Create & Collaborate

“What I liked most was being part of a team. The in-jokes, friendly teasing and mutual helpfulness created a confidence that was the most motivating force I ever experienced”
John Cleese

“I believe that collaboration is such a beautiful thing, especially in comedy”
George Meyer – writer for The Simpsons, The Letterman Show, and Saturday Night Live

So far we’ve looked at the 9 principles of creating comedy, and some fundamental concepts for learning the craft. Now to start doing it.

In the last stage of this series we talked about starting your journey as a creator by building characters, and putting them into short form content like sketches.

Depending on what you want to create your approach will vary. If you want to be a joke writer your focus won’t be building characters, but you will be producing lots of content. Similarly if your ambition is to get into stand-up you will be thinking about your on-stage character, but you will be writing short routines rather than performable sketches.

The principle at this stage, whatever you want to create, is that now is the time to dive in and get started – write scripts or jokes, film character monologues or short sketches. You could do it alone but the common theme in the journey of all the successful creators we’ve spoken to is absolutely clear – Collaboration is key.

In this stage you’re going to learn:

– Why working with others makes you a better creator
– Where to find other creators
– How you should work with others

The great news is that there are lots of people like you, looking to turn a love of comedy into something more. So why is it so important to link up with other creators? Here are our 5 reasons:

  1. Access to skills. It is highly unlikely you will be a specialist in all disciplines required to make successful comedy videos, podcasts or sketches. We recommend you at least build up a basic understanding and experience of what is required in writing, performing, filming and production when you start out, but ultimately you will end up specialising in one area. Collaborating allows you to find people who can do the things you aren’t so good at.
  1. Support and motivation. The quote from John Cleese above refers to his time in the Cambridge Footlights, and perfectly captures that feeling of support that brings the confidence you need to create your best comedy. The instant feedback from fellow creators helps remove the self doubt that can so often lead to “writer’s block” and stop the creative process.
  1. Ideas and inspiration. It’s easy to get bogged down in your own thoughts. Standing back and having a completely different view of something is hard when working alone, but it can sometimes be the liberating release required to bring your ideas to life. Sharing ideas and work with others gives you this fresh perspective and the inspiration that goes with it.
  1. Creating an obligation. This is one of my favourite quotes from Soviet-era poet Daniil Kharms: “To have only intelligence and talent is too little. One must also have energy, real interest, clarity of thought and a sense of obligation”. Creating that obligation is so important as you go through motivational peaks and troughs in your work. Collaborating as part of a team gives you that extra incentive to complete the work for someone other than yourself, and that might just be the difference between making something and not.
  1. Enjoying the process. A principle that applies to all aspects of life, not just comedy, is this; to be successful you must enjoy the process divorced from the result. Having fun creating helps you produce your best content, and stay engaged and committed. This is what John Cleese states as one of his two rules of comedy:

“Your thoughts follow your mood. Anxiety produces anxious thoughts; sadness begets sad thoughts; anger, angry thoughts; so aim to be in a relaxed, playful mood when you try to be funny.”

If you find fellow creators who you can bounce ideas off and make each other laugh, being in the right mood to create comedy becomes a hell of a lot easier.

Another reason to collaborate early on in your creative journey is that you will inevitably have to do it at some point down the line if you are successful.

Imagine if your script was picked up by a major broadcasting company today and they wanted to make it into a commissioned comedy, would you know how to work with other writers that would come on board? With the actors? With script and production editors cutting material? With producers and directors challenging the creative content?

Just like with writing where we advise to start on short form sketches rather than a full sitcom, you should also start collaborating early and get good at it!

Here are the 2 things you need to know:

  1. How to find people to collaborate with
  1. How to collaborate well

How to find people to collaborate with

Advances in technology and the growth of online communities have made this much easier than it used to be, but there are still some important things to consider before starting the search.

Think about who you need to compliment your own skills and how many people you want to work with. There are some great examples of this being done well in the creator stories on our blog:

  • Lee Dilley and Paul Farrell started writing together and have formed their own production company. They work well together because Paul gives structure to Lee’s ideas. This is an example of a good writing partnership, with two key contributors to the content. Read more from them here.
  • BBC sitcom People Just Do Nothing is a perfect example of a collaborative team. As we explained in The 9 Principles, they are a group of friends who brought different creative skills together and started making short, simple comedy clips that were recognised first by a production company and then by the BBC. We interviewed writer Steve Stamp earlier this year and he explained how collaborating was the most important part of their success. Read more here.

As well as having different skills, a common theme in both of these examples is that the collaborators were friends first, or at least had shared experiences before working together. This is not a coincidence. If you put yourself in a community where you will meet people and build relationships early, that is likely to create organic rather than swiftly cobbled together partnerships.Once you have thought about the type of people you want to collaborate with, here are some of the places you can find them online:

  • Meetup.com is a platform that specialises in helping people arrange meetups in specific locations with others sharing a common interest. This is a great way to find like minded people in your area. The drawbacks are that you will only find those who are also already on meetup.com, and it caters for everything, so may not attract people searching specifically for comedy
  • Facebook communities are a good way to find specialist comedy groups and start building relationships with people online. You are at the behest of the group organiser regarding the topic and group content, but most people do use Facebook to some extent so it has a wide catchment base
  • Specialist skills communities such as castingcallpro.com for performers are a good way to find people with specific skill sets to perform a defined role. Consider whether this is the best approach though, because as we said above building a relationship with people already in your community is always likely to be better than trying to find someone at short notice who you haven’t interacted with before
  • The Comedy Crowd community is specifically designed for people who want to create comedy. If you are looking for creators who have an understanding and interest in comedy then you can be sure to find them here. We have also set up a dedicated space with posts from creators looking to collaborate, and creative writing forums where you can showcase your funny writing skills and find others with a shared style.

This last point about sharing your style is important because looking at other people’s work and seeing how they respond to your feedback on forums is a good way to gauge whether there’s a creative fit, before actually meeting directly in person or via a call.Once you have found like minded people to work with, the next step is learning to do it well.

How to collaborate well

As with everything else this is something you will get better at with practise, but there are some key steps or “codes of conduct” we recommend following to make a collaboration successful.

  1. Meet face to face regularly, either using video calls or in person. It’s hard to emphasise how much more valuable it is to see someone in person rather than just hearing them or seeing their writing online. Physically being in the same place is even better if possible, because it creates more opportunity for shared social time rather than only focussing on the work.
  1. Make use of online collaborative tools. There are lots of new tools that make working remotely very effective. This is particularly important for writing partners, where you want to be selective about who you work with and not have to worry about physical location. Orton.io is a great tool for providing feedback comments on writing from fellow collaborators. In terms of providing team updates and organising tasks, Asana and Slack are both excellent tools that we would recommend. And for video calls there is Skype, plus now Google Hangouts are equally effective if your team have access to Google email addresses
  1. Be committed. The last thing you would want is to start a collaborative project and find someone else in the group loses interest and doesn’t contribute anything. Don’t be that person either! Remember the quote from Daniil Kharms above about obligation. You are obliged to give your best to the group if it has any chance of success
  1. Cross the perspective gap. The perspective gap means that when we are not experiencing a psychologically intense state, we underestimate how much it will affect us. When collaborating on a creative project you will inevitably reject someone else’s ideas or work at some point. When you do, consider how it feels to have your work rejected, and use this as a guide for how you interact with them
  1. Have fun. If the process is not fulfilling in itself there is no point in doing it. Remember you are in the business of comedy. Laughter and entertainment should be part of the process as well as the result

So thats how to create through collaboration, why it is essential in comedy and how to make the most of it. Go ahead, give it a try!

Once you’ve started making your stuff you will come across a problem facing all comedy creators:

“How do I get people to look at my work, and how do I know if it’s actually funny?”

Don’t worry, we answer that one in the next stage of this series – getting eyes on your work. We’ll see you there.