Film Courage: What makes a great comic premise?
Steve Kaplan, Author/Instructor/Script Consultant: A great comic premise
in a way I don't want to say it has to be this because in reality if you have an idea and
you write it out and it works that premise was great for you it's so it's not something that's
objective it's something that's subjective it's something 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 kind of exploding in your own imagination before
you even can get to the the the typewriter or the the computer so for me 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 supporting
characters and you wonder well what will happen then so when you create a comic premise
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 have got to 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 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 in other words
let's say your comic premise is that there's this 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
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 trying to dig out from under the
humiliation in middle school was enough of a story then you wanted to come up with a
different premise you wanted to create something differently 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
the Pixar movie Inside Out Pixar movie Inside Out had a great premise the premise is that all these
different aspects of our personality they all have they're all live in our brains and what happens is
that two of them somehow get shunted off to to another another region and the little girl whose
brain it is starts going amok and they have got to 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 you 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 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 two 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 a great story because I think for
two years and again somebody in the internet will correct me on that I think for two years they the
if inside out Amy polar played Joy and I forget the name of the actress I think something Smith
Lois Smith maybe played sadness and as 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 not coalescing
because when they went back and I think they had child psychologists and nerds
neuro neuroscientists come to talk to them they realized that the opposite of joy is in 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 then the movie then the movie
kind of found its way and took off so a comic premise is some impossible in in in the comic
heroes journey book I call it WTF what the [What The] something something happens that is either
impossible a guy wakes up the same day over and over again that's impossible or improbable
a a woman decides to go to her Best Friend's Wedding in order to destroy it
you know mostly you're you're 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 so impossible 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 because Groundhog Day happens in a small town
that small town 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 the love interest the magical object desire and everybody else in the town
because 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 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 note saying how does this happen I
don't believe 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 against his better judgment he put in the character of Stephanie who's into Ouija
boards and crystals and she was dumped by Bill Murray's character and so she puts a curse on him
so think about it groundhog if 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 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 then doesn't
that diminish the 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 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 worked if Rita had been the Arrogant selfish one and the
Bill Murray character Phil was it yeah had been this kind sort of gentle man could have still have
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'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 want 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.