what does it mean to be funny Well everybody's funny I mean there's no um there's no one way to be funny or one definition of funding I think that uh there's a difference between funny and comic uh is is one of the things that we talk about you know in my first book The Hidden tools of Comedy we talk about the fact that uh you know anytime anybody makes somebody laugh they're funny but um but comic is is kind of an art form and it's the way of it's the art of telling the truth and specifically i
t's about telling the truth about human beings so that when people are I think when people are funny if we're talking about in terms of uh of writers um uh directors actors I think what they're doing is they're they're seeing what what we see from a specific angle from a unique angle it's like somebody once said that fish don't see the water because it's all around them and so comic fish are they're going around into saying hey you know it's all wet around here uh have you noticed that uh you kn
ow you notice the thing about water so that's you know if there was a stand-up fish so I think I think a comedian is somebody who uh is slightly off-center to where the majority are but what he says isn't off-center it's dead center it it totally makes sense in retrospect so when a comedian makes a joke uh at fir you know at first the audience he takes the audience where they don't know they're going to go but when they get there they go oh of course so it's it's both surprising and inevitable t
he punchline of a joke is surprising and inevitable so so if you ask me uh what's funny or who's funny I think um I think we all have the capacity uh to enjoy humor to to make jokes I mean we we just had our Thanksgiving dinner right and uh and and we were around the table and people were making jokes and then away from the table people were ranking jokes about the people around the table so that so that we we all have the capacity to enjoy humor to create humor but some of us have the capacity
to see the world in in a unique way and then share that Vision in a way that is both surprising and yet inevitable what is the comedy perception test ah okay uh when I first started doing workshops um and trying to talk to people about the difference between funny and comic um what we what I did was I created what I called the comedy perception test and it was all variations on a man slipping on a banana because a man slipping on a banana is the is kind of the The Ground Zero of of of of a comic
joke um so it was just a man slipping on a banana and man slipping on banana after uh kicking a dog and man in Top Hat flipping a banana and if I can remember all the ones um man slipping on a banana after losing his job um blind man slipping on a banana Blind Man's dog slipping on a banana and finally man slipping on a banana and dying and I would these were the seven um seven word word pictures and then I would ask the people in the workshop choose which one you think is the funniest the leas
t funniest the most comic in the least comic and somebody would invariably ask me well what's the difference between funny and comedy and I would not answer them but I would just say listen it's whatever you think um maybe maybe they're all uh equally funny maybe they're all equally not funny just choose which one you think is the funniest the least funniest the most comic the least comic they could you the two of them could be the same and so then we start with well um how many people thought a
was the funniest how many people thought B was the funniest and after the end of that you know we totaled them up and uh and we'd say you're all right because funny is subjective if you think something's funny if you're laughing at something to you it's funny um but how useful is that in terms of creating narrative either as a director or as a writer or as an actor because if you're chasing funny by definition you're chasing a fraction a subset of the audience because some people thought that m
an slipping on a banana peel was the funniest some people thought that man slipping on a banana peeling dying was the funniest and and those people you know thought the other person was wrong so if you're creating a script and you're trying to make it funny by definition um you're excluding a portion of the audience because I mean here let me see if I if I can show you this oh great um here uh I I have a niece uh she's now a a teenager which is causing my brother and sister-in-law no amount of p
ain but when she was a little kid I would be able to shake my keys and make her laugh I can make Karen laugh too yeah look at the keys look at the keys and and so the question is my niece is laughing Karen's laughing so is this comedy I mean would you spend six months of your life developing this as a feature you're laughing so so there's the thought is that there's a difference between funny and comic and comic as I said before is the art of telling the truth about human beings the art of telli
ng the truth about human beings because basically what we're doing when we're writing comedy is where Illuminating exposing that which is both wonderful and ridiculous glorious and absurd about what it's like to to be here on this planet as us um and at this point somebody will say well isn't that true about drama and and my response to that is usually yeah drama's great drama is great nobody's saying the trauma isn't great but drama helps us dream about what we could be wood that I were as eloq
uent and as good looking and had as much hair as some of those people you know in those traumatic films and those action films so drama helps us dream about what we could be but comedy helps us live with Who We Are comedy helps us live with who we are and it's it's not incorrect to state that you can watch a dramatic film in which there's really not a lot of humor not a lot of intentional humor um but you can't watch a comedy without without moments of pain loss regret uh failure hurt so so for
me and I guess I guess because uh I teach comedy and comedy writing and I've spent my whole life doing that I've written two books about that um I'm prejudiced but to me comedy is the art form that really gets at what it's like to be human and and at the same times make you laugh so so it has that going forward too and speaking of one of your two books you have can we just see the the cover there because you have the banana peel which how did that become synonymous with comedy well I think um yo
u know I I actually am not sure these as somebody probably out there uh in in the world of the internet uh probably will tell me that uh give me the exact uh time and date that somebody slipped on a banana peel but I think it really was um this in the silent films when um when you had a car you you had no sound so it was all physical comedy so you had somebody slipping on something um and that was that was an easy joke uh and so uh when we were trying to figure out what would be a good cover for
this um there were all sorts of suggestions and somebody said a a gorilla playing playing baseball and I thought um I'm not sure if I I'm not sure if a gorilla playing baseball is you're really really defines what I'm talking about so we we uh my brother who's actually uh was in advertising actually found this image for me and um and and and he sent it to me so uh so I I have my my brother Michael to thank for the cover um thank you which was yeah because it's this beautiful lovely banana ready
to be stepped on right and for someone to fall and for somebody to fall and and the thing is is that some people think that uh there's the superiority theory of comedy in which the theory is is that we like to look down at people and we laugh at their Misfortune um Mel Brooks once said that uh uh tragedy is if I uh get a paper cut uh comedy is if you fall down a sewer and die and that's that's a funny that's a funny joke but I I I think that that's really not how it works I think if you don't l
ike somebody or you really look down on them um it's probably a a television show or a movie that you that you you know if you're streaming and you turn off because you're not engaged my my take on it is that you're identifying with them that you you know they're suffering the the ignominy I think I hope I'm pronouncing correctly that's a new one um uh that that we that we hope we can avoid that we hope that no one will find out about right uh the time that we uh big gave a big speech in our fly
was open um so when the comic does that when the comic actor does that uh you know we're we're not ho ho ho that idiot um we're we're kind of going oh my God there I was but you know and uh or or you know thank God I wasn't there and I think that you're identifying with characters which is why when uh producers or Executives tell a writer to make a character likeable they're they're actually uh making an error because it's not about making a character likeable it's making them identifiable maki
ng you empathetic to that character even if that character is a jerk like Ricky Gervais in the office or like uh John Cleese in Faulty Towers uh Danny DeVito and taxi we we don't you know those characters are not likable but we kind of understand them maybe we've worked for somebody like them maybe your dad was somebody like them and the the power of Comedy is that it's it's life-affirming because ultimately the comic is basically saying you're okay it's okay so you slipped on a banana peel so a
pie hit you in the face so you you were humiliated so you were uh you failed at that and you you screwed that up we're still you'll live you're still alive you'll be okay and if and if you're not living then you'd have nothing else to worry about so so the comedies ultimately uh the art of hope because it even though our characters slip on a banana peel um there's always the hope that they'll get up and and something better will happen and if you look at almost any comic film that's what happen
s our characters start off as flawed uh individuals who are who are usually blind to their own flaws and over the course of two hours they they they go through a transformation not that everything's going to be better not that they're going to change not that they're going to be Superman or super women but there's the hope at the end of it that the world is going to be better what's the difference between being funny and writing something that's funny what's the difference between being funny an
d writing something that's funny uh well being funny is uh you're sitting around a table and you you make a comment and in in the context of what's happening around the table a bunch of people laugh but writing funny is about creating a truth for a character who is saying something inexpertly in a way that the character is not realizing he or she is being funny but the result is is a is a comic moment that the audience can appreciate um and and again it comes from sharing your own life and then
being truthful in in imaginary circumstances but being truthful in a way that lets us see the flaws when you know being truthful in imaginary circumstances is something that that actors have heard from you know Stan slavsky and Meisner traumatic actors but if you think about what drama does uh it's like it's like you know when people have past lives they're never janitors they're always Queens for sure or Emperors or they were viziers they're never the garbage collector they're they're they're n
ever a guy who worked who worked as you know as a as a chef in a diner in a past life and so when when when a dramatic actor is being truthful in imaginary circumstances their being great they're being serious they're they're accruing all types of positive virtues to themselves the comic actor tells the truth comic actor allows themselves to be less than stupid because you know the point is is that we are we are if we you know if we just tell the truth about ourselves we're not perfect we make m
istakes we screw up all the time there's um there's a wonderful moment in uh Judd apatos this is 40. where there's a they're having a party and they're these cupcakes and the wife just throws the cupcakes away because yeah we don't need all these cupcakes and then the next scene you see Judd Apatow eating the cupcake from the garbage and I laughed how can you be funny how can you write funny I laugh because yeah I've done that go and tell my wife uh but not a disgusting garbage with a lot of dis
gusting things but you know just kind of on top so it was still it was still the three second rule but but that's that's how he creates comedy he just takes from his life from the from the lives of uh of of people that he knows people around him and he tries to tell the truth based on character based on character so you're not um you're not trying to come up with the funniest thing you can think of uh you're trying to come up with what would this character say In This Moment there's uh there's a
great uh this is this is old this is if you if you remember radio um there's this great scene from Jack Benny radio Series in which uh a robber comes up to him and the robber says your money or your life and the the comedy writers who are writing this the episode were stuck what could we say what's his answer so they're thinking about it and one of them's on the couch and the other one's pacing assistant would you have anything it says I'm thinking and they went that's it and they gave that's t
he line that Jack Penny says so his somebody says your money or your life and there's this big pause and Jack Benny and his inimitable way goes I'm thinking and this is the longest recorded laughter in the history of radio comedy uh because that's what somebody would say when they're stuck and they don't know what to say there's um there's an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond um in which Robert the big hulking Brother played by Brad Garrett brings home what he thinks is the one uh and that's th
e title of the episode she's the one and so everybody's talking and and you know not paying attention and uh Raymond's gonna bring some desserts out to the table and he sees the girl who's the one catch a fly trap the fly look around make sure nobody's looking she doesn't realize Raymond's seeing her she picks it up she pops the fly in the mouth and Raymond is frozen and he stays Frozen a Ray Romano stays Frozen for about four and a half minutes and there's all action around him and his parents
come in there's all this stuff and finally Robert says so what do you think and he just turns her and says she's not the one which is how could you write a better line than that but because you're not trying to be funny you're trying to think what would this character say In This Moment uh given that the character is not the greatest Raider in the world and and given who he is and knowing who he is so so the way to write funny is to tell your own truth to tell the truth about yourself and to tel
l the truth about uh the characters who you know and tell the truth about what you know and who you know and as truthfully as possible one one more example from the early age of Television I'm sorry I'm old okay I'll I'll talk about Tick Tock in a second um Norman Lear adapted this British series uh uh till death us do part and he's adapting it for an American audience and so he's got this character Archie Bunker now who's Archie Bunker in the in the British series he's this old codger who's kin
d of bigoted so how did Norman Lear write him funny he just thought of his father his father used to say uh you know stifled thing bad he had Archie say that his father once said to him you're the laziest white man and you know whatever he had Archie say that how did Ray how did Phil Rosenthal who's the showrunner on um Everybody Loves Raymond how did he write the mother Marie well that's his mother so he doesn't have to invent anything he just has to recollect it the first book really tried to
talk about what are the discrete tools that aren't taught in universities or conservatories that can help you take a scene that isn't working and make it work um and and we have a number of tools like uh uh positive action and in metaphorical relationship um and straight line wavy line uh those tools in the first book are designed to help a writer or director say okay this scene is kind of flat the scene isn't working um and what are the techniques that we can use to to make it better or what ar
e the techniques that we can use to analyze why it's not working so the whole the whole first book was really designed to talk about what comedy is how it works why it works what's happening when it's not working and how can you fix it and then I was so I was doing these workshops this is this is before the pandemic uh do you remember before the pandemic uh you know there was this pandemic and everybody had to stay home and not go anywhere so before the pandemic I would go out I would go around
the world uh no one was more surprised than me than I'd always been being invited around the world I would go around the world and I would do these workshops and inevitably somebody would say okay but in this script how about this and I would try to give them an answer and I was doing script consultations but it made me think well how does how does what I'm talking about how does that translate to a whole narrative and so that's where the second book came out of the comic heroes Journey uh my fr
iend Chris bobler had written the The Writer's Journey which is based on the works of Joseph Joseph Campbell and so I ripped him off and I I told him I'm ripping off your title no one can come up with a better title than that but you thanked him in the forward right I did that uh so that's how we do it in Hollywood uh yeah I mean uh I didn't give him any money but I did thank him in the forward uh so the comic hero's journey uh was really taking a look at so what's different in a comedy in a com
ic narrative uh that is that um follows the hero's journey it's at points but then importantly deviates it and how does it do how does it deviate it and where does it deviate it and what are those changes and what are those important points that that might not be covered in in an otherwise you know Wonderful book um by John truby or Robert McKee or or Chris Vogler uh when they're specifically talking about comedy would you say humor is sophisticated and comedy is juvenile I I wouldn't is humor s
ophisticated in comedy juvenile um I I I'm not sure that I would use I would I would put those in those boxes I think when we talk about humor we're basically talking about written prose um Robert bengsley um uh who you know Sandra Singh low who else is you know writing comic pieces um so in in that way because it's it's it's verbal uh it's lit it's literally literary you it's the writing um I'm not sure I would say sophisticated uh but it's it it's it follows different rules and it follows diff
erent dictates I think comedy comedy is designed to be spoken and performed by human beings and I think that's that's the big that's the big difference is that comedy is is actor-centric um in uh in drama the dramatic uh writer is trying to make a point um and uh he's he's got a theme that he's trying to develop uh and and even though there are characters in the drama the important thing is that uh his uh his speeches uh reflect uh the The Writer's point of view um and it's it's a a literary uh
Centric it's it's writer-centric um but comedy as as first performed 3500 Years Ago by the Greeks is an actor-centric art it's made to be performed by by people who [Music] acknowledge that there's in an imaginary event happening but also acknowledge that they're being being seen performing an imaginary event back in the Greek Theater Greek Theater Greek drama and Greek comedy Greek tragedy and Greek comedy were structured exactly the same um they both had the power dose the engines of the 50-ma
n chorus they both had the episodes where scenes were interspersed with Carl Odes they all had the Exodus but comedy Greek comedy had something called the anabasis in which the 50-man chorus came forward and talked directly to the audience they broke the fourth wall they said hey hey you that's a pretty dress you're well whatever you know and and then they would go back as though it never happened and continue on to the audience there's there's lots of Greek and Roman dramas in which the charact
ers in the drama acknowledge the audience acknowledge that somebody's watching them do this so it's very actor-centric whereas Hamlet might have a soliloquy right to be or not to be but he's not saying so what do you think you think I should be or you think I should not be because if he did that it would be a comedy the act of breaking the fourth wall the act of owning what you're doing owning the imaginary uh uh events is is a uh Hallmark of comic performance I mean there's a reason why so why
one person can get up and tell jokes for two hours and that's completely accepted stand-up comedy how many instances where somebody gets up and just tells us their life in a dramatic way for two hours I mean there are some solo plays but not as not as ubiquitous that's group therapy as as yeah as uh yeah I've seen those I've seen those off-broad replays oh what was me starting my uncle touched me yeah um so so it's so so humor is written it's literary but comedy is meant to be performed it's not
it's really not meant to be read I mean you could read it you have to read it you've written it somebody reads it and says I want to produce it because I think this should be uh a um a play or it should be a movie it should be a TV series or even if they don't they'll say this is really funny you should work on our movie or our TV series or or you should help work in this theater because you you know this this thing that you wrote which is meant to be performed spoken lived through lived throug
h Comic characters comic actors um it's uh it's a actor-centric art and so in that way it can be both glorious but also it can be also ridiculous it can be um what was the what was the term you used oh um you you called uh humor sophisticated and oh versus juvenile yeah and and it could be juvenile or it could be revealing I mean there's there's a wonderful moment um in uh in Faulty Towers when you know John Police playing battle he's the world's worst hotel guy you know hotelier uh and he's eve
rything's going wrong for him and he just kind of looks off to the side and says what was that that was your life that was your life mate do I get another no I mean it's just this moment of introspection that we don't expect from our juvenile Comic characters and yet it's totally in place in a comedy whereas you can watch you know um I can watch a a drama and and enjoy it totally thoroughly but never have never have a comedic moment whereas I can't think of a good contemporary comedy that doesn'
t have moments of uh moments of tragedy moments of loss how does surprise factor into comedy hey okay that's good um because because the you're playing with people's expectations so you can either surprise them or you can fulfill their expectations both work both work you know a joke is based upon the surprise ending you know the the punch line um uh waiter waiter there's a fly in My Soup uh what is the uh what is the flight doing uh what is that fly doing in my soup I think it's the backstroke
you know you're not expecting I think it's the backstroke because what is the conventional thing the guy should say the the guy should say um well I'm sorry about that we'll give you a new soup we certainly won't charge you so when the guy says he literally looks at the fly and he goes well I think that's the backstroke that's a surprise surprising yet inevitable but also there's the sense that if you don't have any idea what's going to happen that doesn't work for comedy either you have to have
some idea of what's going on the audience has to have some idea of what's going on to be able to enjoy the predicament the characters are in we'll go back to that the story about uh Everybody Loves Raymond and he sees his brother's girlfriend who the brother thinks is the one eating a fly so if we don't see her eat the fly and then he's just stuck you know he's Frozen for four minutes and he turns and says she's not the one how is that funny so it's not just surprise it's also expectation and y
ou're playing with the audience expectation your uh you're having them think one thing's gonna happen then you then you do this the other thing or you you're you you pull them into the dilemma of the character and you wonder what's going to happen and you're delighted as you see the character try and fail to solve the problem or or like in the 40 year old virgin when Steve Carell uh it's discovered at his job that he's a Virgin uh we we know that his co-workers are going to definitely not let it
go it's going to become something actually that's a surprise because he he they find out at a poker game he goes home he stays up all night he worries he says uh then he tries to talk himself into it's going to be fine he goes to work and at first this guy in igories it oh maybe I'm cool and then this guy just says hi and he goes maybe maybe I've dodged a bullet and then he sees Romney Malco standing in front of a bank of televisions showing a porn going we're gonna get you laid this weekend an
d then he realizes oh my God so so it's one two three you know it's okay it's okay it's not okay so that's um that's part of of the expectation we we're all waiting for it I guess oh I guess it's not going to happen oh then it does happen what makes someone laugh that's a physiological response um some people some people think some scientists think that what happens is is your your brain is full of neurons and the neurons have created neural pathways and so the neural Pathways that they've creat
ed help you go from if I ask you uh what's what's your street address you tell me because that's a neural pathway so when when you uh or when somebody says I dropped something the neural pathway says uh either I'll I'll pick it up or not my problem you you pick it up that's you know that's a neural pathway when when you hear a joke the joke is is kind of fooling the neural pathway that it's going to go down the same pathway and then it it it kind of creates a different neural pathway which becau
se the brain is based on electricity um and I'm as you can tell I'm not a scientist um but uh what happens is is there's there's kind of uh almost an explosion that happens in the brain because it it has to you know oh my all of a sudden change gears change directions it's it's literally creating a new neural pathway in the brain and that creates uh kind of a a physiological response uh where where your air is being brought up and and and it it comes out and comes out in laughter uh we see this
in babies we see this in chimpanzees this response where something is surprising but not dangerous um uh and uh and so and so laughter can can create can be created uh but it's based upon the fact that somebody has said something that is surprising yet in retrospect inevitable if it's surprising but makes no sense you just kind of go huh if it's not surprising then you're just gonna go okay so it needs so if you're creating a moment that's both surprising yet in retrospect inevitable um uh that
creates that can create laughter uh and then go ask a neuroscientist that's the next Ted Talk yeah that's the next step how important is it to make yourself laugh well if you have to make yourself laugh uh I think you you know take two aspirin and see a doctor in the morning I think I think it's important that you um that you seek out things that will lift your spirit um for many people it's it's something funny it's something it's laughter but you know some people like like yoga um you know lik
e like meditation but but I think that uh it's I think it's important to see the world from a different perspective and that's that's partly what comedy does it it helps you see your life uh from a slightly different perspective if you're if you're watching Die Hard that's a lot of fun it's exciting you can live vicariously through somebody who who's Daring Do you could probably never duplicate uh but how close is that to your own life but if you're if you're um watching party down about a group
of uh uh servers in a catering company well maybe uh maybe you don't work in a catering company but you work somewhere is similar or the office or Parks and Rec something there that is similar to you and and and has you see your own life again because it's about identifying it has you see your own life from a slightly different perspective unless it's too close to your own life and then you're crying because that's true that's your reality that's true maybe when it's too close well if you're if
you're already if you're already a server don't watch party down then watch hacks okay I mean you know because sometimes when you when you're you're talking about the fish that's in the world of the water you know in the water they don't know that they're in this world the imaginary world and so sometimes when a world is uh like when I saw this as 40 to me it was hilarious it was sort of this La couple living this sort of Bourgeois life and it's not exactly my life but I'm able to laugh at it b
ecause it's not so close to mine but if it was more my life I think it would be a little more uh probably less laughter but uh well I'm not sure I mean so which which which fictional Counterpoint is closest to you The Honeymooners um oh you know Roseanne or the Connors um maybe not that one but and I did love that show by the way I love that one so maybe that's why um but uh uh yeah I think maybe you have to have it a little more removed if it's too close to your own because I was wondering if y
ou're able to laugh at yourself are you that's a very that's a very uh rare Talent how many people do you know can laugh at themselves well maybe past selves not current maybe past cells because anything current might be too right and that's that's one of the things that comedy helps us it helps it has us laugh at ourselves in you know at one one step removed so when we're laughing at um uh uh Gene Arthur and and Hannah Ein binder um not Gene Arthur Gene Smart and Hannah Ein binder in in hacks u
m yeah I'm I'm not a stand-up comic but I'm I I I've been in that world I know that world uh and uh and if I'm laughing there I'm also healing myself because some of the things that they've gone through I've gone through and maybe I haven't laughed about it but this this helps me see that through that perspective so so in that way a comedy is um is just as good as therapy and and less expensive right and no one's taking notes well hopefully not well one of the things that's great about comedy es
pecially contemporary comedy um is that it it no longer avoids uh the the the fact that we all change when when the radio sitcoms trans translated or or trans um transformed into television sitcoms the formula was a a central character who had a good sense of humor um would solve a solvable problem in 22 minutes by interacting with a small group of characters and and everything stayed the same so that any one episode of of a sitcom is viewable because any other episode of the sitcom uh was basic
ally the same Dynamics and that was okay but what's changed because of cable because of streaming just because of people's tastes um is that what you see now is that character since it comes all change it's all about transformation so it used to be that only a character in in a in a long-form narrative in a film would change you know Bill Murray in Groundhog Day from the beginning to the end Scrooge which is not really funny although it has some funny moments um uh and and all and all the comic
uh takeoffs on the Christmas Carol and Scrooge um I think there's one with Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell out now um you know they come and they it starts in one place and then they change but now um uh with uh hacks with Ted lasso somewhere someplace I think that's the name of it it's uh this uh thing that takes place in Oklahoma reservation dogs uh they they're it's all about change it's all about what happens as we're changing what happens to make us change what happens is we uh as we resist
change in in a way that isn't just This Is Us which by the way for those of you who like this is us that's okay I hated it if a writer is having a script reading what cues will they pick up on to know that the script is no longer funny the crickets the silence um I I think it's important that if you're having a script reading you record the entire event because at a certain point um you won't be able to listen or observe objectively anymore and so record the entire event because it'll surprise y
ou the things that you thought didn't go well you'll hear uh you might hear more response than you thought there was because you know maybe you were fixated on this didn't go well or that didn't go well or conversely uh if you thought everything was swimmingly and then you hear it back and you hear the here's what happens with friends who come to your readings yeah first minute one through minute seven lots of laughter but after seven minutes you know you've if it's not happening if if there's n
othing alive happening uh the laughter Peters out and then there's always these one or two people who are just they just love you and so you'll uh actor will say a line and it'll be it'll be a solo just just just standing out and you know that's just that's just pity laughter or that's just supportive laughter but but you'll the cues are are people engaged or are people not engaged if they're engaged something that's something that you wrote is working if they're not engaged something you wrote
is not working and it's not the audience's fault it's not the people it's not the people listening to the readings fall um you know it might be something that you can easily fix or or maybe maybe there's an outside reason that has nothing to do with the script but most writers who look for that outside reason are avoiding their own responsibility for creating a dramatic event a comedic dramatic event that is engaging so here's the most important thing rather than uh looking for the you know the
clues or the hints of what's going well what's not going well after the reading you want to ask your audience to tell you four things and and and just what parts what parts were you engaged in what parts were you not engaged in what characters did you want to see more of what characters did you not want to see more of where were you confused and that's all that's all you need to know don't ask for any don't ask for any suggestions don't don't ask well what do you think when she when she said thi
s in act in in the second part no no you don't want suggestions Neil Gaiman is a writer who once said that 95 of the criticisms you receive are correct but 95 percent of the solutions you're offered are incorrect meaning if somebody doesn't like something that's real a human being didn't respond to what it was that is absolutely useful information but why they didn't like it what you should do about it that you should throw out because it's really about taking the your your own EKG of the script
you don't want that EKG machine to say well you know you should eat more fiber no you just you know something something's not going right and I gotta figure it out myself and it seems like if you invite people that you know whether they're actors in their in the industry or not they're going to have a similar sense of humor and so then no okay do you have friends that have an opposite sense of humor I you know again senses of humor are are variable they're they're uh everybody has a different s
ense of humor so uh I think somebody once said that that they never heard Lauren Michaels laugh in an audition you know and that's a scary thing you're there and the guy who you want to hire you never responds and so that can make you go crazy but everybody has their own sense of humor their own uh their own specific sense of criteria that makes them laugh or not laugh but you people are either engaged or not engaged I mean you know are they shifting around in their seats are they um are they le
aning forward meaning what's gonna wonder what's gonna happen next um so so when when you're when you're doing a reading the important thing is to uh don't spend a lot of don't spend a lot of your time trying to rehearse the readers you're just doing more damage um you don't have enough time to do it well and you have enough time to screw things up so just give them the script uh make sure that the stage directions if any that are read out loud are clearly delineated so people don't trip over th
emselves and make sure that you have an equal number of listeners to the people who are reading so that you get some sort of a sense how things are going and serve wine and cheese and wine yeah and and and more wine so that so that people are in a receptive mood what makes a great comic premise a great comic premise in a way uh I I don't want to say it has to be this because in reality uh if you have an idea and you write it out and it works that that premise was great for you it's so it's not s
omething that's objective it's something that's subjective it's something that that creates a desire in you to tell the entire story I mean haven't you ever seen a blurb for a movie and you said I wish I had thought of that that's what you're looking for you're looking for something to stir your own imagination so that the the story is is kind of exploding in your own imagination before you even can get to the the the typewriter or the uh the computer uh so uh so for me uh it's very subjective I
think what what some things that are common to Great comic objectives is the the the big lie that there's some impossible or improbable thing that could never happen or could probably never happen but since it does happen it affects this main character and these other um supporting characters and you wonder well what will happen then so so when you create a comic premise um the the the better the premise is the better it is a tool to excite your own imagination to to make you go oh my God I I g
otta write this down because it's it's it's already occurring to you in your in your in your own imagination your in your own head um there are a couple of things that you want to think about as you develop it you want to tell one line one lie only so so in other words um let's say your uh comic premises that there's this uh there's this anthropomorphic duck right or chicken there's this anthropomorphic chicken this little chicken and the chicken thinks that the sky is falling and he made a big
deal about it and it turned out the sky wasn't falling and so he's embarrassed his father and he's embarrassed himself and he's humiliated himself at a time of life in which chickens don't want to humiliate themselves middle school now that's the premise of Chicken Little the Disney movie in the middle of Chicken Little there's an alien invasion okay [Music] I would say that maybe you don't need the Alien Invasion that maybe you need if you didn't think your story of in a humiliated chicken tryi
ng to you know dig out from under the humiliation in middle school was enough of a story that you wanted to come up with a different premise you wanted to create something differently um so that it would Propel you to the end of the story if you're throwing in an alien invasion you're telling me you're all right away well this idea wasn't good enough it wasn't strong enough to to sustain um the Pixar movie Inside Out Pixar movie Inside Out had a great premise the premise is is that all these dif
ferent aspects of our personality they all have they're all live in our brains and uh what happens is is that two of them somehow get shunted off to uh to another another region and the little girl whose brain it is starts going amok and they gotta get back wow that's a that's a great premise now could that ever happen I don't know are there little people in our brains telling us what to do it's an interesting idea so what would happen then now the premise is only the start because you have to y
ou have to people you have to develop the premise through character and theme because ultimately even though it's a movie about a guy who wakes up it's the same day every day or a guy or a guy who kid who wishes he was big and he wakes up and he's a 30 year old man or a bunch of uh uh personalized entities in some little girl's brain what is it about and when when somebody asks you what it's about they're not asking you what's the premise they're asking you what's the meaning why am I spending t
wo hours watching this and who are the characters that are happening to because you have to develop the premise for through character as opposed to well now I'm going to make the characters do this now I'm going to make the characters do do that what would the characters do given this premise Guided by the theme so Inside Out is is a great story because I think for two years and again somebody in the internet will correct me on that uh I think for two years they the if you know inside out um Amy
Poehler played Joy and uh I forget the name of the actress I think something Smith Lois Smith maybe played sadness and as you know low joy and sadness go on a trip but for the first two years it was joy and fear Amy Poehler and Bill Hader and the movie didn't work the movie didn't work because no matter what they did they had funny stuff happen but it just was not that not coalescing because when they went back and I think they had child psychologists and nerds neuro neuroscientists come to tal
k to them they realized that the opposite of Joy isn't fear the opposite of joy is sadness and you can't have joy without sadness which is the theme that you have to be to be a fully actualized person you need all parts of yourself you can't just dismiss one part and it didn't work with fear so when they finally got the idea we have to we've got the wrong characters on this journey than the movie then the movie kind of found its way and and and and took off so a comic premise is some impossible
you know in in in the comic heroes journey book I call it WTF what the [ __ ] something something happens that that is either impossible a guy wakes up the same day over and over again that's impossible or improbable um a a woman decides to go to uh her Best Friend's Wedding in order to uh destroy it you know mostly you're you're you know if you if somebody's got if some guy's getting married and you think well I should have married him maybe just stay home and drink that weekend um so impossibl
e or improbable and then who are the characters that are called on characters are called on either through need or theme you need a character in Groundhog Day you need a cameraman because how is he going to do a remote if nobody's holding the camera but then you also have characters brought on through theme ultimately Groundhog Day is about how can you be a good person in the world and so you needed the world and so they they said it uh because Groundhog Day happens in a small town that small to
wn becomes the world and those are the old other than the station manager in the very beginning of the picture that we never see again the only other characters are his producer the the love interest you know the magical object desire uh and everybody else in the town uh because you know who's not in Groundhog Day the president of the United States because it has nothing to do with politics his mother because it doesn't really have anything to do with family or Stephanie if you Google Groundhog
Day what will come up in the in the uh in Google very very top of the list is the second draft done by Harold Ramis and Danny Rubin and in that second draft there's this character called Stephanie which is which was a response to a executive uh note saying how does this happen I don't believe I I don't know how it happens you got to put the audience will be confused the audience will be confused you have to put something in there that explains to them how it happens so Harold Ramis put in agains
t his better judgment he put in um the character of Stephanie who's into Ouija boards and crystals and and she was dumped by Bill Murray's character and so she puts a curse on him so think about it groundhog if you know Groundhog Day if you don't know Groundhog Day go watch it it's really a wonderful film even though it's many many years old um character Stephanie well if she puts a curse on him then don't you have to go back and get her to take the curse off and and then doesn't that diminish t
he theme to be as opposed to how can you be a good person in the world to be how could you be a good boyfriend kind of diminishes it so when the people who ran the studio were all fired and a new executive came in uh the guy said why do you need this character Stephanie for a recorded instance of a good executive note and so they took it out because they never wanted in the first place could Groundhog Day works if Rita had been the Arrogant selfish one and the Bill Murray character Phil was it y
eah had been this kind sort of gentle man could have still been funny what if we switched what if we took the the two characters and switched their roles well but who's who's waking up the same day over and over again that's a good point okay what do you see if it if it's if it's still him then why are we torturing this nice guy okay what if it was Rita well then that would that would work if she was somebody who needed to go on the journey you don't want to pull Wings off of flies you don't wan
t to torture characters who don't need transformation don't need torturing characters who go through trauma need to go through the trauma thank God for the trauma because the trauma helps them transform so if they don't need the trauma then you're just you're just torturing somebody for really no good not a great reason what is the lie that tells the truth the line that tells the truth is the comic premise it's uh you're you're constructing a lie in order to get to the truth of something uh how
can you be a good person in the world well you know maybe you wake up and you um you you do good things and maybe you work for a non-profit and you if you see somebody homeless maybe you give them a dollar but not very amusing so you create a lie to get to that truth and so you start off with somebody who uh is not a good person in the world um as in Groundhog Day and he go and you then you there's this LIE there's this impossible thing that happens or improbable thing that sends him on a journe
y in which the the question that you're that you're pondering is explored because it ultimately For Me theme is best expressed as a question um as opposed to love you know uh theme of Romeo and Juliet love conquers all maybe but don't they both die at the end I mean so so that seems the theme is a postcard it's not as useful to you as theme is a question because in Romeo and Juliet maybe Shakespeare is exploring what's the nature of love because you've seen Romeo and Juliet all sorts of differen
t sorts of love there's the love of Romeo for his Bros Benvolio and Mercutio there's a love of Juliet for the nurse there's the malicious um you know kind of uh grasping you know love if you can call it Love of tibult the evil the evil cousin uh for for Juliet because he wants to control her and not have her see Romeo so there's also different sorts of love so you're exploring a question that you're taking the time to explore in your writing as opposed to you know the answer and now you're just
you know kind of connecting dots because maybe you don't know the answer how's how's that maybe maybe it's just something you're thinking about and you're not sure and so by you by using this narrative you're exploring it yourself otherwise it's it's you know four months to six months of hard work and you already knew where you're gonna go um a lot of uh script uh books tell you you should always know where you're ending up but even that's not always true and not every great writer writes that w
ay if you're going to write a mystery again I think you should know who killed who killed the guy or the girl at the beginning um but I think it's important to observe the passing moments in comedy because that's where the comedy comes from not from I need to get from here to here but what's happening here and look around and wow that's weird and if you if you're just writing from here to there you're gonna miss the weird thing that your character with their eyes notices and with their mouth say
s something about it or does something about it so I think that's more useful so the lie that tells the truth is your basic comic premise that is the gateway to exploring the truth of whatever you're whatever you're talking about whatever your theme might be so to go back to the the initial idea for the film The person works at a non-profit uh they're they're kind to the homeless and it we could spice it up if there was an actual purpose to that Journey maybe okay here's a person um they say the
y're they're um uh they work in a non-profit they're kind to the homeless they they they they drive they they drive a you know a Prius they they only eat gluten-free and let's say they win the lotto and they win for you know what was what was that that prize that was there a couple of months ago um I think it was like a billion two billion dollars and they win two billion dollars will it change them how will it change them what will happen what will happen to their preconceptions to their Notion
s now if nothing happens I would say well you have the wrong character because you want a character who's going to go through a transformation so so uh that's you know that's why it's not just come up with a funny idea and then run with it well who's the character that's going to go through that WT at that what the [ __ ] moment uh and and how do they how do they need to go through that what the [ __ ] moment and and what are you saying about them and what are you saying about the nature of what
ever it is you're writing about the nature of so what I'm curious that'd be an interesting Arc so maybe they get all this money and it changes their perceptions maybe they thought wealthy people were evil and then they come to find out oh they're not so bad after all and then they become the very person they despise maybe you see that that's that's the joy of of writing and developing an idea is that you is that when I do these workshops um uh I used to do them in you know live uh in Tel Aviv in
Mumbai now I'm doing them on zoom and I don't think I don't think people ever want to get off Zoom I think they want to get off Zoom but I think it's like why do I have to fly to Los Angeles to take this Workshop I can just turn on my computer so anyway um I I would say there'd be let's say 25 people in the room if you came up with that idea woman Works in non-profit wins the wins two billion dollars in the lotto there could be 25 different ways of developing that idea each of them valid there'
s no one way to develop a premise it's the premise is just a tool it's another tool to to help you uh help you excite the imagination to develop the story in your head but in some sense that Arc will come out the other side though yeah it should it doesn't doesn't need to I mean uh if if the let's say there's a guy and at the end of the movie She's together with the guy so that's a mainstream movie or let's say at the end of the movie The her and the guy go different ways so it's an indie movie
right so so it could be either it could be either way sure that's true and she's in therapy for the rest of her life and maybe uh you know so so nothing is predetermined nothing is predetermined other than you know if you need 400 you know 400 million dollars to make it well then that's you're going to have to make compromises in order to get 400 million dollars but if you can make it for forty thousand dollars you can just do anything you want the I think the point is is that whatever the idea
is whatever the LIE is you're using it in in the Enterprise of finding out the truth about something for yourself first before an audience because if you think you know what the answers are why are you wasting time writing a movie you know why don't you just go out and change the world I I think I think most people wonder what the answers are at least most Comics wonder what the answers are and use narrative as a way of trying to figure that out how do you know if your comedy idea is too far-fet
ched I think it's only far-fetched if if you can't if somebody can't relate to it um what's the movie everything all at once oh yes everything everywhere all at once everything everywhere all at once what could be more confusing than everything everywhere all at once except for the fact that it was my relationship they're talking about and I'm going oh my God I understand exactly what they're talking about because it it Not only was great sci-fi and mind-bending and and full of all sorts of you
know you know multi-dimensions but it was also about you know honey look at that you know the guy with the waistband and waist pouch that's me you know um uh so so far-fetched is only only means that somebody isn't able to relate to it and you only need one person to relate to it uh how many you know how many rejections did uh did they get did she get for Harry Potter um you know all you need is is one person on the other hand work on something else at the same time because because the one thing
you don't want to do is to flog the same horse um that that the time that you're spending trying to convince the world that this is a great script you could use some of that time to write your next script because because every successful writer will tell you that first script helped me write the the seventh script that sold as opposed to you've got to buy this first script I mean that's where a lot of beginning writers end up with they they White Knuckle that one script and they won't let go of
it and they don't progress because listen maybe it's not good maybe it's too far-fetched to sell but maybe it's a good writing sample what's your next idea so I'm thinking of the idea of Normie you know I've been watching Wednesday Adams and so they talk about these normies and for anybody who ever I haven't watched it yet but okay okay but but yeah I I have a vague idea what you're talking about sure and so what if some people aren't writing quote unquote Normie comedies which is for the mains
tream which is going to be seen in a Cineplex which is going to be seen uh more in a area where you know people's lives are pretty set there's not it's it's not like this crazy sort of eclectic group and that that'll be my term for Normie and and what they're writing is too too far-fetched too absurdist you say that there's something for everybody but that's weird because because what I've heard were that uh where that buyers were looking for something that was edgy that wasn't norming and again
you have you have some executive saying I want something edgy something that has no one has seen before but what they really are thinking but that I've seen before so that it's it's comfortable enough for me to sell it to my to my bosses so it's like chasing a joke you you know you all you can do is is have one eye in the market or maybe uh half an you know a half an hour maybe half your ear on the market and then write your story and if they don't like this one then write another one and be in
spired by the things that you like the the Monty Python used to talk about the fact that they were inspired by the Goon show which was this radio comedy on in in UK in Britain they didn't steal it but they were certainly inspired by it they were you know kind of the you know they were the children of the Goon show and uh SCTV was inspired by Monty Python so what inspires you go and if you're not inspired by anything go find something to inspire you and then what's your point what's your take on
that how do you want to advance that conversation so nothing is too far-fetched what what there is is something needs to be relatable so in other words uh some a writer once came up to my friend Michael Hague who's a script consultant and he wrote you know how to sell your stories in 60 seconds and if you can sell your story in 60 seconds that's a good that's a good skill um but a person came up to Michael and said I've got a script that that you know that no nothing there's nothing like this ev
er that than this script and Michael said well maybe there's a reason for that meaning that you know if something's so weird and unaccessible that maybe that's why people aren't aren't collaboring for it because they don't know how to access it they don't know how to connect to it or relate to it so if you're sharing something about your life even if it's through the prism of everything everywhere all at once then that's relatable it's you know it's it's a family it's it's a relationship that th
at literally is gone off the rails and and it's going to destroy the entire universe but our families are our universe so when our our families go off the rails that's what it feels like so it's a metaphor so so even though all the multi-dimension dimensional stuff is a lie the truth is you know our families are our universe and and we need to we need to protect them as well as protect the universe from the ultra you know bad Lord what is the normal World well in in the comic heroes Journey whic
h is which was my second book uh I I tried to Translate the hero's journey into uh narrative for a comic film and so uh the you know the hero's journey talks about the Ordinary World so I I in the normal world is kind of like that but what's important about the normal world in in a in a comic narrative is that your hero does not have greatness with them and you know and like in Star Wars Luke Skywalker has greatness within him it just has to you know be released in a comic narrative in your norm
al World your hero is as far from has is as far from having greatness within as is humanly possible your hero is a nurb nerd or or a dweeb or an [ __ ] or or a jerk he's he's he or she has some missing part to there's a hole in your character but they don't know it because if they knew it they do something about it but in in comedy after comedy you there you there's a character who is blind to their own flaws in the beginning of the movie and if the if the inciting incident if the WTF what the [
__ ] moment doesn't happen that's the way their life would go in 40 Year Old Virgin he's kind of given up he's accepted and and as a result he's accepted the fact that he's cannot he doesn't have a a mature adult relationship and as a result he's in this kind of stasis of paralyzed immaturity uh and so you see him at home and he's playing you know he's playing uh uh video games and he's you know has little figurines and you know and he's dancing to some you know Xbox thing and if the WTF doesn'
t happen that's that's his life now we in the audience can see oh that's that's not good but they can't see it Bill Murray Phil Connors doesn't see what a jerk he is and how that's not working for him uh in the in the beginning of Groundhog Day in Bridesmaids Kristen Wiig is clueless to the fact that she's wasting her time trying to sleep trying to get Jon Hamm to let her sleep over once you know because he she you know he you know she goes for a booty call and he has her leave and so just to cl
imb over the gate to get out and if and if the inciting incident never happens that's that's who Christian wig is going to be and bridesmaids she's just going to run after worthless guys who don't deserve a minute of her time so in the normal World your character a couple there are a couple of important things your character has flawed or absent relationships they either don't have a girlfriend or a wife or if they do it's not working somehow it's it it needs to be healed now in movies where the
y're eventually going to work it out you want to see that uh that the relationship has has hit a snag in in date night uh that's the movie with Steve Carell and Tina Fey they've gotten to the point where where if he if Steve Grell gets home a minute too late she's in her sweats and then no sex you know they're that's over and and he's always leaving the draws out and so they're at this point where they're annoyed and annoying and it's not quite fulfilling but they're not going to break up so so
the relationships are either flawed or absent um I usually you know encourage or suggest to writers don't give them a girlfriend in the beginning why do I want them to be alone and miserable no how about give them an opportunity to discover somebody to discover a relationship because the most important moments in a narrative are not necessarily the the big joke and the big gags the most important moments are moments of realization Discovery Primal moments and if you are if they already have a gi
rlfriend well then that's one moment you've taken away from them in in their Journey um uh so their Phil Connors is in Groundhog Day and he's not going to get involved with Rita because I have a girlfriend I'll be I'll be there with her eventually uh you know the the other important thing about the normal world is that whatever your theme is that's where you need to introduce the theme right away what are we talking about because you're not going to wait for the big impossible lie the big event
because it's it's about the movie is about from the from the beginning from the normal world what are we talking about you have to set everything up the theme as well as all the discoveries has to be set up within those first 10 15 pages um I forget the name of the guy who who directed The French director who directed the artist that you know the silent film he was quoted as saying I could have had a Tyrannosaurus Rex in my movie if I had introduced it before page 10. because whatever whatever y
ou need to have happen try to figure out a way to get it to get it into the normal world or or it's quick or as soon after as possible in Groundhog Day the first script the first draft had him start in the middle of Punxsutawney on day three panicked Harold Ramis told Danny Rubin I love that it gets us right into the action I'm never changing that's the first thing they changed because how can you pay off any of his progress or lack of progress if we don't see that whole day beat by beat so that
so that it's got this long First Act this long normal world before the inciting incident longer than normal uh or longer than usual um in the normal world all your all your act three problems are Act One problems in fact all your act two problems are Act One problems that that you have to set up payoffs you can't just pay off something you have to set it up one of the best examples of that is the beginning of Back to the Future in which in the very first pan of the movie we get even though we d
on't stop and explain what all these pictures mean and with all this devices we get that he's we're in the uh presence of a mad scientist who seemingly has some plutonium under the table and then he goes to you know to school and he meets his girlfriend and some person says fix the clock and they give him the piece of paper that he's going to use when he goes back to the past to realize that's when I have to so everything's set up in the in the first five minutes him him playing wanting to play
for his school band and being rejected and just giving up because that's what needs to change for Michael J fox in that movie he needs to not just give up this whole family is a family of losers they they have to do something about that um so so that's the normal world now in the normal world you have the initial goal the initial goal is what your character thinks they want and thinks that's what they're going to spend their time in the movie getting the the initial goal is usually selfish and o
r short-sighted because there's a discovered goal after we go through the second part which is the inciting incident the comic premise the WTF they're in an impossible or improbable situation and what happens to them is they begin to transform outside of their outside of their desires you know against their wishes they have to transform because the situation has transformed and they have to they have to do something about it as that happens as their transformation happens there's a discovered go
al the discovered goal is a process of the transform character realizing that what he or she wanted in the beginning is not what he or she wants now and that becomes the focus for the development of Act 2 and act three of the examples that you gave it sounds like the only one character who really needs to change for others is Phil the rest of them all needed to change for themselves whether it's a Annie in Bridesmaids whether it's well does any change she doesn't change well does she develop a l
ittle more self-esteem oh no no I'm sorry maybe I thought you meant the the character that Maya Rudolph plays okay maybe I'm thinking of the Christian wig character sorry okay so so she she needs to develop more self-esteem because she's she's sabotaging herself same thing in the 40 year old version is he's not really hurting anybody but he's in this juvenile state would you want him to stay there uh no but but with Phil he's really like offensive and rude and he's he's narcissistic and hurts pe
ople yeah but but he but here's the thing once in 40 year old virgin once his secret is out he's either got to quit he tries to run away he's either got to quit or do something about it because those guys are not going to let him go sure so he's so he's so he's in a bad spot he he either has to quit his job and he says that's what I'm gonna do I'll just quit my job because he doesn't want to change but he has to change because these these co-workers are going to make him change because one of th
e things that happens in the development of the narrative is connections because what's happening is that these isolated characters Who start off with absent or flawed relationships gather a family around themselves and so as they go forth in the narrative they go forth with this gang that's that's of of allies that are helping him or helping her in unexpected ways when the best turns that I love in Bridesmaids is that they transform Helen into an ally you see in a lesser movie she'd be an antag
onist and she'd be the antagonist all the way throughout but wonderfully they they they make it so that because of everything has happened because of Annie's Behavior Uh you know the Maya Rudolph has has run away and you know the whole weddings uh on you know in in Peril and so Helen has to come to Annie to save the day and so that's I mean I thought that that was that was such a smart move on their part because you don't need antagonists in comedy you can have an antagonist you don't need one y
ou don't you know whereas in an action film you got to have an antagonist you know uh you know every Marvel film is is as good as the villain they have in the Marvel film but in comedy who's the antagonist in Groundhog Day himself who's the antagonist in uh in in Bridesmaids well Helen but but maybe it's also it's also Annie herself um so you you have you have these families that come together uh Annie in the beginning has one friend one friend and no prospects by the end she has Melissa McCarth
y coming to her house and biting her on the butt in order to get out of her depression this is Life Annie this is life is biting you on the butt um it's such a smart script uh and it's because the script is written with with you know equal equal amounts of compassion and observation sure and if you see the Rita character uh she's she's level-headed she's kind and so she's a great contrast to Phil right she's she's not even bothered that he's she's the magical object of Desire uh in in many roman
tic comedies you have a magical object of Desire Meryl Streep in Defending Your Life with with uh Albert Brooks is the magical object of desire that's that's a a man or woman who who transforms your character uh you know in romantic comedy love is is itself a magical power because you know you talk to a psychiatrist psychiatrists will tell you you know people don't really change yeah you you hope they change but they don't really change you marry a jerk 30 years later you have a fatter Bolder ol
der jerk but in romantic comedies characters transfer jerks transform dweebs and nerds transform because of the power of the love it's what Jack Nicholson says in As Good As It Gets you make me want to be a better man make me want to be a better man what are the steps in the comic heroes Journey yeah there are seven steps I I recently read a paper that that referenced the comic heroes journey and they talked about how I shoehorned the 12 steps of the hero's journey into seven into seven sips of
the comic heroes journey and I did that you know just because you know safe space make it a little make it a little bit more economical um they say the cover of your book so the hero's journey we have the normal World which we talked about and WTF that's the comic premise and then you have reaction um in reaction you have your character in this transformed state or this transformed uh circumstance but they don't want to be there uh it's it's Dorothy wanting to go home it's uh Phil Connors and Gr
oundhog Day trying to figure out how do I get out of this so so there's first denial and then the reaction is okay this is happening how how do I not make it happen how do I go back how do I fix this um and and in some cases it's unfixable like uh in big he goes to sleep as a 13 year old boy he wakes up he's a 30 year old man but it doesn't need to be an impossible it could be improbable in enough said uh film with Julia Louis Dreyfus in the late great James Gandolfini Julia Louis-Dreyfus is a i
s a massage therapist and she finds out that her new boyfriend is the ex-husband of her new best friend both of you know who she now is is giving massages to so when she gives massages to her new best friend who tells terrible things about her ex-husband she then reacts to it when she's on a date with James Gandolfini who's the ex-husband and so as she's trying to figure out what to do about it she's carrying on uh just a mild deception she's simply not telling either one about the other but but
in the beginning she's trying to make make believe like this is not an impossible situation to be in and of course uh in that movie when it blows up it destroys her relationship uh which is what happens in a movie at uh the All Is Lost moment but you have the reaction then you have connections in connections your characters are forming a nucleus around themselves a a family uh friends that they hadn't had before and what you have in that section is things are starting to slow down you have char
acters who are who up till then had not even had a conversation with each other and now they're kind of opening up to each other in in some comedies the opening up is uh a little bit ridiculous um but in in many comedies it's where the characters for the first time are relating to two other characters uh in a way that they hadn't before um one of the things I want to talk about in terms of these seven steps is they don't have to happen all in the same order they don't have to happen all at the s
ame page you know this page this has to happen because they all happen in different ways in 40 Year Old Virgin the connections start pretty soon after uh after the uh lie after the truth about his being a virgin comes out uh he goes to work they make fun of him he runs away and Paul Rudd because Paul Rudd is a nice guy and he's the guy who's all emo and he's still yearning after his girlfriend he runs after him and he chases him down he doesn't have to if Paul Rudd doesn't chase him down there's
no movie that's the end of the movie that you know Steve Carell has has um has has you know quit but he chases them down and they go and they have a cup of coffee together and it's the first time that they're talking to each other and Steve Carell even says you know this is the first time we've had a conversation of more than more than you know two minutes and connections is where your character who up till that point had been a loner or either through choice or or through their own circumstanc
es and they begin to gather a group around themselves a group that can become their friends I mean in Bridesmaids she literally has a group of Bridesmaids that first she's very antagonistic to or or she she gives them all food poisoning because she's trying too hard but at the end they they have all bonded so that's what happens in connections and connections you slow the pace down so that people can have real conversations um one of the things that Monty Python discovered when they did their fi
rst movie and Now for Something Completely Different which was a compilation of sketches that they had done on TV and they did this movie for the American Market because at that time Monty Python was still not being shown in America and they did a test screening and they found out in the test screening it went great for the first 45 minutes people were laughing hysterically and then they just stopped for the next 45 minutes and they the pythons kind of looked at each other and thought well maybe
we have it we have this in the wrong order so they re-shuffled some of the sketches and they did another screening and again for the first 45 minutes people were peeing in their pants and then it stopped because you just cannot make an audience laugh for 90 minutes non-stop without giving them something to chew on without giving them some protein and that's why for their next two movies well especially especially a Life of Brian they gave you characters you could care about and characters who a
re going through a trauma and trying to find their way out of it so even though the pythons were very sketch based and even though Life of Brian is still a series of sketches it was still telling a story about a guy that you identified with and empathize with so that's why it's so important at some point in your movie to slow down to reveal themselves it's what Michael Haye calls the getting naked which in a romantic comedy doesn't necessarily mean the people are are having sex it means that's t
he moment where uh in hitch Will Smith is revealing to the girl why he's become the love doctor because he was not the love doctor in college in fact he was the exactly the opposite and so this is his reaction to that um after uh connections comes new directions this is where the the discovered gold really kicks in in New Directions your character has become somewhat accustomed to The Impossible or probable situation and what has happened is new skills have arrived not because your character sat
back and thought I want to improve myself but because they've had to they're forced to transform and so in New Directions your character literally tries to go for something has it the discovery goal go for something that they hadn't even thought of at the beginning of the movie in the beginning of the movie is Steve Carell in 40 year old virgin is he thinking about having a relationship with a woman no doesn't even it's not even on the uh on the horizon uh in the beginning of the movie does uh
Phil Connors want to have a relationship pursue a relationship without sex with Rita no uh you know we at first he tries to get her to go to bed with him but he's unsuccessful because she's not that kind of a girl to go to bed with a guy you know in the first day and so he gets to a point where he just wants to be in her company and spends as much time with her as he can in her company because he's fallen in love with her and and he can't figure out a way to get out of the time Loop so he just b
ecomes the best boyfriend in the world uh somebody who's not grasping for something not not having some ulterior motive just there for other people Danny rubin's a Buddhist so is Harold Ramis for that fact and so uh the Buddhist philosophy infuses um uh the groundhog day because the whole point is they answered the question how can you be a good person in the world and the answer is to be of service to other people so then you have the Lost night of the Soul uh The Dark Knight of the soul in whi
ch the All Is Lost sequence now in a romantic comedy this is often when the lovers break apart which happens you know kind of two-thirds or three quarters of the way through but even in a film as ridiculous and as offensive as Tropic Thunder um there's a breakup the the platoon literally breaks up from Ben Stiller and the rest of the actors in The make-believe platoon and that happens about 50 of the way through the movie so all these all these Stations of the Cross occur they just don't incur a
ll at the same place all at the same time and the and those and the the progression can alter based upon the need of the story the last section is uh race to the Finish again in many romantic comedies you have a character literally racing to to his loved one in When Harry Met Sally Bill Billy Crystal is racing through the streets to get to the New Year's Eve party to express however ineptly his love to Meg Ryan but even in enough said uh your character needs to take some positive action I've rea
d several scripts where at the end the good thing happens to the character happens that protagonists and protagonist does nothing to accomplish that that's probably a mistake that's I know that's a mistake because because your character has to take positive action to to uh accomplish what they need to accomplish to get what they need to get um and to resolve not just the narrative but also the theme and enough said she's broken up Julie Louis Dreyfus has broken up with James Gandolfini and it's
broken her heart she broke up with him because the deception that her new best friend was his ex-wife and she was nagging about nagging about him about his weight because that's what his wife was filling Julia Louis dreyfus's head with during their massage therapy sessions so he breaks up with her for deception so every now and then she drives past his house and just parks just looks out the window that's all she does just drive and park and one day he comes out he sits on the on the stoop and s
he looks at him and he looks at her and he kind of goes so the the important elements of Race To The Finish you don't have to show us a happy ending but you have to you have to hint at the promise of a better world you don't have to have the lovers come together but we we have to know that it's going to be okay um in the breakup which is this kind of revolutionary unsuccessful rom-com with Vince Vaughn and um oh she's the girl from Friends Courtney Cox no the other one oh uh Kudrow Lisa Kudrow n
o the other one uh Jennifer Aniston yeah in the breakup which is this kind of revolutionary unsuccessful comedy with Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston they they have this big fight they break up there's all this deception happening um and then Vince Vaughn does the speech you know the speech it's the speech that melts the heart of of the magical object desire it's the speech that makes the person go you had me at hello uh and but what was interesting about interesting but unsuccessful about the
film is that he does the speech everybody in the audience is prepared for her to go oh Vince Vaughn and she goes no not having it too late oh my God they've really broken up the film's called The Breakup we should have figured that out so they they had a a final scene in which they meet at a at a like a a fair somewhere in Chicago and Vince Vaughn has a new date that looks exactly like Jennifer Aniston and Jennifer Aniston has a new date that looks exactly like Vince Vaughn and there's this unco
mfortable dialogue and then they part and it tested terribly because even though it was a cute joke it left us feeling horrible about spending two hours in this unseen I mean we've had our own breakups we don't want to have to live through it again so did they get the pill the the couple together no all they did using the same exact dialogue was they kind of meet each other on a street in Chicago and one of them is holding a bag of groceries and they have the same exact dialogue they didn't chan
ge a word only this time it was you got you felt that they were okay they had this relationship it broke up they're okay and they might not be friends but they're okay and it was much much better ending to the film because you need to give us the pro if not the happy ending you don't need to give us a happy ending it can be an indie film but you need to give us the promise of a better world um the other important thing about race to the Finish is that you're not finished when the lovers kiss tha
t's not the end of the film that's not the end of the story you need to finish the theme you need to complete the theme what's the question you were asking well what's the answer we have to make the theme complete before the film is complete before the narrative is complete as opposed to just ending the story so those those are the seven steps which I've shoehorned I've shoehorned the 12 Steps From the hero's journey into into shoehorn them into the common Heroes Journey which by the way oh look
at there look it's in the comic heroes Journey fans would you say protagonists and comedies are kind of pathetic not necessarily um Howard ramus had this idea that when he started writing directing uh all the all the comic protagonists were kind of nebbishing and pathetic like like in a Woody Allen film but he but his take was what he was interested in were the Rebels the iconoclasts the people who don't fit in and that's why meatballs Ghostbusters um uh their you know uh Groundhog Day you know
Stripes he has he has these characters that are they're still not perfect they're still not Heroes because they lack decorum they lack you know kind of maturity but they they're they're Rebels that's because that's how he saw himself and so so your comic protagonist doesn't need to fit the uh cookie cutter form of some other character that you're not interested in right about the characters that you're interested in only remember they're human meaning they're fallible meaning you can't accrue t
o them all the wonderful qualities you wish you had you have to give them the qualities that they have and you know and and you have to lead them on a journey somewhere So when you say iconoclasts so they're they're kind of Misfits they don't yeah Misfits Rebels that's who you like to write about so so I think it's a mistake to think that every every uh uh protagonist has to be in nebish or or a dweeb they can be uh you know kind of a a jerk or or somebody who's self-serving or just doesn't fit
into the group for whatever it doesn't or doesn't fit into the group for some reason our characters and comedies different than other genres they're funnier no um again uh a character in comedy is is the term that we use in the hidden tools of Comedy is non-hero a non-hero is somebody who lacks some if not all the essential skills and tools with which to win so that describes all of us we all lack some if not all the essential skills and tools with which to win we're not omnipotent we're not imm
ortal uh we're not omniscient um some of us have bad you know uh you know bad Court eye hand eye coordination uh so so we we are flawed and so in in a comic protagonist uh your protagonist is flawed only to the extent that they need to be flown in other words you don't need to make him the stupidest person in the world because listen as we like to say you're not as smart as you'd like to think you are you're you're you know you're you're just you're just human so so you don't need to buy by maki
ng somebody a clown uh that's that's another mask you see you put a mask on a character and on a heroic character and you give them the attributes Brave resourceful this and that uh by making somebody an idiot uh the stupidest person in the world um you're still putting a mask on them and you're and but now you're condescending to them and you're saying what you're basically saying is that that person what a jerk what an idiot um not me though I'm I'm the smart writer I'm I'm so much smarter tha
n the characters I'm writing and I would I would suggest well you know have a little sympathy because you know that character even if it's an anthropomorphic chicken that character is a human being and so are you so you know you're all going to end up in the same place so maybe you shouldn't spend your time condescending maybe you should spend your time connecting and and you know observing you know not not letting somebody off easy not whitewashing something but the genius of Comedy is that it
loves Humanity without forgiving them and in Revenge of the Nerds it was it was set up that we all sort of looked down on these various characters until they had their comeuppance except that in Revenge of the Nerds even though we kind of knew that they were they were losers on the other hand so are we I mean how many of us empathize and related to the good-looking blonde-haired blue-eyed Perfect Teeth Frat Boys now we we in our heads we're all losers in our heads we're all Misfits in our heads
were all um less than and the genius of Comedy is that it knows that and it says it's okay your secret's safe with me I'll be the jerk I'll be the loser for all of you because the reality is is that that's what frightens us more than more than more than death you know it's the most frightening thing to people public speaking because in public speaking you're exposed am I smart enough do I look good enough and that's what we all fear that we're going to be exposed and a comedian is the person who
simply has the courage to get up in front of a large group of strangers and admits to Being Human whereas many of us you know we don't admit it you know we're we're perfect well at least we want you to think that we're perfect how many of us go to our boss and say boy am I a screw-up today I got this all wrong no if we screw up we try desperately to hide it what are the common character archetypes in comedy okay I I can give you some character types um but I I want to uh I want to have a caveat
um that uh the the dangerous in thinking of these archetypes as uh as characters that you can utilize and push around they're they're they're just slivers of us right they're just they're just uh uh fractions of our own psyche and our own personality uh and you and you divide them so as to help in storytelling for instance in France yet the wise guy you have the dits you have the mother you have the the stupid guy uh and you have the nerd and you have the um the Flirty Girl okay now why do you
have those six because how would it be if you had two Wise Guys well who are you going to give the line to okay you need to say you need somebody to say something stupid who do you want on stage who do you want in the scene you want Joey in the scene okay now you want somebody to be ditzy but not stupid okay so let's bring Phoebe on so the purpose of of utilizing archetypes is not that you're you're they're not stereotypes they are they are representations of a certain point of view of a certain
way of way of being and thinking but within the archetype they're still people so you so you don't want to write them exclusively as though they have no other attribute um the you have um various kinds of of tricksters uh in in Greek comedy um in Greek comedy uh there were uh all sorts of different slave characters and master characters and what happens in Roman comedy is that they did away with 50-man chorus but for Roman comedy they heightened the art typical characters had been around since
early Greek time and then after Roman comedy there's no comedy because that's the Dark Ages and there's no theater and there's no literacy and there's no playwrights but they're still actors and so what do the actors do the actors either act out scenes from The Bible or they act out scenes using these These are typical iconic characters the clever tricky servant the uh dim young man the courtesan the bracket Soldier all these types were known to this these traveling players who we're making thin
gs up improvising based on character and situation so around the Renaissance you have this theater form that coalesces around characters called the committee of Dullard and basically you have an art form in which the character stayed the same because they all wore distinctive masks and tights so if you saw the hook nose and the diamond tights Ah that's Harlequin he's kind of like a Charlie Chaplin mischievous Man Child um like Kramer if Kramer comes through the door you know exactly what you're
getting in Europe when the Harlequin came out you knew exactly what you were getting so you have these very specific archetypes so what happens is is that there are no playwrights there are no directors so you have a situation in which the character takes the action let's say you have two two um young a young boy and a girl sitting on a park bench what's their physical motion they you know if they're both young and good looking and not that bright there you know they're going to try to you know
get together let's take away the young man let's put in the lecherous old man uh the the you know what the the pantaloni was was what he was called in in the Comedia uh he could be a miser he could be uh a hypochondriac uh he's usually after the young girl so now what's their physical movement young girl lectress old man he's gonna chase her around the bench right so let's take away the young girl let's put in the battle ax wife oh now what's the movement now she's chasing him the other way let'
s take them both away let's put in three Zanies zany was a term in the Comedia short for Giovanni meaning um there was the clever servant there was the stupid servant there was the compassionate servant um all these different varieties of stupid servants or clever tricky servants they're all going to go in different directions but they're because they're idiots They're Gonna Knock heads and knock each other out so the committee teaches us that character creates plot character creates action and
character creates movement so we we inter we then take this idea this actor-centric idea and in modern comedy you have this same idea these same characters but the situation changes say on a weekly basis what does that sound like sounds like sitcoms so so you have these are typical characters you have um uh you could have the fool you can have the the wise guy you can have um uh the uh the uh uh old you know the the old man or the uh the the father but that's only one way of slicing and dicing b
ecause you can slice and dice them any way you want any way that makes sense the important thing is not to have four of the same character because you don't need for the same character um uh you uh there's there's there's a guy who likes to see every cast as uh The Wizard of Oz well who's our Dorothy who's our tin man that's our uh our Cowardly Lion other people use Winnie the Pooh okay uh in in in Seinfeld uh Kramer's Tigger you know the really bouncy one who's George he's Eeyore um so that so
that it's less important the uh there's a book out uh about the the different character types in comedy my my my preference is that the only character that you absolutely need in a comedy is a trickster you need somebody who is going to bend the rules color outside the box you may have a fool in your in your cast you may have a wise guy you may have um a magical object of Desire what you do have are blocking characters and mirror characters blocking characters or characters that are going to get
in the way of your main character maybe an antagonist but doesn't necessarily have to be in Groundhog Day the insurance salesman he's a blocking character he he you know he's he's in the way and eventually uh when Bill Murray realizes there's no consequences for anything he just punches him out he doesn't say a word he just punches them out and then you have mirror characters who are your best friends but you only really and there are there are uh rookie characters there's um you know vet you k
now grizzled old vets characters uh in in the comic heroes Journey you have mentors mentors are usually it you know idiots idiots who have some knowledge in in the hero's journey the mentors Obi-Wan Kenobi uh in the comic heroes Journey the mentor is the guy in DodgeBall who throws wrenches at Justin Long's head because he says if you can dodge a wrench you can dodge a ball an idiot but still a mentor character but you're but the only character that you absolutely need is an archetype and just k
now that that your your task is to slice up personality and and your own Humanity so that you don't have duplications in your cast some other characters that are essential in comedy are the voice of reason oftentimes the voice of reason is somebody that nobody pays attention to or gives any credit to uh in a lot of movies that's Jay Baruchel uh who's actually in in Tropic Thunder he's the one who's read actually read the guidebook and can read a map but nobody pays any attention to him um but an
other important character is the animal character uh a character who's primal you know Melissa McCarthy in in Bridesmaids uh also Melissa McCarthy in everything um John Belushi in Animal House so somebody who is um going to uh act out of their Primal urges and is very forceful and physical about it uh your magical object of desire that's usually the focus of attention for your comic protagonist in a rom-com with the Golden Girls seemingly on the outside everybody looked the same so you couldn't
really just by you'd have to watch the show to figure out which one was the flirt which one was the trickster which one was the wise one right and and so but that took time because they all look the same and you thought but in writing it they knew exactly how to write it because every character had their function not just their personality but they also had their function so if you're going to give somebody something sharp to say you can give it to the old person right if you can give something
somebody something uh stupid to say that's what Betty White was there right or wrong she was more the flirt yes and was always bragging about all these conquests and these different things and then uh with um sorry I'm liking on the name uh mod I'm trying to think of mod yeah she's she's she's basically the Alex Rieger of that Bunch you know you you often have a father uh yes there's another friend of mine who likes to think of every every cast as a family who's the father who's the mother who's
the who's the weird Uncle who's the uh the cousin you don't like to talk to and he kind of divides them like this how does a buddy comedy movie differ from a romantic comedy they probably are not having sex okay uh yeah but uh in a buddy comedy um they're getting intimate and it's about learning how to get intimate in a way that they haven't been intimate before so so the you know part of the part of the comic Trope is you get them as close to having sex as you can without making it kind of thi
s you know creepier graphic but what's one of the classic comic buddy comedies out there Planes Trains and Automobiles and what's one of the funniest sequences when they have to sleep together because it's about learning to in a buddy comedy they have to learn to drop defenses and and become more intimate than they already have if you start with a buddy like in Wedding Crashers they seem like they're great buddies but it's so superficial because their goal is superficial to just work together to
seduce women at weddings but what happens after them is they both get into dilemmas they both find women that they really like some of whom kind of confuse them and they both have to help themselves to resolve their problems so uh so a good buddy movie is a movie in which uh both characters need to change in some way and and somehow this pairing um either the pairing itself is the is the inciting incident or something happens to them that changes their relationship and changes the way that they
react to each other and they react to the World At Large the one thing I want to say about the difference between the Hero Journey and the comic heroes journey I think one of the important differences is in the hero's journey the hero is greatness Within and is eventually going to heal the world the comic heroes Journey the hero has to heal himself or herself the world's fine or the world's not fine the world is the way the world is but the comic hero is not is not integrated well into that wor
ld and in whatever way the comic hero exhibits his or her personality it's we in the audience can see that's not working for them Bill Murray's a jerk and eventually he'll be alone he'll be a jerk all by himself Steve Carell and 40 year old virgin he's a nice guy but he's going to be alone too neither one of those are really going to work Kristen Wiig and bridesmaids oh my God you know I hope she can stop trying to let Jon Hamm have his booty calls so so the world isn't changing they have to cha
nge and I think the lesson for us is that and we we can try to change the world but you know changing ourselves uh is both more immediate and and more to the point of a buddy comedy whether it's buddy cop whether it's groomsmen whether it's swingers with John Favreau uh I think I think the structure is is still basically the same you have the normal world how do they normally get together how do they how does this world work for them in in the usual way then something happens to change it someth
ing something happens to to make the normal change and then it goes through the rest I think that goes through the rest of the steps I'm not sure I have a a clever or insightful answer to that because I think it's I mean I could look at individual movies and talk about how their individual structures are different but as a genre um buddy movies are are uh structured the same as other comedy movies with with some impossible or improbable thing uh happening that forces these characters to change i
n the other guys Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg uh are the other guys they're they're the not the hero cops they're not the cops who can do anything and could you know solve every crime and beat every band they're the other guys and when the hero cops are killed and they have to step up that's the WTF that's is it impossible no it's improbable that these two guys so different have to work together to you know solve the crime to to to you know do what they need to do for the police force so I thi
nk it's I think it's structured fairly the same in terms of normal World there they have they have their fall their flaws their faults and everything's going to stay the same until the inciting incident and then they have to transform and as they transform they begin to open up to each other and they begin to learn new skills and they begin to transform so that uh Will Ferrell becomes more heroic uh and Mark Wahlberg becomes um a little smarter about what he does so they they kind of learn from
each other that that happens in a lot of bunny movies the the movie the the part of that movie that I love so much is where uh Will Ferrell introduces Mark uh to his wife who's this gorgeous supermodel and and all Mark Wahlberg couldn't say is come on you're kidding right or yeah because he he can't he can't understand it so I thought that was very funny what should a writer know before beginning a buddy comedy movie I think he needs to know how these two characters complement each other and ant
agonize each other I think that's I mean that that's one thing they need to know is that is that you're putting two characters um in a situation that they're both uncomfortable with both maybe the situation itself or or certainly each other and so it can't just be antagonism it's got to be a situation in which as the narrative progresses the the one character one character has to have something to offer to the other character the other character has to have something to offer to the first charac
ter it can't be one way um in in 48 hours uh you know Nick Nolte is this can do it cop but you know Eddie Murphy has some has some chops too and and he can add to what Nick Nolte can do because Eddie Murphy has has his his humor his cleverness his his improvisational skills his ability to to kind of take advantage of any kind of situation um and Nick Nolte is this big bull of a guy so they have to you have to figure out what do they need to learn and can they learn from each other it's not just
enough to have um a tall guy and a short guy a fat guy and a skinny guy uh the Buddy comedy has to explore what does it mean to be intimate with another person and to learn from another person and if you take the female sort of flip side like Two Broke Girls that even though that's a TV show that they they were still able to they didn't really seem to get under each other's skin as much right they they were in this together right but they have to get in into each other's skin to a certain extent
I mean The Odd Couple they certainly get you know that was a play that had that had you know a beginning you know a WTF and then it it they they started to hate each other there's a big fight but then they learned that they needed each other because they're both divorced guys and they yeah they need they need the friendship so so it's it's it's about I think the thing that you have to do is is sometimes when you write a buddy comedy you're saying well that's the dumb guy or that's the loser guy
and you condescend to that character you write down to that character and you have to remember you know what if what if you're the loser guy you know so so you have to realize that that they both have something to offer each other and then in the beginning they don't know that and that's great too even if this is not this is more romantic comedy but with the Bridget Jones Diary Renee Zellweger's character is is is not a bad person but she's always fumbling and you know pantyhose dressing the pa
ntyhose kind of a thing and and you it's hard to look down on her because she's still lovable right I mean they design it that way but she's still someone that you want to embrace and you'd want to be friends right but but it's not her fault that she and that she goes to the party in a in a buddy suit somebody somebody set her up sir but but what's lovely about her is she tries to make the best of it
Comments
What did you learn?
Perfect timing for this topic! Many thanks...I'll be listening to this one multiple times I'm sure. Love your channel!
One of the best. I took a lot of points home.
These Rock!
bring good comic back please :) i think society needs a good laugh
"art of telling the truth". Oh, how nostalgic.
One Love
13:06 I have question for you Sir. So in the movie Step Brothers, when Will Ferrell rubs his unmentionables on his brother’s drum set, is that funny or comedy?
Funny. I also hated This Is Us. I mean...