed comic poetry against a dark and original silent film. And what about diversity?! Someone had to bring it up. Did our shortlist adequately reflect the entries? Were we positively discriminating? We didn’t want to.

4 hours later we had our Chortlist. There were videos in there one of the three didn’t like. Perhaps naively we saw that as evidence that we had been pretty self reflective and gave ourselves a smug pat on the back. It’s just as likely that better content had missed out. Given our experience it was no shock that the industry judges, despite being very impressed with the quality of the shortlist, came to no unanimous decision about the best (the winners all received 3 out of a possible 5 votes).

One hugely encouraging result was that so high was the overall quality that we were able to create a 50 strong longlist that we are screening at 2 Chorts! Fest events in London in September.

Overall though, the experience made us vow to double down on our plans to create a better way to recognise great new comedy. Here’s what we’ve learnt in summary:

1. When decision making is about individual opinion, new voices miss out. What we experienced is a microcosm of the mainstream commissioning process for new creators. Commissioners are subjective. They will invest in pilots and audience research but each are imperfect, and a lot more effort than simply putting that money into an established name, which is what usually happens.

2. Niche comedy can thrive. The amazing variety of entries we received indicated to us that there is a huge range of voices and perspectives in comedy. You only have to listen to a two-bit observational comedian to know that relatability is a powerful comic tool. If you’re using it to tell a story that’s personal to a particular group, especially one that hasn’t been articulated before, then that is immensely powerful. You might not garner a huge audience, but you will have a devoted one. You only need 1000 true fans.

3. There should be no need for subjective decision making in deciding which shows get recognised and distributed. The smartphone allows creators to showcase their work in a compelling way and the internet with all its interest groups and forums allows them to find their audience. Original, exciting new comedy needs to stop trying to break in using the traditional system, and instead create a new one. That’s what we’re doing.

4. It’s pointless trying to compare a radish to a potato, there are enough people out there who love each.

If you’re interested in what we’re doing at The Comedy Crowd sign up to our mailing list and we’ll keep you updated with the latest developments as we build a new platform for exciting new comedy, judged only by its true target audience.

We’re Wound Up Theatre, and our critically acclaimed, award-winning play ‘Bismillah! An ISIS Tragicomedy’ is transferring for a three week run to the Pleasance Theatre, London, following a sell-out run at the 2018 VAULT Festival. None of this would have been possible without the Kickstarter campaign that provided the means to stage it at the festival – we did a Kickstarter campaign to kick-start the project because low and behold, making stuff is tough and expensive. Especially an ISIS tragicomedy.

You know where their money to be made? Live theatre and comedy. These are the words of Michael Mcintyre’s agents, Andrew Lloyd Webber and your thick uncle who knows nothing of the industry but thinks everyone who works in ‘showbiz’ lives in an episode of the gaudy mid-2000’s MTV show Cribs. We all know there’s no money in this game, especially when you’re starting out, in fact, to get anywhere you’ll probably find yourself spending money. And if you’ve got a project that you really believe in, then as unpalatable as it may feel (and when you’ve exhausted your bank account, maxed out the overdraft and been turned down for a loan yet again from the non-existent ‘bank of mum and dad’) crowdfunding it’s a great way of getting your stuff made and getting out there, and really, that’s what it’s all about. So here’s our advice:

Make sure it’s the right project

Crowdfunding was a new five years ago and people were willing to throw their money at any old product development or show, party due to the novelty of being a part of something in a way they hadn’t been before. This is no longer the case, and now in an age of ubiquitous campaigns for every creative endeavour under the sun, it’s important to not presume that you’re going to get the funding by simply making a page. Also, if you are trying to crowdfund every idea that pops in your head, even your most enthusiastic backer with the deepest pockets and loosest purse strings are going to get sick of being asked for money. Make sure it’s the right project, something that you’re passionate about, and something that you need to make, and that you have no other means of making. If it reaches that criteria then you should ask for money, why the hell not! Though I would say turning to this means of funding your work anymore often than every 18 months – 2 years, is going to lose your support so remember to use the platform sparingly and make sure you use it for the right project.

Be realistic

It seemed for a while like online fundraising was an endless goldmine that could make any project off the ground, well, that’s not the case, and the more realistic you are with your targets and intentions the more likely people are going to be to help you achieve your goals. You’re not going to crowdfund a sitcom before you’ve made a short film. Don’t get ahead of yourself!

Choose the right platform

The rise of Crowdfunding has meant a rise in similar online platforms doing much the same thing. On the surface, they may look the same, but many have different costs, different features and may work better for some projects than for others. Look at comparable projects to your own and see what has worked for other people, this should help you work out what will work best for you!

Develop your story

Narrativise your campaign, and make it a story people can get on board with, simply saying “I’ve got this idea, isn’t it great, give me some money for it” isn’t going to cut it. Be aware that the key to this process is engaging with people. They’re investing in you the creative as much as they are the idea, so link the two things together with them up. The best way to engage with human beings is with stories, so why would it be any different in this case. Work out your story and where you and it overlap, and use that as a starting point.

Presentation

It’s worth taking time over your campaign, getting it right before your launch. The more professional the campaign appears the more likely people are to take it seriously and the more likely they are to support your project so don’t rush, invest time and effort into making it look and read as well as you’re capable. If you’re not willing to invest time how can you expect people to invest money.

Video

Campaigns with video’s raise 114% more in funding than those without, so it’s worth putting in the effort and making one. Try and make it representative of what the project will be while also giving a flavour of what you’re about as well. And remember to make it look as professional as possible, even if the project is meant to look shambling and homemade, that’s the project, you’re professional.

Rewards

Make them as personal and sincere as possible, as I said before, connecting people to the project is one of the most powerful ways of ensuring their support – and this rewards element lets people take something away from the project they’ve helped make a reality. What your rewards are depended entirely on the project, be it a script, a prop, whatever is appropriate for your campaign, but what I found was that the personal touch to all of these rewards helped to get people on board. You might get a hand cramp from writing so many personalised thankyou notes on the front of the script but that’s a small price to pay!

Who’s your audience?

It’s important to know who you’re aiming this all at – going through this with only a vague audience in mind ain’t gonna get you far. Try and build up audiences from things you’ve done in the past. Social media makes the world go round in 2018, so engage with it, to build an audience so you have someone to turn too, and one to use when you’re trying to raise funds!

This is your marketing campaign

I get it, you’re probably like me, the idea of marketing yourself or your project makes you want to vomit yourself inside out, Perhaps you’re not, perhaps you’re a member of the Insta generation and nothing gives you more pleasure than tweaking your brand. Either way, love it or loathe it, you’re going to have to market your work to get it seen, which is kind of the point, and if you’re crowdfunding you then you’ve already started doing it – engage with your campaign, not only as a means of getting your show made, but promoting it. You want to get it out to as many people as you can ultimately, and the wider you get your fundraising know, not only the more money you are likely to make, the more people are going to be aware of the project!

Bismillah (an ISIS Tragicomedy) is on at The Pleasance Theatre until 13th May. Book your ticket here.

Are you interested in crowdfunding for your show? The Comedy Crowd may be able to help. Drop us an email at theccteam@thecomedycrowd.com

All Souls Productions are a comedy film group from Manchester comprising professional actors and a filmmaker. They focus on sketch comedy and are developing a sitcom.

Meet the team in this video as they give great tips for shooting low-fi films, working as a collaborative team, and being part of the fringe comedy scene. Well worth checking out for anyone making indie comedy. If that’s you by the way, you are part of our Crowd and we salute you!

You can see the All Souls sketches, comedy content and follow them on their Facebook page – www.facebook.com/allsoulsproduction

By Jon Benoy

My current stage of “I Am Writer Hear Me Roar” includes submitting anything that I feel I can write something worthwhile for, and – in turn – anywhere that is taking submissions. Yes, you feel a little sleazy at times, and occasionally you will sob in the shower, but actually I’d recommend it as a lean work mentality for writing.

Example: When I received an email from ComedyCrowd saying that I’d won the 2017 Sketch Writing Competition, I replied with something like: “Great news! But, hey, sorry, what was the specific piece called that won?”. With a few emails exchanged, I found out that my script, “The Truthful Best Man Speech” (the longwinded name would change multiple times), had won and was to be filmed by sketch company, Fat Lady Sings, in Ealing. The bit goes that in a somewhat askew reality, people tell a version of the truth; but deal with it in a manner of British self-loathing and awkwardness. In this example? A Groom who definitely probably isn’t in love with his new wife at all, and has made a truly awful decision.

Fat Lady Sings are a London based group made up of Doz and Omar; two very, very funny and professional gentlemen who clearly relish what they get to do. In the build up to the shoot, we would send emails back and forth, Bristol to London, discussing the piece, to try and nail out the idea and gather our small, but brilliant, cast and crew. We had to find A. Best Man, and B. My Wife to be.

Both easy enough now that I look back on it – we found Tom Cray through the ComedyCrowd Facebook Group, and Angela Chapman would play my bride (Angela has performed for me regularly: so much so that when I started seeing my current girlfriend this year, I straight up told her that “Angela would always be my on-screen girlfriend.”).

The day of the shoot came, and thankfully, having learnt from a Youtube background – low budget, but earnest scrambling to poke fun at society, for an extremely minimal fanbase (find me at “Hans H.S“) – gave me enough experience to know what I wanted from the day. Having been in Hackney the night before for Redgates Theatre’s, “Gateways” (another great experience, with a deadline coming up – Google them), Angela arrived and we met up with the extremely talented, Tom (and the face of comedy group, “ShameAloha“). The shoot was breezy and enjoyable – never have I had to say the word “Cunt” so many times – and we drank a damn load of Rosé. We then spent the whole rest of the day in our suits and were asked multiple times by punters in pubs if we’d just come from a wedding. To which we would reply; “Sort of”.

“The Best Man” can be seen at: https://www.facebook.com/flscomedy/videos/793451567521313/

And I can be followed at @JonnyJonJon1

‘Those Three Girls’ are a comedy writing/performing trio who won the 2013 Sitcom Mission with their Sitcom, ‘Girlband’, which follows the fans of a 90’s pop band (check out the trailer). We asked them to put together a short video to explain how they took ‘Girlband’ from script to pilot.

Girlband is being screened at The Crystal Palace International Film Festival on Sun 12th November, 3PM at Stanley Halls, London SE25 6AB. The girls will be doing a Q+A afterwards. Tickets cost £5 and are still available here.

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The 9th season of Curb Your Enthusiasm returned to US TV in October with creator and lead performer Larry David continuing his destructive path of political incorrectness.

Curb Your Enthusiasm is clearly a well executed, smart comedy that has achieved sustained success. But what makes the show so unique?

For one thing Larry David plays himself. Albeit an extreme version of himself, freed from the social filter that prevents us from saying and doing exactly what we think.

But the real ground breaking element is the improvisation.

Unlike most major television comedies, Curb Your Enthusiasm is not scripted. Larry David sets up the plot outline before filming. The actors then make up their lines as they go based on the given premise.

Improvisation itself is not new in comedy. Many comic actors train in improv and use these skills to enhance scripts during filming.

But having an entirely improvised show creates challenges as well as the unique execution we see on screen.

Filming and production can take a significantly longer time. How do you know when you have enough material for a coherent scene? Plus there is a natural side effect of not knowing what someone is going to say – it creates spontaneous laughter. Which in turn leads to more takes.

And post production is an even greater challenge. In this article picture editors Steve Rasch and Jonathan Corn explain why this is the case. “Our goal is to make great sentences, not great edits. We make scenes sound natural — as if they were written that way.”

Piecing together different cuts and takes is a technical challenge for editors that can make or break the humour in a show. But in most cases they have a script to follow with pre defined beats identified. In an improvised show the editors are creating content as they piece together the best lines generated by the performers.

But there is a reason for using improvisation despite the additional challenges. It creates a natural effect that is almost impossible to replicate when writers provide lines to actors.

So how can comedy creators make use of improvisation?

Following the Curb approach is an option, but requires real editing and production skill. In addition the Curb actors are all strong comedians in their own right, and know each other very well. If this wasn’t the case then a fully improvised show would be even more challenging to execute.

The value of improvisation comes from the natural lines produced by the actors. One way of embracing this would be to do an improv session with actors while the script is being written, to generate ideas and include lines that the actors are naturally comfortable with.

Don’t be afraid to try something different. Curb Your Enthusiasm achieved success this way, and it is not alone. Other great comedies such as Peep Show (inner monologue) and The Office (mockumentary) used tools that were not fashionable at the time and executed them brilliantly.

If you are looking for inspiration in your comedy show, improv may just be able to help.

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By Sebastian Bance (feature image by https://www.gregdaviesartanddesign.com/)

My experiences.

Me: “We want you to draw a snakebike.” (Long pause)
Jack: “What?”
Me: “Snakebike. A snake which can shape-shift into a bike. Can you draw that?”
Jack: “Yeah, when do you need it by?”

This sort of conversation is why I love animation. An absurd idea of a shape-shifting bike luring a boy to his death that had only existed in my writing partner’s mind a few weeks before, is about to be brought to life by an artist called Jack (he’s good, see below).

I’ve always loved animation and comedy. Growing up I was hooked on The Simpsons and that style of anything can happen comedy is what has drawn me to animation. If you can think it, someone can draw it. A lot of our ideas at Gas Tank Productions start out with Adam, Greg and I coming up with ridiculous scenarios to make each other laugh and then gradually building in more and more plot points and ridiculous characters. Adam and I, then write a script and Greg draws some amazing artwork (like the snake wrapped around the boy above). We then send it to Oliver, our exec, for final checks.

We seem to have found a niche in the market with comedy first storytelling for kids. There are lots of fantastic artists out there, but not a lot of people with storytelling or comedy backgrounds. Our experience of working in comedy our entire careers really gives us a leg up on that front. Plus, it means we know lots of amazingly talented writers and comedians who we can collaborate on projects with.

Our first experience of the animation industry was when we had a 3-minute trailer animated a few years ago. The trailer was a good investment, it taught our team a lot about the world of animation and improved us as writers and artists. The trailer gave us a product to show the industry when we first went to the Children’s Media Conference and a frame of reference to streamline the development of our next shows.

We now focus on developing our concepts and making animatics (moving storyboards, with sound) to accompany those concepts. Animatics are relatively cheap to make, they don’t take a lot of time – 1 month versus 1 year – and they provide a very good idea of what the final product might look like for the people we are pitching to.

Gas Tank Productions recently won a government grant to go to Kidscreen, a huge animation festival in Miami, and will be part of the trade delegation being sent by The Children’s Media Conference and the Department for international Trade.

For more information on Gas Tank Productions or to send us an idea for a show please email Sebastian@gastankproductions.com