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10-26-2009, 12:40 AM
| #1 (permalink) |
| Family Member Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 1,334
 |  Learn How To Make 'Em Laugh: 30 Day Comedy Study Trial
I want to establish a regular study time in order for me to brush up on my comedy writing skills. I've prepared ahead of time by putting a bunch of comedy stuff in queue at Netflix, readying YouTube and the comedy material we have around the house, and even buying a comedy writing workbook. Now, I'm ready to make good on my promise. From Monday, October 26th to Tuesday, November 24th, I will spend an hour each day studying comedy material or going through my workbook (which will often require me to study comedy material). I'll do this from 5 to 6 PM, after my normal workday. Each day, I'll update this thread, then finish it off with an overall conclusion. |
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10-27-2009, 12:33 AM
| #3 (permalink) | |
| Family Member Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 1,334
| Quote:
Day 1! All right, off to a good start. My current task is to gather 25 lines that I like the most to find out more about what kind of jokes I like. With that, I listened to a comedy sampler CD and got 2. Tomorrow I plan to hit my comedy writing books for more of these lines - there's a lot of good ones in there. | |
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10-27-2009, 09:10 AM
| #4 (permalink) |
| Member Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 39
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Hey Matt, Can you share what resources you are using to study the writing process? I just got back from my first ever amateur night and it was AWESOME. I now know I'm better at making fun of my bad jokes than writing GOOD jokes. Most of my laughs came from that. So I realize I have a ton to learn now :P Gotta start putting in the time. Do you want to be a comedy writer or a really good live entertainer? |
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10-28-2009, 03:12 AM
| #6 (permalink) | ||
| Family Member Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 1,334
| Quote:
Gene Perret's "The New Comedy Writing Step By Step" is my all-time favorite comedy writing book. It's practical and informative, with loads of examples, tips, and techniques. And the man wrote for Bob Hope and Phyllis Diller - he knows how to make the funny. That book practically taught me everything I know about writing jokes. The workbook I'm using for this trial is also by him. I also recommend Greg Dean's "Step By Step To Stand Up Comedy". He uses a step-by-step formula for his jokes, which works great for me since I prefer those kind of instructions. I prefer Perret's book since he reveals techniques that offer more variety than what Dean uses, but his is a good starting point if you want a mechanical process. If you can afford a third book, you might as well also pick up "The Comedy Bible" by Judy Carter. I'm not a big fan of her style, but the book outlines a month-long workshop dedicated to landing you two gigs and loading up a bunch of material. If your style resembles guys who act out other people as opposed to one-liners, you might like this book better. Hell, pick 'em all up if you can and pour over them. It'll give you a great start. Quote:
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10-28-2009, 03:14 AM
| #7 (permalink) |
| Family Member Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 1,334
| Day 2! Still on the first workout :V At least I gathered a lot more lines today by pouring over my books. And I stuck to my goal even after going to see Where The Wild Things Are! Even if it wasn't from 5-6 PM, it was still an hour, so that's good enough for me. |
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10-29-2009, 02:29 AM
| #9 (permalink) | |
| Family Member Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 1,334
| Quote:
Day 3! STILL on Workout 1A and still gathering lines. And after I gather them, I have to write why I like them so much. The rest of the workouts in Chapter 1 are line-gathering activities, so I don't know how long it'll take before I get into some real stuff. | |
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10-29-2009, 01:52 PM
| #10 (permalink) | |
| Family Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Oblong, Illinois
Posts: 3,335
| Quote:
A lot of videos are really nothing more than a podcast with video of the person speaking. For some the video creates a more personal connection in the listeners mind than just the audio. I just point the camcorder at myself with appropriate background and start talking. If I make a mistake I say that part again and use my video editing software to make it a better production. An example of this is the videos Darren Rowse presents on ProBlogger.Community. His site is now a subscription site but he has a video on the landing page that is representative of the type of video I was speaking about. | |
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10-30-2009, 12:55 AM
| #11 (permalink) | |
| Family Member Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 1,334
| Quote:
Day 4! STILL on Workout 1A. This is getting ridiculous. I just can't find a lot of good lines. Look, I may be stuck on this workout, but I'm reading ahead and absorbing what I can into my current joke writing, so...yeah. | |
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10-31-2009, 01:53 AM
| #12 (permalink) |
| Family Member Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 1,334
| Day 5! Finally finished Workout 1A! Got my last joke, did a review on why they're all good...nice, great, magical. Workout 1B: Collect 20 famous funny quotes. FFFFFFFFFFF. Yeah, I ain't doing that now. Spent the rest of the time listening to Steven Wright. Good stuff. |
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11-03-2009, 01:07 AM
| #15 (permalink) |
| Family Member Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 1,334
| Day 8! Finished gathering quotes and moved on to Workout 1C. This was a really fun one - I had to collect 25 lines by a favorite comedian or humorist. I chose Steven Wright, who is a big inspiration. Since the dude is insanely quotable, it was easy and fun to come up with 25 great lines. Polished off my extra time by reading ahead. (The things I've learned from future workouts are already helping me now :V ) |
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11-05-2009, 04:32 AM
| #18 (permalink) | |
| Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 591
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I really want to add more Humor on my conversation and make it light yet meaningful.. How can i do that ? Quote:
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11-06-2009, 02:50 AM
| #19 (permalink) | |
| Family Member Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 1,334
| Quote:
Also, just don't take everything seriously...somehow. Not sure how to teach that. I can teach technique, but attitude is a bit harder :V Day 11! Watched two episodes of Colbert Report, because I'm fond of Colbert's delivery style. I've adopted the way he ends his jokes, actually, where he drops his tone to a real base level. I rather like it. Finally got some comedy DVDs in from Netflix. Gotta watch these as soon as possible, so I'll be checking those out tomorrow. | |
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11-06-2009, 09:19 PM
| #20 (permalink) |
| Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Vancouver, BC
Posts: 97
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This is a cool trial Matt, hope it turns out well for you. I did something similiar about 10 years ago. I took a course on standup comedy. At the end of the course we did a showcase at a local comedy club. it was a blast! and 3 of us from the class decided to put together a touring comedy act. we started out locally playing for free anywhere we could (open mics , coffee shops, etc, you name it we played it) while we worked on our acts. once we each had about 20-30 minutes of pretty good material we started sending a package around to clubs in BC and before long we were being booked for gigs around the province...we were making $400 a night and being put up in a hotel and given an open bar at every the venue  . it was quite the blast. We did this for about 3 years...then we started to go our seperate ways, my father died around that time so I kind of didn't want to get up on stage and be funny anymore, one of the guys toured across canada on the Yuk Yuk circuit and I'm not sure what happened to the other guy. Anyway, sorry for the spiel...just wanted to let you know that I thought your trial was cool and wish you well with it.
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11-07-2009, 02:20 AM
| #21 (permalink) | |
| Family Member Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 1,334
| Quote:
Day 12! Watched one of the DVDs I got off of Netflix. Good thing I watched Kathleen Madigan's DVD first, because...well, it was pretty damn unfunny. Way too direct and not creative at all for me. I sat there and forced myself to watch it, though. Well, at least I've got a Demetri Martin DVD to make things all better! | |
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11-08-2009, 01:44 AM
| #22 (permalink) |
| Family Member Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 1,334
| Day 13! Demetri Martin cleans house. I loved this DVD. It basically took up an hour to watch the main material and the special features, but it was worth it. The dude is crazy inventive, and I hope to get to that point. |
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11-09-2009, 01:30 AM
| #23 (permalink) |
| Family Member Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 1,334
| Day 14! One of my personal rules is that I don't do stuff if I don't like it and discipline can't conquer the problem so easily. If it's busywork, I'll pass it. With that, I skipped Workout 1D and went to 2A, where I'm gathering alternate meanings to words. Well, at least this is quick busywork. |
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11-11-2009, 12:20 AM
| #25 (permalink) |
| Family Member Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 1,334
| Day 16! Workout 2C and 2D were also fun and challenging. I had to create alternate definitions for words based on how they sounded. My favorites are: ramazan - Bill Cosby trying to speak Japanese. arescent - How hunting dogs find the letter R in a dense forest. uncomeatable - When Mom calls for you to eat, but you're too busy raiding on World of Warcraft. Keep it up, workbook, this trial's supposed to be fun! :V |
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11-11-2009, 07:53 AM
| #26 (permalink) |
| Member Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 70
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Hi Matt, This link might be of interest to you: [URL="http://www.humorpower.com/articles_free.html"] I subscribe to his Humor Power Tips ezine and find it quite useful. It is more geared towards presentations though. Cheers, Rob |
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11-12-2009, 02:00 AM
| #27 (permalink) | |
| Family Member Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 1,334
| Quote:
Day 17! Looked up puns and common idioms. Saw the next exercise was captioning a bunch of photos you had to gather, so I said "I'll do it tomorrow" and watched some Richard Pryor. I gotta admit, I love creative cursing. | |
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11-16-2009, 01:18 AM
| #30 (permalink) |
| Family Member Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 1,334
| Day 20 and 21! Yesterday I watched some Nostalgia Critic (an internet comedic reviewer) because I was too lazy to get pictures :V And today, I finished reading And Here's The Kicker. Hmmm, but since I'm off this week, now's the time to rewatch some of my longer comedy material, like movies and DVDs... |
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