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).