Comedic Short Movie Research

Now that I have decided to make a short comedy movie I feel it is appropriate to research comedy short movies in more detail.

1. Lifes Too Short (2011) - Extract from Episode 1
While this is not exactly a short movie it is an extract from the show which features its own narrative which begins and ends in the 5 minutes runtime of the clip. It features three kinds of comedy that I am a fan of which are 'Improvisational Comedy', 'Deadpan Comedy' and 'Dark Comedy'. In the clip Liam Neeson wants to do some improvisational comedy but doesn't quite understand the concept. He complains about the fact that they did not agree on the backstory before hand which is not the point of improv comedy. This clip appeals to me because I am a big fan of deadpan comedy and would like to use it in my script, this clip will most likely be later used as a source of inspiration later on in the project.

2. Seth McFarlane Plays Sock Or Hat 
The main section of this clip features Seth McFarlane playing a game called sock or hat in which he looks at a sock or hat and has to decide on what it is. The main section is not where the jokes lies however, it is when the credits start and it begins to feature things like storyboard artists and 'based on the novella by' credits that are humorous.

The comedy here is in my opinion quite clever because it is quite risky to make a video in which the main joke is in the credits. Most people do not stick around for credits especially on YouTube. The connotations of the credits featuring things like costume designer, based on the novella by etc are that this was an expensive clip to produce and a lot of effort went into it which is obviously not the case. 

3. WKUK - Earthquake

A sketch by comedy group Whitest Kids U'Know it features a earthquake which has apparently been going on for days on end. During the sketch a news anchorman swears and the sketch becomes about his trial and the earthquake has nothing to do with it until the earthquake stops. I am a fan of this sketch group and I find this sketch amusing because of jokes like a newspaper boy shouting "Extra! Extra! The earthquakes stopped" and a character then looking out the window to check before exclaiming 'It's true, it has stopped'. I am a fan of comedy like that and plan to use it in my movie. 

4. WKUK - Kicking People

This is another sketch from the same group, this sketch it a commentary on morality. The main character finds Guy 1 kicking Guy 2 and finds out that Guy 2 killed Guy 1 kids. He helps the man until he finds out that Guy 2 is an executioner at a prison, he then pushes Guy 1 over and helps Guy 2 kick him. It turns out Guy 2 framed the kids and just wanted to kill them, after this kind of things happens repeatedly the main guy decides they are both bad guys. He then kicks both of them and starts a new dance craze, then builds the empire state building but then the ice age comes back and man-kind thins into extinction.  I like comedy like this in which the endings just kind of go crazy because endings are hard to write. I feel that if done correctly this kind of comedy can work very well and would like to use it in my movie. 

After watching these short movies it has become evident to myself that I prefer dark comedy, deadpan comedy and sketch comedy. I would like to use these particular kinds of comedy in my work.

Survey Monkey

Target Audience Research Survey
Above is the link to a survey I created to get some information about my audience. I feel this will allow me to tailor my movie to interests of my audience.

Here is an extract from the questionnaire. As you can see the questions are fairly general questions that you would expect to see on a audience research survey.













Why did I choose Survey Monkey? 
I chose to use Survey Monkey because it analyses my results and works out the percentages of the answers. For example it will tell me if 68% of people have chosen Option A on question 1. This allows me to figure out who the majority of my audience is and cater my movie to their interests. It also easy to use and easy to distribute.

How have I distributed it? 
I have distributed my survey using social media websites such as Facebook. This means that when people complete the survey they have the option to send it out to their friends. This will allow the number/ variety of people who answer my survey to keep growing and will give me a fair set of results due to the range of people.

What do I plan on learning from this?
I personally plan on learning what the favoured type of comedy is among a large range of people. This will allow me to write my script and film my movie based around the preferred type of comedy. It will also show me who my target audience is based on the age range that provides the most answers.

Conventions of Comedy

Comedy is fairly simplistic in nature due to the fact you want people to be able to just sit back and laugh, you want to be able to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

Conventions Of Comedy:

1. Setting
The setting of a comedy can vary but usually are set at the homes/school or work of the characters. Even in comedies where locations are more exotic like Red Dwarf (Space) the space ship is the characters home and serves the exact same purpose as James Franco's house in This Is The End.

Sometimes the locations won't be constant. In movies such as 'Eurotrip' and 'Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back' the characters are constantly on the move because they are on a road-trip.

2.Camera
The camera movements/ angles in comedies are usually very simple because the audience needs to able to see the characters facial expressions/ reactions to the events of the movie. Comedies tend to feature wide shots or medium shots, you will rarely see tracking shots or other more complex shots.

That is three different screenshots from three separate comedies, As you can see in each image the actors are at fairly similar distances and their faces are well lit so we can see their reactions (in two of them they are even looking directly at the camera).

3. Characters
The characters in comedies are usually quite similar. 'Friends' in my opinion has the perfect stereotype comedy characters.

In 'Friends' you have the six basic characters that comedies will usually feature (note: these character stereotypes can be merged/ changed slightly).
In friends you have the characters;
Joey - The handsome yet dim-witted character. He is a womanizer yet it terrible at everything else and loves food.
 Phoebe- The strange character who it does not really make sense why the other characters interact with. Jokes with this kind of characters are making them increasingly strange and adding random history to the character.
Ross - Smart but socially awkward character. This kind of character will always get a girl way out of his league but will mess it up completely.
Chandler- The normal one of the group, has a normal job and comedy comes from his sarcastic comments.
Monica- This character is a supposed to represent the stereotypical woman, she needs things to be clean and loves to cook.
Rachel - The dumb blonde, comes from a rich family and does not fit in with normal life.

Obviously not all comedies follow these exact character types but I believe these character types are the basis of comedy characters. In 'The Hangover',for example, the character of Alan is the Phoebe of the group, while Stu is a mixture of Ross and Chandler and Phil is a mixture of Joey and Chandler.

4.Costumes
Costumes depends on where/when the comedy is set but most comedies will feature the character wearing fairly normal outfits. Some comedies may feature the characters in bright colors while comedies trying to be more realistic may have the characters in slightly duller colors.

Those images are promotional images for two comedy shows; an american sitcom (Big Bang Theory) and a British/American sitcom (Episodes) as you can see the Big Bang Theory has all the character in bright colors and they all look slightly eccentric. While Episodes has Matt LeBlanc in a pale blue and the two other people are wearing dull brown colors. The reason for these costume choices is that the Big Bang Theory is supposed to be slightly over the top with wacky characters, it is a fairly stereotypical sitcom, Episodes however is trying to show all the problems with a British show being remade in America, so the characters are all supposed to be real people (Matt LeBlanc actually plays Matt LeBlanc in the show).

Genre

I have decided to make a comedy movie. I chose this because they are conventionally simplistic in nature and I believe will be more accessible to me as I have never made a movie before. I plan on slightly breaking the conventions however and having slightly more artistic and hopefully more impressive camera work.

I chose to do a comedy because it is my area of interest, specifically in short movies. In my experience short comedy movies work significantly better than short movies of other genres. I also feel that given the time frame I have to make this movie that a comedy would be the most proficient to do, due to the fact that a comedy generally requires a simple plot and does not require may props.

Short Movie Research

I decided to watch a few short movies to get an idea of how much of a narrative there can be and to find out things like the average length. I watched 5 movies to find out what genre I would like to go with and to see how short movies differ from normal movies.

1. Jay and Seth Vs. The Apocalypse 
This movie is 9 minutes long and stars Seth Rogen and Jay Baruchel. It is a post-apocalyptic comedy and was the inspiration for 'This Is The End' (2013). The whole movie takes place in two rooms in an apartment, the two characters argue about the situation until eventually Jay leaves to fix the water and is seemingly killed. I really enjoyed the tone of this movie because despite being post-apocalyptic the comedy is relatable  because it just two friends having an argument. The movie also uses sound to its advantage because instead of showing the panic outside of the apartment you merely hear it and when Jay dies you hear a gunshot and then blood begins to come out of the tap instead of water to represent that he is dead.

Seth hears gunshot.



Blood begins pouring out of tap.





I like this because it shows a cheaper way to do character deaths in a short movie which could be helpful to me later on.

2.Blinky TM
A short movie about a helper robot who is given to a miserable young boy. The boy grows increasingly annoyed as his parents relationship takes a turn for the worse and eventually shouts at the robot to 'Kill me, kill the dog, KILL EVERYONE! " the robot then stands on one spot repeating "No problem" until every human is accounted for and then begins his quest to kill everyone, starting with they boy and the family. The movie is a horror movie with a slight comedic tone, it is supposed to funny how the robot reacts to his command to kill everyone and it was my favourite scene.

3. A Film About Walking In Slow Motion
This movie is 57 seconds long and features Bill Murray and some random people walking down a hallway in slow motion, this movie is not interesting but does feature a kind of humour I am a fan of which is having an idea so stupid/boring that when it is actually done you can't help but find it amusing. I also do like the fact that the title does sum up the movie completely. The movie is also done in only one continuous shot which is an intriguing concept in my opinion.

4. Take This Lollipop
This is an interactive short movie that is about 1 minute long. You link your Facebook account to the site and the movie features a crazed man hacking into your account and looking at your photos and friends, he eventually googles your address and then drives to your house. The movie was made to warn people about the dangers of putting too much information online. This movie is a horror movie and in the minute long runtime it does build up a great atmosphere because as the man hacks the account happy music plays which always make horror more unsettling in my opinion.


Pictured : The man hacks in to my account





5. Tenacious D - To Be The Best
In this semi-sequel to Tenacious D - The Pick Of Destiny Jack Black and Kyle have split up and Jack Black has become the happiest person alive while Kyle has become obsessed killing  Jack Black. But after Kyle accidentally kills Val Kilmer Jack forgives Kyle and the band get back together. Tenacious D then make "the greatest album of all time, that's not opinion, it's a fact".  The movie is a comedy/ horror parody. The movie was very funny in my opinion and a stand out scene when Kyle tries to shoot Jack Black and pulls out a gun, the scene goes into slow-motion for the line "If I can't have you... NO ONE CAN" but the gunshot itself is in normal motion which made me laugh because it is usually the other way around.


A humorous moment in which Kyle pulls off his beard to represent the band is back together. I like the breaking the fourth wall humour in which they acknowledge the beard is obviously fake.

The Brief

I chose this task because I like the concept of making the movie from beginning to end and seeing a script I have written come to life. I want to develop my script writing and camera abilities.
I chose to do the poster because I enjoy doing art and am interested in finding the difficulties involved in making poster.
I decided to do a film magazine review to develop skills I used last year for my music magazine.