Jun 06

Restoration Comedy and Derek Zoolander

The author playing a fop in a restoration comedy big wig, long cream jacket, black heels, long white hanky against a yellow background

The author as the restoration comedy character, Sir John Roverhead

This is a period of English theatrical history I adore. When most teenagers
in the ’90s were discovering Dylan, The Stones, Hendrix, etc. I was discovering comedy albums on C.D. and vinyl like Jonathan Winters, Bob Newhart, Steve Martin, and periods in comedy history like Restoration comedy, Commedia dell’arte, or comic playwrights like Aristophanes. Out of the Restoration comedy, Commedia dell’arte, and Aristophanes, I’ve so far performed in three.

The Restoration when it comes to theatre at least, was from 1660 to 1710. 1660 was when King Charles II returned from exile in France and was restored to the throne as King, after 18 years of puritanical rule. And with his return he brought back a lot of French culture with him. He was King until 1685, but plays continued to be written in that style.

A lot of ideas and plots were borrowed from French playwrights like Molière. For example The Country Wife (1675) and The Plain-Dealer (1676) by William Wycherley.

It was the first time women actors were allowed on the English stage. Up until then, female characters were played by young men.

Plots of the plays were often convoluted or complicated, and usually just a vehicle for dialogue. I noticed that sometimes character would be stood in the room mocking each other for a few pages. The playwrights valued wit.

The era also gave rise to the first professional female playwrights as well like Aphra Behn and Mary Pix.

While the language is closer to modern English than Shakespeare is, it was socially very dense. Meaning there was the literal thing being said, a sexual innuendo, testing status, flirting or not, and performing wit. Plus, there would also be reference tro things, people, and places that Restoration audiences would’ve understood that need a lot of heavy translating or editing for today.

The plays relied on used different stock characters so the character were instantly recognisable. They would’ve been parodies of different types of people seen in London at the time. I’m only going to mention three of the them for now:

The Rake – the witty, womanizing Aristocrat who liked to drink. Modern equivalents could be Tony Stark, Don Draper, or Captain Jack Sparrow who exemplify similar bad boy behavior.

The Fop – this character used to think he was a rake, or think he was smarter than what he was. Often very vain, fashionable, and self-conscious. Modern examples might be Derek Zoolander, Prince Humperdinck (Princess Bride), and Jean-Ralphio Saperstein (Parks & Rec). Another good comparison clothing-wise is when we see Garth in Wayne’s World dressed head to toe in sponsored clothing. I thought about adding Ricky Bobby as he has elements of the fop, but he is too arrogant and clueless.

The Coquette – intelligent woman, with a razor sharp wit that matched the rake. She keeps potential livers at arm’s length. Modern equivalents might be Samantha Jones (Sex in the City), Cher Horowitz (Clueless), and Fleabag. Some of this stock character’s traits often appear in the female leads of modern romantic comedies.

The Virtuous Heroine – she has strong moral judgment, remains faithful to her principles, and often serves as a moral counterweight to the rake. Modern equivalents could be Leslie Knope (Parks & Rec), Hermione Granger (Harry Potter), and Pam Beesly (The Office US).

In the picture of me, I’m playing the fop Sir john Roverhead in The Beau Defeated written by Mary Pix. I’m wearing a big wig, heels, and holding a giant handkerchief.

Unlike how some people might view these clothes today, heels were very masculine.  They were associated with riding, wealth, and elite status. Wigs on the other hand, represented long flowing hair, and had long been associated with male beauty, aristocratic status, and vitality. It was a fun role to play. But I feel that if you’re staging a Restoration comedy today, it should be done in contemporary dress.

I find it interesting as these comic archetypes have changed and muted over the centuries and they still pop up in various modern films and plays.

Jun 04

What I Learned Editing Old Video Footage for Clients

In the freelance video editing work I’ve been doing one company in particular, they have tasked me with updating their old videos so that they don’t have to reshoot.

The concept of this works if the facts or other information contained in the video is evergreen. If a video discusses events in the future, and the future is 2011, then that’s a problem. That information ether needs to be updated if it’s a screen graphic, or the video needs to be reshot.

Assuming that’s not an issue the path  currently see forward (I’m using the word currently as I may learn new ways of doing things), seems to have 3 options:

Option One: Vertical Video

Sometimes if a video has been shot vertically, you might find the need to show the video in a horizontal format. This is something you often see on the news.

1. What is the Video Resolution?

What you typically have is a low resolution video. You need to make it look better. If your video is 480p (standard-definition) or 720p (high-definition) can probably safely upscale that to 1080p (Full HD). Going beyond that into 2K or 4K and you risk quality as it’s too big a leap. Going from 1080p to 2K or 4K shouldn’t really pose too many problems.

2. Upscale the Video

I use Topaz Labs . It’s a photo and video enhancement software powered by deep learning that can improve image quality, reduce image noise, sharpen it, and upscale it. Now, it does use AI. This isn’t something I was happy with initially.

But here’s the thing, it doesn’t steal the work of other artists as its not generative. You provide it with a video and it does it’s thing. The other thing is the environmental impact. It’s locally based on your computer, so while it still uses the energy of your computer, what it doesn’t do is use data centers like a LLM or some other generative AI model would use.

3. Blurred Edges

The vertical video will look something like this:

Upscaled, but there are black edges on the size. This is a formatting issue. I mean you could try to adjust it to fit the screen in Topaz, but what typically happens is, it gets all stretched out and looks terrible.

Typically what happens is, in an editing software like Final Cut Pro, or Adobe Premiere Pro you would figure out a way to duplicate the video, make one of them blurry, adjust the size of the video, and then crop the edges so the blurred video fills in the edges of the vertical video. It will look something like this:

 

 

 

 

I tried to keep this post general and not too bogged dow in the details. But this is one approach to, solving the issue of, in this case, a vertical video being shown in a horizontal format.

I’ll probably talk about the other approaches in a future post.

Jun 03

Comedy Screenwriting: Set Pieces

“Stories are about fucked up people.” – Judd Apatow

When I first started writing scripts, in the early ’90s, I was really into Buster Keaton and The Marx Brothers. Which is great from a comedy history/geek perspective, but not so much when it comes to screenwriting.

Keaton’s philosophy was figure out the beginning, and the end, and the middle will take care of itself. Spoiler alert, it will if you’re Buster Keaton. The Marx Brothers on the other hand, used story as a springboard for their shenanigans. The story would stop for Chico to play the piano, Harpo to play the Harp and chase women, and would stop for Groucho to be Groucho.

So I had to learn how to write a screenplay for the present day.

But I think there can still be room for a little comedic detour, as mentioned in my last post.

I think it depends on the style of comedy.

I think ones that require stronger character development tend not to have jokes that interrupt the plot, but instead are borne out of it.

A cartoon-y comedy (early Will Ferrell and early Adam Sandler), can have jokes that interrupt the plot.

From what I’ve read (I forget the source right now) Broadly, you need a minimum of 1 joke per page.

And then there’s the comedy set pieces. The definition of a set piece:

“a sequence or scene with escalated stakes, and production values, appropriate to the genre”. 

Here are notes I took from interviews with Tim Dowling (Pixels, Role Models, Just Go With It) & Joe Nussbaum (dir. American Pie Presents: Naked Mile).

They suggest 3-6 major set pieces.

Douglas J. Eboch (Sweet Home Alabama story writer) suggests 5-8 set pieces.

Judd Apatow (writer, director, and producer of Knocked Up, etc) suggests every 10 minutes or 10 pages.

John Hamburg (Meet the Parents franchise) doesn’t focus on set pieces. He just writes the scene. He also doesn’t believe in plot points having to be on specific pages. But that’s a post for another day.

Whichever way you look at it, it’s all about how the comedy continuously builds. E.g.: Meet the Parents (dinner/urn), There’s Something About Mary (zipper), American Pie (pie scene).

But, again, for screenplays that require stronger character development, the set pieces don’t interrupt the plot.

This then make me wonder if a comedy screenplay should have frequent  jokes per page and set pieces, how would I, or another screenwriter ensure the humor remains fresh and doesn’t become repetitive?

I guess these aren’t  strict rules, they’re more of a guideline. As I said, John Hamburg doesn’t follow these rules.

Perhaps a way to think about it is the frequent joke suggestion is an average. So maybe in reality, there can be 3 jokes on a page, and 1 on the next. That way you can break up the rhythm and the audience doesn’t come to expect it.

It can also be varied by the type of jokes. Not everyone is going to be strong. Like stand-up, you need to open strong and end strong. And then the middle can vary, like music.

Sometimes, a character could make a sarcastic quip, or say something out of place, or the joke could be visual, or maybe physical. It all depends on the character and plot.

For example, in The Hangover, the sarcastic asshole comments Bradley Cooper’s character says, wouldn’t work coming out of Zach Galifianakis’s character’s mouth. They’re two different archetypes. Cooper is the leader/straight man, Galifianakis is more of the comic role, from a traditional double act, sometimes described as a cloud-cuckoo lander. Although they are (minus Doug) a comic trio similar to The Marx Brothers or The Three Stooges.

Jun 02

Comedy Screenwriting: Story vs. Jokes

“In that moment what would you say? Forget the joke. What would you say?” – Garry Shandling.

When it comes to comedy screenwriting, sometimes (but not all the time by any means) story can take a backseat to spectacle or humor. Whether or not it should I think comes down to personal taste. 

So I wonder to myself, what separates a good screenplay from a great one? Is it just having a strong story, or is there another ingredient that elevates it further?

I think there has to be a good marriage between story and plot, and there has to be specificity in the story, good detail. Sticking with the comedy example, as that’s my genre, I don’t think you need original jokes necessarily. You need original execution.

In comedy, forever, we have had a chair being pulled away from another person and them falling down. In Neighbors (2014), we had a fresh take on this joke. Seth Rogen’s character sits on a chair in his office, but Zac Efron’s character has concealed an airbag from a car on it. Once Rogen sits, he’s shot into the ceiling, before crashing back onto the chair.

If originality in execution is more important than originality in concept (like with the chair gag), does that mean structure and tropes are more flexible in comedy than in other genres? Or do comedic screenplays still need to follow a strict structure to work effectively?

For example, lets look at examples from Mel Brooks. Spaceballs, was the joke where Yogurt talks about the merchandise. They could quite easily be cut from the film and the film would still work as it had no baring on the story. But should it have been? Absolutely not, it was funny as hell.

I would say the same for the scene in Spaceballs where Dark Helmet is getting the toys to make out with each other, Puttin’ on the Ritz in Young Frankenstein, and the scene in Blazing Saddles where it’s obvious they’re on a movie set at a studio. All unnecessary for the story to work, all hilarious so they stay. But then again, not everybody is Mel Brooks.

I think tropes are more flexible. And I also think today, you need jokes that are borne out of character, story, and plot. They’re just more cohesive. Going back to my previous example, at that point in Neighbors, at the point Seth Rogen is shot into the ceiling, we know he’s “at war” with Efron’s character and friends.

The joke works because we’ve not seen it before, and surprise is a key element of comedy. That said, in South Park’s cutaway jokes “it was like that time Mother Theresa was overdosing in my car”, can be funny, but for me, it can be a little same-y or repetitive. “It was like that time…” kinda works, but can be exhausting as it’s not borne out of character, story, and plot.

I do think that jokes work best when they’re rooted in character, story, and plot.

Comedic screenplays should prioritize character development just as much as drama.

I think comedic screenplays definitely should prioritize character development just as much as drama. Although it can be a little more forgiving. I do also think it depends on the style of comedy and the character. The Marx Brothers had more leeway to stop the progression of the film, in order to do a routine. The sequence with Chico, Harpo, and Edgar Kennedy in Duck Soup. I only vaguely know what’s happening, but it’s still funny because of the conflict.

When Austin Powers is trying to escape in the first movie, and he gets the little van stuck in the small corridor trying to do a 25-point turn, is funny, but completely unnecessary to the story.

In Beverly Hills Cop, Axel Foley doesn’t change. He’s the lead character, but not the protagonist. I think the protagonist is split between Rosewood and Taggert. They change the most by the end of the story. Comedies that are more grounded in reality, I think are less forgiving than comedies that are a little more cartoon-y.

I think comedy movies from the early 20th century were more forgiving the progression of the story for a good gag. I am not entirely sure if they are today. But I do think more comedy sub genres have more leeway than others.

Jun 02

Story vs. Plot

I’ve been thinking about the difference between story and plot when it comes to screenwriting. And, if I’m honest, I sometimes use those words interchangeably. I tink this comes from learning about script structure so I often end up conflating the two. But they are different. And I don’t just mean in the spelling.

If we are talking about Western/Hollywood films, and that’s then only type I can talk about really, I would say that story is the single most important element of a great screenplay.

Everything should come from story. Theme, characters, dialogue, and later all the visuals come from story.

I define story in the context of a screenplay as what the screenplay or film is about. For example, in Star Wars: A New Hope the story is about the family that we create. The plot is what happens, or how the story is told. The events.

If story is about what the screenplay is about could a screenplay succeed with a strong plot but a weak story? Or is a strong story always necessary for a successful screenplay?

I think story is still important. Although, I hope it’s rare for a film to succeed with a weak story. And we would need to look at how we’re defining success (box office, reviews, audience reactions, or all of the above).

For example, one of my favorite films growing up was Enter the Dragon. It’s essentially a weak James Bond-style story with a splash of revenge. But it was how the story was told that made it work. Most Western audiences hadn’t seen a martial arts film, let alone one that was closer to realism and grittier than most kung-fu films coming out at the time.

I guess this makes it sound like execution can elevate a weak story, therefore, story isn’t always the most important element.

But I think story is still important.

Going back to Enter the Dragon, the acting was average as was the cinematography. What helped it was the plot and, perhaps, the untimely death of its star. Would it have been as big had Bruce Lee lived? Maybe, maybe not. But how much better would Enter the Dragon have been if the story was better and less cliched? The scenes between the fight scenes were ok.

Let’s look at comedy. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! The first 45-ish minutes are wall to wall jokes. And then it feels like it runs out of steam and the story has to take over. Similar thing happened with Airplane! an earlier movie that had even more jokes per minute. That wasn’t enough to sustain it for its running time, so story had to take over.

You definitely need story, if you’re writing comedy. I used to run into that issue when I first started as a teenager. I was trying to write from joke to joke, without story. Even with The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! I cited earlier, Nordberg is shot by drug dealers and Frank and Ed need to solve that crime.

Western action movies begin with a story. Even though spectacle takes over. For example, Mission: Impossible 1 is about avenging the found family we lose. Whereas the last Mission: Impossible movies (Dead Reckoning and Final Reckoning) were about loss. I only vaguely remember the plot because the stunts took precedent.

What this has made me realize, and I still don’t have firm conclusions really, is that I need to make sure I’m clear about the difference between story and plot in my own scripts and films. Especially with comedy.

My conclusions haven’t full formed yet. So I may end up coming back to the post at some point in the future and editing it.