Writing the Comedy Blockbuster. Keith Giglio
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This hybrid has made fun of Dracula (Love at First Bite), werewolves (Teen Wolf), zombies (Shaun of the Dead), and more ghosts (Ghostbusters)
YOU ALSO GOTTA SEE: American Werewolf in London, Young Frankenstein, Witches of Eastwick.
SATIRE
How does one define satire? It’s a genre that takes a dark, comical look at a serious but absurd subject. It uses irony and sarcasm to denounce a situation or a view. It can be about politics, the news media, war, or even marriage. Satire always seems very grounded in reality. In the classic movie Being There, Peter Sellers plays a dim-witted gardener who becomes a political confidant and possibly the next President of the United States. Everyone interprets what he says as metaphor. The audience is in on the joke but the characters in the movie simply don’t get it. Wag the Dog satirizes the news media’s coverage of wars. Paddy Chayefsky skewered the outrageousness of network news reporting in 1976 in the classic movie Network. Unfortunately, what he was condemning is even more prevalent today.
YOU ALSO GOTTA SEE: Thank You For Smoking, To Die For, War of the Roses
MUSICAL COMEDY
A tradition on Broadway, the original musical comedy left the screen for a while. For a primer on what makes people laugh, see the 1952 musical Singin’ in the Rain. Hollywood tends to film what worked on Broadway (The Producers). There is hope on the smaller screen; on the Internet Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog became a huge hit.
YOU ALSO GOTTA SEE: Grease, The Producers, A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum
Sidenote: Remember those TV writers who succeeded on the big screen? Well, The Producers was written by Mel Brooks and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum was written for the stage by the late, great Larry Gelbart.
SCIENCE FICTION
Do you want to take jokes where no jokes have gone before? Comedies have been out of this world since movies began. From Abbott and Costello Go to Mars to Men in Black, comedies have combined the high adventure of speculative fiction with out-and-out belly aches.
YOU ALSO GOTTA SEE: Galaxy Quest, Men in Black
We have just gone through the history of film comedy. Start making a list of your TOP TEN favorite comedies of all time.
Write them down.
Write down what makes you laugh. Which scene? Which character? Which particular piece of dialogue?
Don’t over-analyze. We are working from a gut level here.
Now think about those films. Are there any similiarities? Do they take place in the same setting? Is romance involved? Are they by the same writer? The same director?
Now rent the three movies that have some things in common.
Watch them again. We want to find out what makes you laugh.
CHAPTER TWO
THE COMEDIC IDEA
A.K.A. THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING
INAPPROPRIATE A.K.A. THE BLUES
BROTHERS ARE NOT ROLE MODELS
The room was filling with suits. Lot of suits. It was a pitch meeting. The most important one of our new career. We were at Universal to pitch our take on the movie version of Archie. The studio executive, Carr, had championed us. But now we had to win over the other executives and the producers and… there were a lot of them.
I think there were nine people in the room.
Everyone was looking at us to make them laugh and to tell them a story.
I looked around the quiet room and said: “I’m very confused by all these people here. I’m not sure whose ass I should be kissing right now.”
HUGE LAUGH.
It was the inappropriate thing to say at a meeting and I am convinced it was one of the reasons we got the job.
So what does “being inappropriate” mean?
Did you ever fart during dinner?
Did you ever laugh at a funeral?
Did you ever tell a woman that pregnancy makes her look radiant only to have her tell you she is not pregnant?
If conflict is the lifeblood of drama, inappropriate behavior is the lifeblood of comedy.
Scholars have studied commedia dell’arte and the comedies of Shakespeare (he wrote some good ones). Inside the comedy blockbusters of those days, you will find some of the comedic plot devices found in screenplays today: deception, mistaken identity, the ongoing battle of the sexes, guys in drag, gals in drag. All of these devices (and we will discuss more as the book goes on) come from the same pot.
There are three main ingredients in your comedic blockbuster recipe:
INAPPROPRIATE GOAL
INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR
INAPPROPRIATE DIALOGUE
By definition, inappropriate means not suitable for a particular situation.
We’re going to cover behavior and dialogue in the next section (characters). Right now, to build that big comedy blockbuster idea, let’s focus on the inappropriate goal.
THE INAPPROPRIATE GOAL
Every movie can be boiled down to the same plot — someone wants something and is having trouble getting it. In the case of comedy — the question is what is the “it?”
Dramas have worthy goals. A British soldier decides he wants to unite Arabia. A divorced man fights his wife for custody of his children.
Mysteries might have the goal: The detective wants to find the killer.
Thrillers might up the stakes: The C.I.A. has to find out where the bomb is hidden before it goes off.
Comedy goals are a little off the wall, or less intense. The goals might be: The teenager needs to get laid; the guys need to get the band back together; we need to crash the wedding. In the recent rom-com No Strings Attached, Adam (Ashton Kutcher) and Emma (Natalie Portman) decide to be sex buddies and to use each other. The goal is not to fall in love. Very inappropriate for a romantic comedy.
But when something isn’t suitable, it’s usually funny. In the case of the inappropriate goal, it’s two-fold. It’s not only funny, but it also fuels our engine for the rest of the story. Inappropriate behavior can lead to outrageous antics.
Sidenote: Just because the goal is inappropriate doesn’t mean it’s not important. What is happening in the story is the most important event in your main character’s life.
For example, in Tootsie, Michael Dorsey cannot get work as an actor. It pains him. He has to work to produce a play. But no one will work with him. So he decides to audition for a part as a woman. Dressed in drag, he gets it.
The inappropriate goal is the most important event/action in your story. Everything will emerge from the goal — the logline, characters, plot devices, and resolution.
Let’s take a look at the inappropriate goals of some classic comedies.
Risky Business. Consider the teenage hero’s inappropriate goal: to start a brothel and pay back a loan shark. Whoa! We’re talking about a suburban high school kid who has this goal. Clearly not appropriate! If Tom Cruise wanted to start a lawn mowing business or a car wash business to pay off his debt, that would be earnest, but I don’t know how funny it would be.
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