Period 3:
Choose one of your short story drafts to read out loud to the class.
Choose one of your short story drafts to read out loud to the class.
- Make eye contact
- Speak clearly and loudly
- Use gestures
- Have energy
- Change tone
- Perform with sincerity
After volunteers, we'll pick randomly.
Period 4:
Today, let's read a few sketches (short, short plays). See handout, then we'll see the original sketches and compare our performances with theirs.
To help you get going, here's a few tried and tested comedy formats for sketches.
1) Escalation: Funny idea starts small and gets bigger and bigger, ending in chaos of ridiculous proportions.
2) Lists: Sketches in which the bulk of the dialogue is a long list of funny items. The best example of this is "Cheese Shop" in Monty Python. (You can find all the Python sketches at www.planetcomedy.force9.co.uk/bookstore.html.)
3) Mad Man, Sane Man (opposites): This format speaks for itself, but don't go for obvious settings.
4) Dangerous Situations: For example, a sketch set on a flight deck of aircraft.
5) Funny Words: Sketches which use the sound of language itself to be funny. For example, use of the words "blobby" or "wobble"; Names can be funny if you want people to think of your work as comedy or humorous. Some names are just funny: Aloysious Butterbean is a funnier name than Tom Johnson or man.
6) Old and New: Getting a laugh from putting something modern in a historical setting (Or, vice versa) Example: Abraham Lincoln using a cigarette lighter shaped like a handgun. Benjamin Franklin inventing the fidget spinner, Alexander the Great using a cell phone, Jesus dining at the Cheesecake Factory, etc.
7) Big and Small. Getting humor from large differences in scale. For example, a pig trying to make love to an elephant (an example from South Park).
HOMEWORK: None.
Period 4:
Today, let's read a few sketches (short, short plays). See handout, then we'll see the original sketches and compare our performances with theirs.
- Marty Feldman: The Bookseller Sketch
- The Cheese Shop Sketch: Monty Python's Flying Circus
- The Dead Parrot Sketch: Monty Python's Flying Circus
- Self Defense Against Fruit Sketch: Monty Python's Flying Circus
- The Headmaster Sketch: Rowan Atkinson
To help you get going, here's a few tried and tested comedy formats for sketches.
1) Escalation: Funny idea starts small and gets bigger and bigger, ending in chaos of ridiculous proportions.
2) Lists: Sketches in which the bulk of the dialogue is a long list of funny items. The best example of this is "Cheese Shop" in Monty Python. (You can find all the Python sketches at www.planetcomedy.force9.co.uk/bookstore.html.)
3) Mad Man, Sane Man (opposites): This format speaks for itself, but don't go for obvious settings.
4) Dangerous Situations: For example, a sketch set on a flight deck of aircraft.
5) Funny Words: Sketches which use the sound of language itself to be funny. For example, use of the words "blobby" or "wobble"; Names can be funny if you want people to think of your work as comedy or humorous. Some names are just funny: Aloysious Butterbean is a funnier name than Tom Johnson or man.
6) Old and New: Getting a laugh from putting something modern in a historical setting (Or, vice versa) Example: Abraham Lincoln using a cigarette lighter shaped like a handgun. Benjamin Franklin inventing the fidget spinner, Alexander the Great using a cell phone, Jesus dining at the Cheesecake Factory, etc.
7) Big and Small. Getting humor from large differences in scale. For example, a pig trying to make love to an elephant (an example from South Park).
HOMEWORK: None.
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