Comedy Writing: Come Up With Your Own Hilarious Jokes!

1. What to Expect...: Do you want to be able to write your own jokes and comedic material which makes people burst with laughter. Hey, my name is Circuits after and over the past five years, I've been impressing, meeting and performing for people all over the world. I started out solely performing magic that quickly implemented comedy throughout all of my performances, I've angularjs, right place seems, shows and speeches and comedy has always been a major element in this course. I'll teach you how to come up with your own style and jokes. Sure, people want to be inhibited of their daily life. They want to lab, that they want the whole experience to be enriching. They want to see something they, they care about, right? How to find your voice, creative ways to come up with jokes, comedic structures, and much more. In either case, you wanted to find your specific sense of humor that applies to you, your story and your persona. These lessons, together with my other courses on understanding and performing comedy, will ensure that you become the width yet funny is version of yourself. I can't wait to hear about your success. I'll see you inside. 2. Write About What You Know! People Will Love It...: Hope you enjoyed the first module on understanding comedy. What triggers comedy with word acts as a catalyst for people to laugh and all of that, right? How contrast plays into comedy? The typical setup plans, punchline structure which we're going to play with, right? We're not, we're not always going to follow that structure and we'll get into that throughout this module and the next one. But you, by now you have a few guidelines and a few ideas that applied to comedy in general and help you excited. Okay, so this module is all about writing comedy and this can apply it to plays, Movies, scenes. Of course, stand-up comedy, anything that has to do with, with writing and applying commonly to some sort of artistic or creative expression. And the first topic I want to address is that you shouldn't write about what you know, okay? If you think about it, you're the only person that can tell your story and you can tell it through yourself, or you can tell it through characters or actors or whatever. You can do it in first-person. Or you can design a setting where it's happening, right? A fictional setting. Or you can, of course, do it in a stage, in a stand-up set and tell your story. And you should be writing about what happens to you all the time, okay, So be taking notes and just remembering moments and pieces and stuff and incorporate all of this into your ACT or, or you're sad, whatever you're writing or working on. Okay, because I can't stress it enough that this happens in all creative expression, right? Plastic arts. Paintings happen like take place or to the experience of the artist, right? Same thing goes for creative writing. They're usually based around their own experiences or some non-fictional experience I did take place. Okay, So the best way, the most effective way to come up with original material, right? Because that's one of the crucial things with comedies that it all has to be original, Right? It's not like music where you can interpret other, other people or other compositions by other people. You have to come up with your own original material and it has to be to some extent true to your persona. You can also have a character of course. But what I'm getting to is that you should write about what you know, Okay? Don't try to write about stuff that you don't know because of course we know that we've talked about this quite a bit. Comedy has to be relatable to the audience. And it won't come across as relatedly. We don't know what you're talking about. That you won't be able to effectively construct the, the aura, the atmosphere that you want to. And yet you should write about what you know, take notes what happens throughout your day interactions that are funny, jokes you come up with on the spot, right? You can take them on the great part is that if they were funny, you can make them even funnier barrier finding them, taking the time to polish them, right? You can take everything that happens to you during the day and make it into a re-find piece. Okay, So there's a few techniques I want to address to make this process easier. Because you might find that some days you don't have anything to write about or you're not finding anything in your life which makes sense in your daily life. And that makes sense for comedy piece. So let's use a few techniques. The first one is to look for in congruent statements, right? We've talked about this quite a lot, right? The income statement for you present two ideas that seem dissimilar. You present them as analogous, right? And then you resolve this in a, in a funny way. And a great classic example to find, to find the examples of this is to go through the headlines in newspaper headlines, news headlines, and look for incongruent statements in and of themselves. Rather you just look at the headline and you're like What? That can be tons of examples. Remember that if we go back to the beginning, the very first time I presented this idea, what is in the first lesson. And I use the example of sex is like Christmas. In congruent statements, you presented them as analogous sex is like Christmas what? No. And then you resolve I only do it once a year or whatever, right. You can come up with solutions. But yes, so look in the newspaper, in the new foreign congruent statements, stuff that you feel like no, that doesn't make any sense. And then look for your own resolutions rather than if you're doing this in a standard piece, you could even put a slide up with the newspaper headline or if it's a scene, you can even have someone read it off the newspaper and then someone else resolve it. You know, you can play along with these ideas, but essentially, a great way to find jokes, incongruent jokes is to look at headlines, news headlines. So you don't have to do the work, you just have to find the resolution. The setup is already there for you. So another technique we briefly touched on is taking jokes or you come up with and turning them into personal stories. So we're talking here about writing about what you know, but you should also deliver on what you know, or at least make it feel as though the experience could only be told by you. Write that story, could only be told by you. Or, or at least it seems like that's the only venue or scenario in which the audience could, could learn about that, right, about that story than what, whatever it is, right? Generally it's stories, that's what, that's what humans relate to its stories. But yet turn them into personal stories. If you're doing a standard piece, instead of saying a guy goes into a bar, it just say I went to a bar once and this happened. But that will make a much more relatable and make much more sense. And of course, we've talked about the trigger of recognition or related ability that usually generates quite a bit of laughter. And that breaks that barrier between the performer and the audience. But this of course applies to the screen or to a play to, right? It can be a character who's telling a story that of course it's just a joke. You came up with the KG of selling it in first-person. I save that story related to them. Okay, this is a great technique and I hope you use it. Okay, the last technique I absolutely love, and I've used tons and tons of times and it's essentially Use the width. The answer you wish you would've said in a specific setting, right? Use that into a joke. So there's, this applies in tons of cases where you're having a discussion with someone, a heated debate or whatever, right? You're having a a Cauchy conversation and you set, you go home and you say, Oh, you think, I wish I would have come up with this then and it would have been so amazing, so charming, so cocky. Well, the trick is that when you're performing comedy or you're writing committee, you have all the time in the world to write it down and put it on paper. So it will seem like you're the Cauchy as a charm, the most charming or whatever you want to come across as so, use the width, the answer that you wish that you would have come up with in the moment. Use it in your comedy, it will be amazing and yeah, that's a great way to come up with jokes because they just come naturally, right? We've all had that feeling of going home and thinking, I should have said this right now. You can't say it and you can deliver and you can get great reactions. Or perhaps you just find out that that wasn't as Cauchy has or has charming as you thought. And then you would just relax because you say, Oh, so good thing. I didn't say it then. Okay, so that's the first lesson on writing comedy. It's right about what you know, because I will make it way more related to relatable to the audience. And you can find commonly pretty much in every setting, right? News headlines here, daily interactions, your life. 3. Find Your Comedic Voice, Persona, and the Niche That Will Adore You: So the next thing I want to talk about before we get into specific jokes and techniques and structure of jokes or scenes or plays or whatever, is, you have to find your own comedic voice, your comedic persona, your character. This of course depends on what you want to do with company, right? You might be wanting to be seeking creativity for a play or you might actually want to perform stand up, right? So in either, in either case, you wanted to find your specific sense of humor that applies to you, your story and your persona, right? You're going to have to do a bit of introspection. And of course, this lesson might not be that enlightening because most of the work you have to do, yeah, Essentially we have to look for that comedic persona or that comedic voice that is unique to us. Essentially, this relates to the previous restaurant, right? You should write about what you know and more broadly than what we were talking about before we address like specific jokes, bits or parts. But more broadly, you might want to be a comedian that addresses a certain topic. It can be someone who does parodies of pop culture or whatever, right? If that's what you want to do, don't, don't fall into the trap of thinking that all of your comedy, all of your piece, all of your ACT has to fall into that specific category, right? You can just do a few, a few bits that do address that topic. And then you're done right here, that community, that's still your style, but you don't have to just do that, right? But there is a certain value, the nourishing down, finding your own niche. And this works for business, and it also worked for show business, right? It might be my field scary because you might feel as though you don't have the, you won't find your audience for you. Want to feel appealing to everyone. But there's, there's a certain, a certain charm to being extremely funny or extremely charming or appealing to a segment of the broader society, to a specific audience. 4. Why Should Anyone Care?: Okay, So this module so far we've been talking about writing about what you know, what segment or industry appears to us and how we can make our comedy represent what we think about what happens in our daily life, what we know about, right? And in the last lesson we talked about finding your voice and persona, right? So looking for that target audience, reaching down and finding exactly what people you're going to really appeal to. Again, this doesn't mean that you can't appeal slightly or in broader terms to a vast, vast majority of people. But it does mean that you're going to be, there's going to be a small segment of people that are going to love your work, right? So we are going to combine that in this lesson with writing comedy with message. Okay, this might come across as irrelevant or not that important, but messages actually absolutely crucial, okay, because you might think that people want to watch comedy to become inhibited of their life. Not have to think, not have to be pondering about what the message of the authors. But in fact, there's a great story told by Steve Martin that he released a movie and it wasn't doing that as great as another. It was a comedy movie, obviously, right? So he released a comedy movie and it wasn't doing as great as another movie time, which was also comedy. So he went to watch both at the theater. And he counted the labs, right? So in his movie it was about 2030 labs, right? A ton of laps. They were constantly laughing. And then the other movie, they only left twice in the whole movie. The audience only left twice. And Steve Martin tells the story that the other movie was much more successful because people cared about what they were seeing. Okay, they, they perhaps didn't laugh out as much as with his. But they cared about what they were seeing, right? They cared about the message, the story, the liquid. We cared about the work holistically, right? Not only about laughing. So this goes to say that comedy is much more than just the moment of laughter, right? Sure, people want to be inhibited of their daily life. They want to laugh, that they want the whole experience to be enriching. They want to see something they care about. They don't, they don't just want to sit there and watch like absurdity or, or, you know, that there has to be something to it, okay, And that's where the message comes in. That's where all of this that we've been talking about this module starts to make sense because you have to niche down to find your target audience. And then you have to tell them. You're the one that can tell them stories or they can tell them anecdotes about stuff that they care about. They truly care about because it's the people that have the same interests as you. And they follow like rightly, they want to see again and go into that same example. They want to see parodies of pop-culture, right? Going back to the example that we used previously, when I'm getting to is that your ACT or your piece or your play, your movie should be relevant in a sense, right? We're going to talk a lot about structure and cyclical structure and having a persistent tone or underlying idea. But furthermore, like there has to be something that the audience is going to care about, right? Why are they watching this? What's the, what's the underlying story that talks about some conflict inherent to human nature, right? That's what people care about. We care about stories. We had this sentence for stories for centuries. It's something like it's, it's true to our essence. And that is true. Again, that's, that's very true for performing arts. And it's very true again for comedy, right? You have to, What are you talking about that these people that you are addressing, this target audience is going to care about what's the message, What's the story like? What is the, what is it about? Okay, so this might come across as a bit abstract or it might be hard to picture without putting it into contact. So we're going to analyze a few examples. Okay? I hope I haven't offended anyone within the subject. Okay, so if we go I know I just cut at the beginning. I want to address how he knows his audience exactly right. He knows that he's targeting people who want to see stuff that is in appropriate can be offensive at some point. But now he's taking this moment to, to clarify, to explain, to use comedy with a message, right? Which is very true to his comedy. Because if you don't know anything about Ricky Gervais, he is famous because due to creating comedy that can come across as inappropriate or offensive. So now he, he's going to clarify through comedy, right? This is all part of the experience of the comical experience. You see that the audience is constantly laughing and having a great time. So he's going to take advantage of that to explain that he he doesn't have the intention of being offensive or fat or venting of offend anyone. Okay, so let's keep watching what he comes from a good or a bad place. And it's for you to decide what that is. And I think that there's a big debate about sick jokes or gametes when sick jokes. Now, the thing about sick jokes when we tell a sick joke is with the express understanding that neither party is really like that. I wouldn't tell a sick joke. Were known pedophile, I wouldn't go, you're going to fucking love this book. Many ones. Exactly. So this is a great example of what I'm talking about. This like all of that. What we've seen so far was pretty much a setup, but the setup had true value to the audience. They had a message. It was explaining all of his work essentially, right? So, so there was, in a sensor was a transformation for the audience, right? They went into the theater. They were listening to him out for a minute. They were being set up for this punchline. And that was a pretty, pretty hilarious. But they were being set up for this punchline while receiving value, right? But what extent can, can plain generic jokes give Lincoln be good for silences, right? But, but this is actually an experience for the audience, right? It's not just like trying to cover up a silence in like a weird conversation. That's right. That's not the point. He's taking his audience for a journey. And that journey is hilarious, but it also has value beyond the bell after father in the home just read the newspaper, is little girl comes running it. She's only six. Hello darling. Playing in the park with your friends until the man came along to the man came along. Yeah, man came along and he asked my friends to leave. So it's just me and him telling of whatever happened. None of it was your fault. Okay. Danny, none of it was your fault. But tell daddy every detail what happened. He took me behind a tree so now I can see what you're doing. I've got dying and then what happened? He took my dress off. Oh God, what happened next? What? He took his thing, how could tonic and then what happened? Nothing that was, well, make something up. Okay, so again, throughout all of this broader story, he's inserting jokes. Yeah. He's inserting jokes. Doesn't forget to feed his audience what they love, which is this kind of comedy which is inappropriate, even like, again, pushing the boundaries. But yeah, it's, it's also a broader, a broader story which we're about to finish a broader story. And, and it's addressing this message with she wants to talk about. So essentially he's using all of this broader story to portray his philosophy, right? He doesn't think that, that jokes are inherently offensive, right? It's all about the target and the intentionality that comes, comes within the the performance over the delivery. Brian, he's using all of that and throughout again, he's feeding his audience with inappropriate jokes, pushing the boundaries. And we've discussed that was eventually we sat down for the mayor about quarter 10. They put two tables together and the host now either end and they put me in the middle. Opposite is very sweet but very deaf, sort of ITO man. So conversation was a bit stilted. And after about 20 minutes in one of the hose pipes that says already tell that joke what? We love jokes. Do you say your name and be fine. Okay. And he got on with this conversation. And so though like I went, oh, Father, save. The audio, comes running till the whole joke go to the bit, will make something up. They went silence. I looked at it. He went, okay, So this is a great example of what we were talking about. It's having an message throughout all of the story, right? He has a broad story which lastly, about five minutes. And throughout all of it, he's, he's putting other smaller stories, write jokes to feed his audience what they love, where I write again in appropriate pushing the boundary jokes. And you come, come to the end and the ending is an amazing punchline. And all of it, it was a setup for this punchline, right? This idea that we've been talking about. But then at the end, it serves as an illustration for his message, right? Its message for us that it all depends on the target and key failed to address the target and he, he didn't get the reaction. They, they didn't enjoy the joke. And that all serve to illustrate his message, right? So one more time he had the, the broader story, which was essentially a long joke, right? With, with a lot of setup. But in the setup there was tons of little jokes and smaller stories. And it all served the broader purpose of illustrating his message, his philosophy of comedy. So again, it's much richer than just seeking the laughter. It has a message and it all has a purpose. Okay, so I just want to use one more example is much more brief. It's from one of my favorite shows, Rick and Morty and let's get into it. Let me ask you a question real quick. Does evil exist? And if so, can one detect and measure rhetorical question? The answer is yes, You just have to be a genius. You, your sisters boss gave me a microscope that would have made me retarded. Well, I don't think you're allowed to say that word. Morty, I'm not disparaging that differently abled. I'm stating a fact that if I had used this microscope would've made me mentally retarded. But I don't think it's about logic, Rick. I think the word, it's just become a symbolic issue for powerful groups that feel like they're doing the right thing. Well, that's retarded. Okay, So again, this is an example of a, essentially it was a joke setup and it had a punchline just as we've discussed. But it also served as, as, as a chance to make a statement, a point, and the message, right? If you have seen Rick, well, essentially we come already targets an audience which once again, I think you might, you might see what type of audience I am because both of the examples where in appropriate and pushing the boundary kind of jokes, but similar to Ricky Gervais. Rick and Morty targets this type of audience, right? So this is a joke which nurtures them, right? Give them what they want. But at the same time, it's, it's, it has a message, right? It's, it's this question of whether this taboo around a certain word is appropriate or it doesn't make any sense. And we're going to get into whether it's right or not, but it does have the message and that's exactly what I was talking about. Okay, so a brief summary about the lesson is that your comedy. She tried to go beyond the instance of laughter, right? And have it be meaningful for your audience to a holistic experience that moves them, that makes them think, feel. I don't know whatever you're, the emotions that you're seeking. But don't forget that we are artists and this is a form of expression. And art is all about that, right? About shaking your audience up and making them feel something that they could not feel if they weren't watching you, right? And they could only get that experience from you. 5. Repeat, Repeat, Repeat...: Okay, so in this lesson I want to address a tool or technique that we can use when writing comedy that is super effective and can generate tons and tons of laughter. Okay? And this tool is repetition. So a very famous type of joke is called the running gag, right? So this is a very, very famous in onscreen, but it can also be used in live performances in a play standup show. Okay? So essentially a running gag is a type of joke. Gag is a bid or a joke, right? So a running gag is a type of joke that increases its laughter. It, its, its power as the running time or the screen time goes on. Okay, this happens a lot in series or shows where you have this, you have a joke which is slightly funny. Maybe it's not even funny. You have it at the, at the beginning of the show, right? Episode 2. And then in Episode 6 and come back, it comes back. And in the season finale it comes back and it has the amazing punchline, right? Because if you think about it, the setup's been going on forever, right? Essentially, this type of joke again grows as time goes on and you use it again and again. You have to be careful though, because its lifetime is, is it depends on the job, but its lifetime is usually around three or four times. It peaks and then starts losing potential, right? It's, it's the law of diminishing marginal returns, right? As you, as you start using the job, the returns, the laughter goes up and up and up, and the power goes up, up. But then when it peaks, then it quickly starts going down. And we think about stand-up comedy, for instance. And this has a lot to do with them with structure, which we're going to talk about in the future. But we think about standard. You can introduce an idea or a joke or something that I don't know. Imagine, for example, that you say at the beginning of my mom always said that I should do X. Right. And then you go all you do all of your standard, we do all of your set. And then you finish with the punchline, right? You have your final punchline and then you increment the laughter by saying, and that's why my mom always used to say x spread. So that also has to do with a cyclical structure, which again, we're going to talk about in the future. But that's a form of running gag, okay? Because you start and then at the beginning it's not even funny. But then when you do a callback, when you go back to it, if it increments the laughter. This, if you think about it, this has a lot to do with why in jokes are funny, right inside jokes. Because, well, there's also the element that it's private and only two or three or a reduced number of people know the joke. But it also has to do with the element of repetition, right? And you repeat it in the right circumstances. And something that was not funny at all at the beginning started becoming like something hilarious that Amy said in the right moment. It can just like become hysterical. Okay, So that's pretty much what a running gag is. And a few example is, for example, friends. We've seen friends, you know, the character Monica. Her upset obsession for having everything clean and organized and just super polished. That's a great example of a running gag. Because at the beginning it, it's not really that funny. But as it goes on and on, then you find like every year we realized that she has to organize every detail. And of course, the writers are very smart and they have great sense of timing and delivery. And they put these, these instances in exactly the right moment. Same goes for Monica obsession that Ross is a favorite child, right? Same idea as time goes on in the laughter or the element of funniness, essentially increments like exponentially and they inserted at exactly the right moment. Another example of a running gag is in high, Met Your Mother, where every time they say general something, LIGO General, whatever. Right. So at the beginning it's, it's like a funny thing that they do. But then when there's like a very serious circumstance and they do that joke and just become something hilarious. And again, that's a running guy which increments its, its, its potential to generate laughter as time goes on. So another type of job which stems from the idea of repetition, and it's not a running gag, is something that I like to call absurd repetition, right? It's when you repeat something that it doesn't even have to be funny. But you repeated on and on and on until it becomes just hilarious, right? Again, this, this has a very strange lifetime, right? Because it's like this idea. Essentially this is, this is its lifetime, right? You introduce a joke. You're like, I got a little laugh. And then you could be going and you're watching, you're there serious. Keep watching, keep watching linear. Like there's 1 where you realize like is this ridiculous thing is really still going on. And then you just embrace them, laughing and laughing and laughing. And of course, I have a great example of this joke or technique that I want to share with the box office. It ended at a theater. What are you going to do? That's going to be doing some karaoke singing for you. Okay, So back the setup. Karaoke singing, That's the telephone, the Joker. So that's pretty much the punchline, right? Because this song has Blake no lyrics, fillets, keyboard. And that thing delivery or the punchline right there, there it is. See the dressing that there's only one of this song. And there he is. He is repetition, repetition, repetition. Making this a little bit, by law can be just a small joke. He just keeps going with it. Real everyone laughing. Okay, So this is a great example of this kind of joke which I absolutely love. And of course the premise is very simple. It's a very simple job you could even presented and I dare you to do it. It's not a great joke, so please don't do it. But you can even presented as an isolated joke, right? I once went to a karaoke club and I interpreted tequila and u. And that of course has the configuration or trigger which you're like pickier to get all the dirt. Only one word, right? So it's not a very funny joke. But as you stretch it out and you keep going and you keep repeating this absurd idea. There's this point where all of the judges and all of the other initiatives like, how is this guy doing this absurd thing and just, he keeps going with it, right? I'd say that it's around the second tequila. The the joke peaks. Right. But then he kind of has to keep going because of the theatrical nature, right? He can just stop in the middle of the song. But again, this is a great example and the idea is absolutely great. It keeps going with this. It's absurd. At the end, you can see that everyone is just having a blast, but really enjoying it. And they can't resist to be in, to just find it hilarious. And then hysteric on everyone's laughing. Okay, so that's this lesson on the power of repetition. We've talked about running gag, and we've talked about absurd repetition. Again, you have to be very careful with the lifetime of these jokes because you have to really test where the peak is and be careful not to stretch it too much after the peak. You don't necessarily have to cease doing the joke at the peak. But you don't want to stretch it too long because then it just loses all of its power. So I hope you enjoyed this lesson and I'll see you in the next one. 6. Plan Your Physical Comedy - It Might Change Everything: Okay, so the next thing I want to talk about in this module is physical comedy. Okay? This is a colossal element in, especially in performing comedy, but of course also in the interpreting committee, a play or a movie or whatever. And it might seem as though it's exclusively a part of the delivery and the timing. And that's a crucial part of physical comedy. And we'll get to that in the next module on performing comedy. But it also has to be, has to be included in the script, okay, because there's so much, so many resources and advantages that we're losing out if we're not including the physical part of the comedy in the script, right? And of course this applies to the stage. Mainly to the stage, right? Because there's so many resources that microphone, like physical communists, pretty much everything. That's not the very words that I'm saying, right? Pretty much everything that you're seeing when you're seeing a standard monologue or bit is its physical comedy, right? From how you use the microphone to how you move your arm. You don't have to be huge and then, and super lavish sanctuary with your, with your physicality. You don't have to be all over the place, you have to be in mind. But you do have to use the resources, right? Like a very small action. Be part of the physicality of the physical comedy included in the bit. And again, this has to do much with the timing and the delivery, and we're going to talk about it in the future. But you do have to include the guidelines for the physicality, right? Where are you going to be in this stage? What position are you going to have? How is this going to impact what you're saying, why? It's so crucial and there's so many resources. And again, it's not just what you do with your arms or your face, right? Your face. For instances as a colossal element, right? How your face adapt, depending on the story, the moment, it's a climax, right? Or in the element of misdirection, right? We know that surprise is an amazing trigger of laughter. And many times I'm, we're also going to talk about this in the future, but in many times, misdirecting the audience in order for the surprise to hit harder is, is crucial to our bit. So we can also use the physicality to seem as though, to make it seem as though the joke has ended at some point, right? You can just relax all of the tension and that seems as though the joke has an ID, but then you hit with the, with the next punchline, right? Because many times it's a false ending or false punchline, right, that we deliver, then you can relax. And then you say like for instance, if you're telling a story in third person, then you relax. And then you say, and that's the reason why I whatever. And then you hit with the, with the brutal punch line and then all of the audiences misdirected it partly because, due to your physical comedy, right? It's, it's all, it's all intertwined. But there's so many resources you have to yourself when you're performing stand up, for instance, using the microphone to make, to make noises of certain types of centered and elements that can be embedded in your story, right? You can use your whole body to make it seem as though essentially to deliver the, the piece in a way that makes the audience like as long as, less as the audience has to think about, right? To understand your joke, the better confusion in the joke hands and the audiences confused, then there's no point in that. Okay, I was talking about refrigerator jokes. Again, the punchline happening and then like days later, understanding it and having a little left to themselves. But that's, for the most part, we don't want that. We want the honest to have a clear idea of what we're delivering, right? And, and a great way to do this is using your physicality to use for the pizza we're going to analyze in a bit. We're going to go into much detail about that. But just to make it easy to follow, right, even if you're speaking about two people, then place yourself maybe in one side when you talking about one person. And then on the other one, you're saying what the other person said, right? Just make it easy for your audience to follow. And then again, you can make, you can have a ton of physicality. I don't know what your persona, comedic person IS. We've talked about this. You have to find your community persona. And then you can adapt your physical comedy to that, right? You can be goofy and all over the place, Steve Martin kind of style, right? Or no. You can be very serious, very, very paused or serine. And then actually sometimes that's your chitin and you can break that at a certain point and be very, very goofy. And then that can also be comedic. You can play with these ideas, but just keep in mind that the physical comedy has to be, has to be in the script, it has to be thought out. And we have to use all of the resources that we have to our advantage. And again, I've used the example of stand up quite a bit in this lesson. But this also applies to place movies or whatever comedic piece you're writing. Okay, So I have a great example that I want to analyze. So let's get into it. So I think you're I don't know if I'll do maybe I'm maybe I'm too selfish. I have no ideas through it. I'm all over the fucking math. You know what I wanna do right now? I actually want to learn how to fly a helicopter math. I do it. That's my latest thing or why it is Because I live in Los Angeles. Yeah. And it's an absolute cluster fuck. When you go into land in that city, just look out the window and just look at the complete lack of planning is not not even zoning laws. They'll build like a skyscraper next to a house, next to a gun range, and then there's like a fucking day care center, right? The city doesn't even work, even when everything else works. So God forbid, the dollar collapses as some crazy shit happens. We're going to go in a city like that. So you guys are all right out here in Atlanta. You know? There are, right? I don't know. Maybe in Atlanta might be crazy. You're on the outskirts, you find, you find you don't live in a desert. You'd slam your face in a bird bath. You drink that water for a good 30 days. La, there's no where to go. That's why I love the helicopter. Through the helicopter is the ultimate fuck this. I'm out vehicle and assess the situation. Zombie coming up. You're hovering. There were no hopper watching everybody good. Okay, so already we've we've just been introduced to the setup that it's going to go on about the helicopter for, for a while. And it has a great story that we're going to really enjoy. But we've already been introduced to his physicality, right? We can see how to understand what he's saying. He's using all of his body to deliver it, right? For instance, he's he talks about the helicopter moving and the easiest way to make us understand what type of motion he's talking about is him literally going baba, baba, baba, baba moving of, of, of, of, of, uh, right. And then we instantly get what he's talking about. He's talking about being at a place, zombies thing, moving the helicopter and just placing it somewhere else where there's no danger. And he, he avoids all of these words and all of this. This will also be physical comedy red, showing it with the hands. But he avoids all of this and all of this complicated delivery and just uses his body to represent it, essentially using all of his resources. He's using the microphone stand to show the motions of the helicopter, right? Simulating the pilot. And it just makes it really easy for us to follow along and we haven't really gotten into that part yet, but he's also going to make his stuff much funnier by using his body, his body language, his physicality, right? This does make it funny indirectly because we don't have to think about it and we can just enjoy it. But then he's also going to make it funny directly write his, his physicality will also be, will make us laugh. Okay, so let's keep watching how the story down in Orange County. An Orange County, California, this guy gave helicopter tours for 30 years, 30 years without incident, hands the business off to his son, the American dream. I built it up for 30 years. Do you make the family and the family day proud or I love you, write for kids five days. Did he supposed to give a talk to a couple of only the two shows up? The kids thought it was weird, but it's like I need the money. I gotta get mature, right? So he takes this guy up ten minutes into the TOR, that dude fuck and jumped out. Yeah. They did for the balloons and the K, We love you. Three go in traditional lab. Five working days later, this kid, he probably barely had the speech down. Just sit in their flying the helicopter. Right. If you look out the left side of the aircraft, that's Orange County, there's over 27 miles. The peaches that have put your seat belt back on 27 miles, that was established as a county in 1903. So please don't open the doors there. What do you do? I don't know. Okay. So I had to stop him, one of the peaks of the story, but I just want to emphasize how he's been using pretty much everything that we've been talking about, right? He's using all of his resources to make the story really just come across as natural as possible. And we really get the dimensions of the, of the aircraft. We get what's going on, right? We get at that like even the nuance of him, just that using the directions and then suddenly just look just looking at one moment at the seabed on a per, use your butt back on right. That, that little nuanced just makes a story. Come to live, right? And we can really, really get what he's trying to deliver. Then only that he uses his physicality in a way that's absolutely hilarious. Representing in a very human way, right? What the, what the person would actually experience, right? All of this over the top reaction, it actually would probably would happen something along those lines, right. And then we also get him trying trying to control the helicopter while the guy trying to save the guys lives. And he just really lives this, this physicality. He lives the story. He makes it come to life through his physical comedy, right? So again, all of this is not improvised. He definitely, I mean, he could have a constructed through making like telling the story many times. Most certainly this is part of his script and he's just decide to include this. And he started very meticulously so he can really deliver the story and make this as hilarious as it is, and it doesn't end there. So let's keep watching air traffic control. I don't know who's got this frequency, but you really need a microphone for a different case. So I read further into the story. Sure. It's not the guy who jumped out. It was 61 years old, terminally ill, pain every day. They couldn't figure out what was wrong. He had had enough at that point that I immediately became a hero. My world, right? You know what I love about him? Not only did he make the decision, he didn't go out like some policy price, follow-up pills, watching a romantic comedy wrapped in an Afghan that Nana may lock that guy went out like a man, take me up in a shopper. I'm looking at the land I love. And then up shop and out like a superhero. I loved it. I should have been wearing a fucking cake. I can't imagine how a lady he must depend on that helicopter ride up after finally just take it back, control this disease, I decide a rip in tubes out gets a burger, shotguns appear. Take me up in the chart. We probably had his flock and foot on a dashboard. Then it's not even listen to this guy given the TOR, right over 27 miles. What you think about that we're seeing from the guy's perspective. So again, all of this stuff that we've talked about now we're getting the story the same bit, but from the other, other person's perspective, from the gathered jumped out of the helicopter. And which has a, he's how he's using everything to his advantage. Getting first of all, he's using his microphone. He's putting it aside so the sound seems to come from far away, right? Because it was coming from the guy giving the tour, which is no longer him now he's the guy jumping out. So he places his microphone there. And then we're getting all of its seat belts action going on what the other guy keeps talking in the distance. And then we even get like the guy feeling the, the driver, the helicopter driver, actually the early pilot, I should say, trying to grab him, right? He's, he's feeling on his arm. And then the great part is he jumps out and when he's flying, we're actually getting all of these actually going with the arm and he's even using the microphone. He's amazing. I using the microphone right before we we've got the different boys covering like this so that we could get that sound as if it was coming from, from the radio. And now we're getting this as if it's as if he's flying right. He's going through the air and he actually makes the exact I mean, I don't know. I've never jumped out of a helicopter, but that sounds like pretty much what I would expect it to sound like. Right. So he's using all of it to his advantage and delivering a, an absolutely hilarious piece. What is the thing? I left out? One, there is one small thing. The guy fuck and live. Hello, there We're out over the ocean 500 feet up you take that will be enough. So I'll take and he must have gone in like Greg loop gain, it's like no slashes. But witnesses said it looked like a Tommy was fallen out of the air. So that sounds like a hell of an input x. And then he accidentally hit the most epic 500 foot belly flop. And the history of Japan out of a helicopter and out. But that didn't change what he was trying to go. Very far. It was I still love this guy. I just still path for just on the way down. He's gotta be taken 35 seconds to pay. And as he later died at the hospital, has a fantastic and misdirected. And we've also talked about that at the very beginning of the lesson, what I was saying, how you could use your physicality to make it seem as though the story had ended. And he actually does. He relaxes. And then he says, oh, I left out a small detail, which is actually a colossal detail that the guy actually survive, right? And then he comes in. He also uses the physical comedy, miss direct the audience and have that amazing finale that no one was expecting, right? So again, we're going to talk about misdirection and structure in the future. But all of that physical, physicality was, was used in a super effective way. That not only that, of course, in a passive way, it made it come across easier for us, like we understood the story, so it was easier for us to laugh. But also in an active way. He used his physicality in a way that was absolutely hilarious and we cannot resist the urge slap. A short summary of this lesson is that you should always include the physical comedy or the physicality in the script because it's a crucial element in two ways, rather than a passive sense, it helps the audience understand the story that you are delivering, right? You, you can understand every detail. So if it's easy to understand, it's easier to laugh because if there's confusion, then we won't laugh because we won't get the joke right. And then in an active way, it can just be hilarious how you use your physicality, right in this example, which is hilarious how he was like actually portraying the guy, for instance, when he was screaming, right? Then that that was just hilarious because first we have that trigger of relatability, right? Or a recognition. We recognize that that's probably how we would react. But it also was hilarious because it was all over the top, right, so, so it has that contrasting idea and that recognition tree, right? We're, suddenly we have all of these elements and we can understand comedy in a pretty deep sense. But yeah, this is physical comedy. The writing part of it, the interpretation we'll talk about in the future. But you should always be included in the script because it's a crucial element and it can help your story and your peace come alive and be absolutely hilarious. I hope you enjoyed this lesson and I'll see you in the next one. 7. Understand Structure and Which One to Use: So until the last lesson of this module on writing comedy, we've talked about a ton of things so far. Writing about what you know, finding a comedic voice and persona. And then a few techniques, like what we talked about techniques and those lessons, but we also talked about repetition. Now we just talked about physical comedy by it. And now we're getting on to a colossal, a crucial, perhaps the biggest element in writing, writing, comedy it, the structure. Okay? There's a few types of structure and we're also going to talk about other things which I think are, are intertwined with structure or very related. But There's a few types of structures that I want to address. And one of them is the cyclical structure, okay? And the other one is that triadic structure. And the last one I'm going to call it the plot twists structure. Okay, so let's get into these. So the cyclical structure is essentially, and this is present in, in all sorts of writing, writing, in creative writing or in a, in a journal. Journal writing and essentially everything. Write fiction, non-fiction, comedy, whatever, right? It's, it's always used. Why? It's because it's so effective, right? And in comedy, we can take so much advantage of this. Because essentially what it is is you talk about something at the beginning. You go on, on and on and on about the story and then you go back to that something in the beginning. So we've talked a ton about why certain things make people laugh. So it's very easy to understand for us to understand why this can be incredibly effective, right? First of all, we have the trigger of recognition, right? If you introduce an idea at the beginning and then you forget it and then at the end you go back to it. Then we have the trigger recognition. We're like, Oh, I get that right. That's relatable to me because I understand I've understood from the beginning that also gets onto the trigger of the configuration or trigger right? Go on and on and on and on. But then we go, oh, I get it because that's the thing at the beginning. And then you get your like, oh, everything was thought of, everything makes sense, right? That's cyclical and then in it's super effective, then another thing is repetition, right? We've talked about why in jokes are funny. It's because are inside jokes depending on how you call them. But we've talked about the repetition being something really powerful because he repeated and repeated and repeated in the example, running gags or absurd repetition. And then it gets to a point where it's just hilarious, right? So if you do it right, you frame it right? Cyclical structure can cause the, the repetition when it comes back to be absolutely hilarious, right? And it can be the trigger. And again, another reason why it's so effective, it's because you'd go on and on and on and on. And then you have a false ending, which is a punchline and that's funny. But then you've missed directed your audience and we're also going to talk about this a bit later on. But you misdirected to seem as though that's the ending. And you can even use the physical comedy to relax. And that seems as though it's the ending. Then you go back to the beginning, right? You frame it as you do a call back to the beginning or tell how to see the fake ending. And then suddenly you trigger these stories that we've talked about. And then you, you activating the repetition or an inside joke why you're creating this connection with your audience as though they've known you forever and you even have an inside joke with them. And you triggered in so much stuff and it's just so funny. Okay, so the next structure I want to address is the triadic structure. Okay? So generally, these structures can serve as, as a joke, right? You can use a joke with a cyclical structure, triadic structure. But of course it could also be a broader for a piece or a set. Okay? So the triadic structure is also used very, very much and it's essentially you is used for the setup quite a bit. First setup plus punchline jokes in the setup. So the setup is this happens. This happens again. And when you're going to say the third time, there's some sort of twist that makes it just a hilarious, okay, so that's its triadic because it comes in three, but you can also have 3 plus 1, right? We, humans generally respond to these 32 threes, right, in the triadic structure. So you a3x for theatre and, and yeah, it works but three plus one also makes sense, right? If the same things happens three times and then it stopped fourth one that has the contrast. It can also work, right? We will also respond well to that, okay, So a very classic and obvious example of this type of joke is the three wishes structure or type of joke, right? This happens when there's a genie or a mermaid. And these kind of ideas when there's three wishes and 2, are to go as planned, but the third one either cancels the other ones or just is, is, is given in some sort of way, but not the way that was expected, right? With a play on words or whatever. But again, this is a very classic example. One would be the joke where there's three men are stranded on a desert island and a glass bottle comes along. They opened it up and the genie comes out and he says, I keep going to give them three wishes, one for each person. So first one wishes to go to the, to Paris. And instantly he appears in the Eiffel Tower. The second one, which is he were in Hollywood, in Hollywood. And he instantly appears in a movie set. And the third one is like, oh, I wish my friends were back. Right? And that's the punchline in it. It's not a great job, but it essentially is. It has a three, that triadic structure with the third part being the twist. The first two going along as plan and third, the third part being the twist. Okay, so the last structure is the Plot Twist. We've already talked about this in a cyclical structure. The example we used was a plotters, right? Essentially we all know what a plot twist this is. When, when, when there's an unexpected twist to the ending of the story. So again, we've talked about this with the cyclical structure that just want to address the fact that a plot twist doesn't have to follow that cyclical structure, right? The example we saw in the last video about physical comedy had a plot twist. And it was a, it was crafted in a very, very effective way, right? We were misdirected pretty much seamlessly. So are all of the story. And then at the end you have the plots without the man who was actually still alive, he actually survive. So that's not cyclical, that, that doesn't go back to the beginning, but it is a plot twist, right? So again, you can use these kind of structures without having to interpret them with the cyclical structure. Crucial element of this and a crucial element in communist. And I hinted at throughout these videos and these lessons is misdirecting the audience. Again, a great example is the video that we saw last lesson. So you have to use an example, stick to that. But I'm just going to address how crucial it is to throw out the set are throughout that piece. Miss direct the audience so that they can predict what's going to happen. Because again, we've repeated this many times throughout this course, but surprise is the most effective trigger of laughter. So you want to maximize the surprise as much as possible while maintaining the relatability. Okay, so we had to essentially misdirect our audience, make them think that joke is going to go some way and then hitting them with a surprise. And especially if you're trying to do a joke or a set that relies on this plot twist idea. Okay, We have to include hints or ideas and make our audience think about the joke is going to go in another direction and then hit them with the amazing trigger of latter, which is surprise. Okay, And finally, the last thing I want to talk about is that regardless of the fact that all of your company should be structured, it should be scripted, it should be thought out, right? I mean, none if you're telling a joke that you just came up with a, you don't have to go ahead and write it. You can experiment with it. But essentially when you're doing a professional set, it has to be scripted, it has to be structured. But, and this is more, this resonates more with stand-up comedy as opposed to scenes place, okay? But especially in standard, even though it's scripted, structured and all that, it has to feel as though there's an element of spontaneity, right? The audience has to know that there's a part of scripted, but they also have to feel as though if they had come another night, they wouldn't have gotten that specific Laughter which felt so spontaneous. I mean, many times there is improvisation in a standard piece, but it has to feel as though there's many elements. Many times when a joke just use as though it came out of the blue. Because it just gives the audiences this feeling, the sensation that they're seeing. First of all, that they're seeing someone so skewed, right? The Mac, you can just come up with jokes instantaneously. And then also it gives this element of uniqueness of the experience being holistic. They're like, Oh, he was very good. The, all the ideas were amazing. But not only that, he was so scared because he came up with jokes in the very moment, in the present. But also, it's so cool because I got to see jokes. No one else Good to see you. They went another day to what's this guy, right? So it just feels more, more authentic, more unique, funnier, right? And it makes you come across as more skilled. So why not do it? Okay, so I hope you enjoyed this lesson. Quick recap is the cyclical structure, the triadic structure, okay? The cyclical goes back to the beginning. The triadic has 12 and the third one is perhaps a fourth one, depending on the joke, is the contrasting element or the, or the twist, right? The pilot goes weird wrong, whatever, depending on the joke. Then the third structure, the plot is right where you miss direct the audience are, they don't expect something. And then it comes to the unexpected twist or the second phenomenon, right? The job or the second punchline of the joke ends at 1. And then there's another punchline that's a plot twist. And also tried to make it spontaneous right to the right to make your piece as, as much as you can. Because of course, if you're writing a movie, you, perhaps you don't want to seem spontaneous, you want it to seem professional. But if you're writing a stand-up set, tried to make, to make moments, to make it feel spontaneous, unique, and more real. So I hope you enjoyed this module and I'll see you in the next one and how to perform comedy.