I’m so pleased with how wonderful life the universe and everything is. There is such a rich collection of informative panels, by some very talented writers. At the end of the day, I attended a panel a serious look at comedy. Berin Stephens gave some good examples of how comedy can be expressed in a good way. I took notes, I hope they can be of use to you in your own creative pursuits.

–          Why is comedy hard is because what is funny to some is different than what is funny to others.

–          What we find is funny is influenced by our life experiences.

–          A challenge of comedy is to satisfy expectations without being predictable.

–          Keeping it clean. Young comedians rely upon crude to be funny and move away from crude as a mature in their abilities.

–          The dark side of humor comes from our language, sex, gross, crude and innuendo.

–          The reason comedy can be easy is because people want to laugh.

–          We don’t have to get it right the first time a rewrite can make humor better. In an early draft, you can simply put a placeholder where there is jokingly inserted.

–          Create an atmosphere of funny don’t need a zinger. Every time.

–          Humor comes from moving forward to a destination and provide the unexpected.

–          Put the joke as close to the end as possible, and omega funnier.

–          Choosing a scene can help in humor, instead of a fast food place. You may have a pickle shop.

–          Character interactions can provide humor, such as Michael Jordan being surrounded by the Looney Tunes.

–          Distractions: during a movie scene can add humor. One example is in galaxy quest when the character Guy is choking on spaghetti during a serious discussion.

–          Exaggeration: Jerry Lewis being extremely clumsy.

–          Understatement: in the movie might have python and the Holy Grail when King Arthur is fighting the black night, the black night is severely wounded and responds “it’s only a flesh wound?”

–          Using opposites effectively: such as in the movie title, Buffy, the vampire slayer or Jerry Lewis’ funny being paired with a serious Dean Martin

–          Non-sequester: Johnny Depp in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean being seen as standing on the deck of a ship until the camera expands down and we see that he is holding on to the poll of a ship that has sunk underwater.

–          Do not start your story around the joke.

–          Create funny scenes with a character or the scene itself, such as hitchhikers guide to the galaxy

–          You can write a scene. If you don’t have the humor component yet, if you can add it in the rewrite.

–          Funny, is the element of surprise something that the artist is not expect.

–          Need to present that the characters don’t know what is coming.

Have items to add to the list, please add them in the comment section of this blog.