Tuesday 7 June 2011

10 Tips For Directing Comedy

1. Welcome collaboration, but make sure the ideas resonate with your vision.

2. Do takes that are faster. It's always slower when you watch it back. Faster is funnier.

3. Make sure the actors are comfortable doing less.

4. Do as much as you can in single shots. Cutting to different angles makes it less funny.

5. Have really old people in the background and out of focus. Don't know why, but it's funny.

6. Use funny names.

7. Keep to the page.

8. Ignore the page.

9. In drama, your characters sit and talk. In comedy your characters can't talk because one is deaf and the other is trapped under the sofa.

10. Don't be too topical. Good humour lasts forever, but a joke about George Bush is an embarrassment, much like his foreign policy.

Care to share?

3 comments:

  1. one tip I would like to share.i.e.Every script will have scenes that are not necessary; scenes that have nothing going on; or scenes that are only for character development. But if they haven’t been omitted, (by the producers or writers) you still have to shoot them. The trick here is to not spend a lot of time on these scenes – just shoot them fast and get onto the next one.

    _________
    Mitchell

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  2. As ever you always post just what I need to read when I need to read it. If my script does get picked up I will bear this in mind. Thanks to Marcobid as well for their comment. I've tried to cut out all the unnecessary scenes, but this is good advice.

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  3. Hahaa... The Post itself is funny man!!

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