Sven Pape’s ‘This Guy Edits’ Youtube channel is a fantastic resource for editors, regardless of their level of experience. This video is aimed at those who are new at the craft, listing 7 tips that will have a huge impact on the quality of your work, including:
How to keep a scene tight (but also when you should consider a long setup)
How to use editing to guide your audience
How to use misdirection
The importance of blinking
Trusting your gut
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‘More to That’ is a blog by Lawrence Yeo that uses simple, distinctive illustrations to craft thoughtful posts. Yeo describes himself as a visual storyteller, and in this post he explains how he takes an idea and creates a narrative journey in which visuals play a vital role. There are some brilliant insights in this guide including:
How to get creative at the intersection of your personal interests and landscape of ideas
Where epiphanies come from
How to create a visceral journey for your audience
What makes a great reveal
How and when to use visuals to maximum effect
It’s a long piece but its packed with insight and inspiration for your next comedy project. Read it here.
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Pixar have a rigid 22 rules of story telling that they apply to every project. In this video Youtuber KaptainKristian looks at one in particular:
‘Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.’
He argues that it is this rule that makes Pixar stories so deeply relatable. It is the driving force behind Pixar’s rich layered characters, particularly compared to some of their less nuanced Disney equivalents.
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In this series Youtuber ‘Nerdstalgic’ picks out an episode of a renowned show that encapsulates what it does best. The Simpsons is a particularly interesting case study, having departed so far from what used to make it great. Simpsons fan or not there’s lots for creators to learn from this analysis of the episode ‘Marge Versus The Monorail’ including how it:
Embraces the absurd and the limitless nature of animation
Is densely packed with a variety of types of jokes, including ‘Homer’ humour, visual gags and satire
Pins these jokes to an engaging narrative
Deploys ‘parody with purpose’
Involves all its key character in a meaningful way
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This is a really interesting and thought provoking video about why certain comedy shows lose their appeal over time. In picking out examples the creator, Renegade Cut YouTube Channel, hasn’t exactly gone high-brow (Dumb and Dumber, The Mask and Austin Powers feature strongly) but nonetheless there are some really interesting principles highlighted.
Using specific cultural references is clearly a surefire way to ensure eventual irrelevance, but perhaps most interesting for creators to consider is the fact that jokes depend on the element of incongruence and woven into that is the need for the audience to be surprised. So creators of comedy who aspire to be original and remembered need to be constantly looking at novel ways of structuring, framing and delivering their funny scenes.
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The Comedy Crowd TV 2020 Showcase, in association with BCG Pro, is our quest to find the best independent comedy to showcase at a special screening event the LOCO Comedy Film Festival at the BFI (initially scheduled for May but now postponed to Autumn). We were looking for submissions to fall into one of 4 categories – Music, Animation, ‘How to’ or Famous Faces.
We received a Comedy Crowd record 800 entries which were judged by a diverse panel of comedy fans drawn from our community. We’re delighted to announce the top 3 videos, which are available for you to watch now…
1st Place – Mini Cheddah
Scooping up the £250 prize and created by Laughing Stock, this is a brilliant musical sketch about the pitfalls of collaboration.
So there you have it! We can’t wait to share with you some of the fantastic entries that made it onto the shortlist. Suffice to say that independent comedy is alive and well. As soon as we have a date for the screening we will let you know.
For this competition we were delighted to have the support of our friends at BCG Pro, the UK’s leading online platform for new, emerging and established comedy professionals. They provide tools and services for those looking to advance their career in comedy on stage, screen, radio or behind the scenes. Visit comedy.co.uk/pro and enter the unique discount code ‘ComedyCrowd’ on the join page to get £5 off your first year’s membership.
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Balancing Acts is our partner podcast, created and hosted by comedy writer, performer and director Steve Whiteley.
Each week Steve sits down with successful creatives to discuss their journey, explore how they find a sense of balance (or not) between their careers and everyday life and looks at strategies they use to unlock their creativity.
There is always someone who has been through what you’re going through now, and through this podcast you can learn so much from the experiences of other creatives. Here are our 3 favourite episodes (check out the full list here).
Mark O’Sullivan
Mark O’Sullivan looks suitably anxious
Mark is an actor, writer, director, producer and co-creator of the Channel 4 sitcom ‘Lee and Dean’. In this episode you’ll learn:
How ‘Lee and Dean’ was commissioned off the back of a failure
How everything good that happened to him started on Twitter
Why it can be better to enter comedy later in life
How to get a creative team working effectively and overcome ‘Imposter Syndrome’
Khyan is an actor, writer and director who started his career as a Youtuber. He went on to create a short film called ‘The Ministry’ which led to a US sitcom script commission. In this episode he talks about:
How he got started making Youtube videos
The experience of pitching to US executives
Breaking down a 2 year development process
How agencies ‘package’ a script for pitching
How he takes an analytical approach to maximising his productivity
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Dan Harmon is the creator of ‘Community’ and ‘Rick and Morty’, so when he speaks it’s worth paying attention. In this hilarious talk (filmed in 2014 but more relevant than ever) he speaks directly to comedy writers, appealing to them to find their distinct voice and explains that it’s their duty to find out where it can be put to use. He covers a range of topics that are really resonant to independent creators including:
How your fears make you funny
What scripts should you submit? Spec? Original?
What is a ‘rubber band writer’ and why he hires them?
Should you make your own show?
How technology fragments media and what that means for comedy writers
