Film Courage: What's the difference between being funny and writing something that's funny?
Steve Kaplan, Author/Instructor/Script Consultant: What's the difference between
being funny and writing something that's funny? Well being funny is 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
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 being truthful in
imaginary circumstances is something that that actors have heard from Stanislavski and Meisner
traumatic actors but if you think about what drama does it's like it's like 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 never a guy who worked who worked as 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 the comic actor allows themselves
to be less than stupid because the point is is that we are we are if we if we just tell
the truth about ourselves we're not perfect we make mistakes we screw up all the time there's a
there's a wonderful moment in Judd Apatow’s This Is 40 where 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
don't tell my wife but not a disgusting garbage with a lot of disgusting things but 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 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
you're not trying to come up with the funniest thing you can think of you're trying to come up
with what would this character say In This Moment there's there's a great this is this is old this
is if you if you remember radio there's this great scene from Jack Benny radio Series in which
Robert comes up to him and the robber says your money or your life
and the the comedy writers who were 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 and
says you have anything he says I'm thinking and they went said and they gave that's the
line that Jack Benny says so 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 because that's what somebody would say when they're stuck
and they don't know what to say there's there's an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond in which Robert
the big hulking Brother played by Brad Garrett brings home what he thinks is “the one” and
that's the title of the episode She's The One and so everybody's talking and a not paying attention
and 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 turned to 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 given that the character is
not the greatest Raider in the world 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 tell the truth about
the characters who and tell the truth about what and who and as truthfully as possible one one more
example from the early age of Television I'm sorry I'm old okay I'll talk about Tick Tok in a second
Norman Lear adapted this British series Till Death Do Us 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
British series he's this old codger who's kind of bigoted so how did Norman Lear write him funny
he just thought of his father his father used to say stifled thing bad he had Archie say that his
father once said to him you're the laziest white man and whatever he had Archie say that how did
Ray how did Phil Rosenthal who's the showrunner on 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
and we have a number of tools like uh positive action and in metaphorical relationship
and straight line wavy line 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
and what are the techniques that we can use to to make it better or what are 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 do you remember before the pandemic 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 no one was more
surprised than me that 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 my friend Chris Vogler had
written the The Writer's Journey which is based on the works of Joseph Campbell and so I ripped him
off and 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 forward so that's how we do it in Hollywood yeah I
mean I didn't give him any money but I did thank him in the forward so the Comic Heroes Journey
was really taking a look at so what's different in a comedy in a comic narrative that is that
follows the hero's journey it's at points but then importantly deviates it and 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 Wonderful book
by John Truby or Robert McKee or Chris Vogler when they're specifically talking about comedy.