[HN Gopher] Things I learnt doing stand-up comedy
___________________________________________________________________
Things I learnt doing stand-up comedy
Author : NesquikMike
Score : 160 points
Date : 2022-08-11 11:43 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (michaelgv.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (michaelgv.uk)
| linsomniac wrote:
| Dick Van Dyke show: "Ask me what the most important thing is
| about comedy." "What's the most import..." "Timing."
| nsxwolf wrote:
| I've been interested in trying out standup in Meta Horizon Worlds
| - there's a bunch of comedy clubs you can visit. So far it hasn't
| really panned out as nobody is really seriously trying when I
| happen to visit. People go on stage and don't really do standup,
| and nobody pays attention.
| ed wrote:
| Zoom open mics are a thing, if you're looking to practice
| https://jokezoom.com/online-comedy-open-mics
| JackFr wrote:
| I went to college with a guy who ended up being a successful
| stand-up (multiple Netflix specials - level). He wasn't terribly
| funny in college - his brother was much, much funnier. Also
| watching his first bits on TV - first late night basic cable,
| then Letterman and Leno and then eventually his specials, he was
| not good at first and he was not a natural.
|
| My big takeaway from that was that comedy, like many, many things
| is a skill that can be improved on with hard work. Undoubtedly
| there is some element of innate talent, but it is far less than I
| would have imagined before.
| bradlys wrote:
| Comedy is also like other things - you may be good at it but it
| doesn't mean you want to turn it into a career.
|
| I've been asked at times if I had ever considered standup or
| doing some kind of comedy or joining in on things - but I am
| funny because I want to entertain people I like, not strangers.
| When I tell stories or bits to strangers to get a laugh - I
| don't really get the same sense of pleasure out of it as I do
| with a group of friends.
|
| I've considered being more intentional and getting very good at
| comedy but in some ways - I like the uncoordinated trial and
| error.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Not a Higgins brother, was it? I went to school with Mike.
| JackFr wrote:
| Jim Gaffigan.
| awb wrote:
| I believe that. Watching his specials is like watching
| someone who's trying really hard to be funny and
| occasionally brute forces a laugh. He doesn't come across
| as a naturally funny person like some other comics do.
| ralfd wrote:
| > his brother was much, much funnier
|
| The ultimate victory in intra-sibling competition: Grinding
| comedy until you have a Netflix stand-up special and your
| naturally funny wise-cracking brother doesn't.
| nborwankar wrote:
| Did a similar 6 week class in standup many many years ago.
|
| Two major things I learned were
|
| a) you have to get the audience hooked in the first 20-30 secs or
| it gets much harder. Best example Emo Philips opening with "You
| know it's really hard when you have to kill a family member
| because they are the devil. <Pause for laughter>. Other that it's
| been a great day". Now that's a hook :-)
|
| b) the concept of "laughs per minute" - ie there is a certain
| rate at which the laughs become self sustaining. It's 3-4 laughs
| per minute. If you can keep that up for 2 mins the audience is in
| a state of laughter that keeps getting more and more intense. If
| you do less than 2 laughs a minute the energy drops between each
| laugh and you have to work really hard to bring it back to level.
| Key is to maintain a rate that results in a high ambient level of
| hilarity bordering with at least a couple of people cackling
| loudly and losing it.
|
| Nevertheless when you do a successful set you feel like Superman
| when you walk off the stage.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| In the section "Don't Underestimate the Ruthless Competitiveness
| of Your Peers", I had a totally different takeaway. I think it's
| entirely possible that a set which kills _among comedians_ may
| fall flat to a general audience.
| NesquikMike wrote:
| Author here, you're right that this can happen.
| pessimizer wrote:
| I take a view that is pretty close to my HN username. Comedy is
| about pointing out weakness, and laughing is a reflex that you
| have when you recognize prey. PC comedy is about self-
| deprecation, where you pretend to be prey yourself in order to
| stimulate the audiences hunting instinct, rather than telling
| stories about prey or picking members of the audience to make
| look like prey.
|
| The humor is in the hyperbole about how weak the prey is. The
| setup of a joke sets people up as a familiar level of prey, and
| the punchline is about someone (or everyone) in the joke being
| far weaker than you could have predicted. The punchline in this
| joke is about Jimmy Carr being stupid in a way that you wouldn't
| imagine someone could actually be.
| teddyh wrote:
| Some of the more ancient philosophers might agree with you, but
| most don't.
|
| https://existentialcomics.com/comic/355
| noSyncCloud wrote:
| This seems rather reductive, honestly. What about anti-humor?
| That's still comedy. What about math jokes?
| pessimizer wrote:
| I don't know what anti-humor is, but I'm a big fan of Neil
| Hamburger. The joke is that he's a terrible comedian who also
| has a bad temper and a bad personal life.
| altruios wrote:
| This does not resonate with me. I think this is more indicative
| of your internal psychology than any psychology of humor.
|
| It sounds to me like you think in terms of prey and predator as
| a default metaphor: which informs me of how I should handle you
| as an agent - carefully.
|
| If you reduce everything to animalistic tendencies - you start
| reacting that way: then people start treating you that way
| based on your actions... self fulfilling prophecy.
|
| You might want to update you mental model of comedy - or
| provide a significantly more cogent argument for your view, as
| it was far from convincing - and frankly worrisome.
|
| All in all it sounds like you are telling us how you respond to
| people you perceive as prey... which is... concerning that you
| view ANY human as prey...
| pessimizer wrote:
| Every comment in this subthread is fucking weird. Stop making
| up a life for me in your head.
| skrebbel wrote:
| Who's the prey in a good pun?
| rrauenza wrote:
| Not sure who the prey is, but everyone is the victim. :)
| pessimizer wrote:
| Sorry, I laughed. I'm astounded by how much the British
| like puns as opposed to Americans. I've heard British
| audiences audibly gasp at the high quality of a pun, like
| it took their breaths away.
|
| Reductively I'd say the prey is the audience in that case,
| for not being smart enough to see it coming. The best puns
| are heavily telegraphed yet somehow totally unpredictable.
| They're clever mirrorings of things everyone is already
| familiar with, but still didn't see coming.
| gattilorenz wrote:
| So... Prey tell?
|
| Bad puns aside, there's many theories in the scientific
| literature (from cognitive psychology, linguistics and AI)
| that describe the mechanisms of puns (and many other types of
| jokes, really), and they mostly talk about deviations from a
| script/subverting expectations and norms (Hanks' theory of
| norms)/accessing a non-default interpretation that is
| different from the default one (Giora's optimal innovation
| hypothesis).
|
| For the interested reader, i suggest starting with Raskin htt
| ps://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110198492...
| pessimizer wrote:
| I don't think that unexpected things are necessarily funny.
| Unexpected stupidity or weakness is funny. Unexpected
| cancer isn't funny. To make it funny, you have to make
| someone stupid.
| ineptech wrote:
| This doesn't sound even a little right to me. That punchline is
| based on inversion of expectations, not self-deprecation.
| Certainly there seems to be some connection between laughter
| and an interrupted defense mechanism, but your version of it
| ("laughing is a reflex that you have when you recognize prey")
| doesn't make much sense. Why would we need a mechanism to avoid
| biting prey?
|
| It would be much more plausibly viewed as a mechanism to avoid
| fighting rivals. As in: monkey A steals monkey B's banana, and
| monkey B bares his teeth to attack, but then, recognizing that
| monkey A is bigger and will kill him, monkey B evolves the
| behavior of laughing instead, as a way to dissipate the
| aggression and avoid a fight he will lose. Later, lower-status
| monkeys use humor as a way to gain status, because since
| laughter is equivalent to not-fighting, you can win or avoid a
| fight with a higher-status monkey by making him laugh.
|
| That sounds a lot more believable, and it kinda-sorta comports
| with observation (e.g. it maps very neatly to medieval jesters
| getting away with making jokes about the King, or schoolyard
| bullying victims 'winning' if they can get the crowd laughing
| at the bully). But it's still a just-so story about
| evolutionary behavior, and by definition suspect as those are
| famously easy to gin up.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > That punchline is based on inversion of expectations, not
| self-deprecation.
|
| The expectation is that Jimmy Carr is of normal intelligence
| and awareness. The joke that he is making is that he is not.
|
| I don't buy the monkey story because laughing isn't generally
| defensive. If somebody attacks you and you laugh, they will
| attack you harder. To defend yourself with laughter, you
| point at a third-party and laugh, so maybe they'll think the
| third party is weaker than you.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| > The expectation is that Jimmy Carr is of normal
| intelligence and awareness. The joke that he is making is
| that he is not.
|
| I'm pretty sure the joke is that you aren't going to get
| much done in "a moment" of Cancer Research.
|
| Not that he's too stupid to do the research. He could be
| the world's foremost expert on Cancer Research and the joke
| is still funny.
| jackblemming wrote:
| You're welcome to your interpretation. You're right because
| it's your perspective and reality, but you should know, most
| people don't think this way and it may have negative long term
| effects on your life and health.
| pessimizer wrote:
| That's condescending.
| bozhark wrote:
| and true
| pessimizer wrote:
| It's true that people on the internet can't have light
| conversations about the nature of comedy without larping
| as psychologists, diagnosing people over the internet as
| severely damaged for having an opinion that they disagree
| with. We should really be able to have grown-up
| conversations without attempting to disqualify each
| other.
| hollasch wrote:
| That's a very good observation.
| jackblemming wrote:
| Do you have any suggestions on how to write it in a less
| condescending tone?
| bluGill wrote:
| That is one type of humor, and it does get great laughs when
| done well. However it also backfire getting you run out of
| town.
|
| Notice that most of the examples of humor in this discussion
| are not that type.
| pessimizer wrote:
| I'd argue that they all are. The target of every joke is
| someone painted as comically inept or weak. The only ways to
| subvert that is to aim it at yourself (which endears you to
| people), to aim it at the audience (which makes the audience
| feel that you are superior to them), or to aim it at the
| world in general (which makes you and the audience comrades
| against a stupid world.)
| theluketaylor wrote:
| That's a specific type of expectation confounding that comes from
| a dangling modifier. English is particularly good at creating
| these types of sentences and it leads to some of my very
| favourite jokes.
|
| If the lady had said "Can you spare a few minutes to discuss
| supporting cancer research" there isn't any ambiguity in the
| sentence and then no joke.
|
| Community used these to great effect. For example:
|
| Britta: Yep, I'm getting serious. I got a backpack, got a new
| notebook. Oh, I got one of those see-through yellow pens so I can
| do that thing where you colour in the words.
|
| Shirley: Highlight?
|
| Britta: Probably the backpack.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| My favourite joke from Community:
|
| I thought you got your degree online from Colombia?
|
| Yes, but they want a _real_ degree from _America_
| rospaya wrote:
| This one might be the most appropriate since it's a joke
| about jokes - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMT7MAnJna8
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| Columbia, not Colombia. That's the joke
| [deleted]
| InCityDreams wrote:
| >"Can you spare a few minutes to discuss supporting cancer
| research"
|
| Sure, I've left my two young kids and a puppy in a locked and
| closed car and it's a very, very, very hot day and I have 3
| important things to do...can you?
|
| /FB cap doff, of course.
| [deleted]
| lgessler wrote:
| Hm, is this really a dangling modifier? Something's a dangling
| modifier when its modificand is unexpressed or ambiguous, but
| "for cancer research" has a clear modificand, the noun phrase
| headed by "minutes".
|
| Rather, I think this is just some ambiguity about what the "few
| minutes" are for.
| simonw wrote:
| I'm fascinated by stand-up comedy. I took a course a couple of
| years ago (online thanks to the pandemic) and it was so, so much
| harder than I expected it to be! By the end of the course I was
| nowhere near having a "tight five" that I was ready to perform in
| public.
|
| I've continued to pay attention to it since, and it really is
| amazing how much skill and preparation it takes to put together
| anything that even comes close to being a decent performance.
|
| Great stand-up comedians have inevitably spent hours of time
| refining every sentence that comes out of their mouths, despite
| their delivery sounding entirely natural and unrehearsed.
| bambax wrote:
| Just yesterday night I went to a comedy club in Paris that does
| standup comedy in English. It was an "improv special" where
| each comic has to improvise jokes based on random prompts
| displayed on a screen with a projector.
|
| T.J. Miller, of Silicon Valley fame, does it successfully in
| this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxD6S-nEL_I
|
| But yesterday, most comics bombed badly; out of 8, just one was
| actually good, and one passable; the others were terrible. But
| it's an incredibly difficult exercise, so much so that one has
| to wonder why you would put yourself through this.
|
| It's certainly true that comedy is about writing and rehearsal
| and being analytical and having a fun look at the world; but
| it's also about quick wit, especially if one wants to interact
| with the audience.
| toyg wrote:
| /bitch-mode on
|
| They do this in Paris precisely _because_ they bomb - if they
| were any good, they 'd be making money in an actual English-
| speaking country...
|
| /bitch-mode off
| mikebridgman wrote:
| Where did you take the online course?
| simonw wrote:
| It was with Stanford continuing education.
| bink wrote:
| I used to go see Carlin perform every August in Vegas. He was
| almost always working on new stuff and carrying a clipboard
| around with various jokes. It was really interesting to then
| watch his specials and see how the material developed.
| [deleted]
| Melting_Harps wrote:
| > I used to go see Carlin perform every August in Vegas. He
| was almost always working on new stuff and carrying a
| clipboard around with various jokes. It was really
| interesting to then watch his specials and see how the
| material developed.
|
| Was this in his early days, or his darker rant days?
|
| Even in his darker period he was still a crafty orator, using
| rhyming, cadence and tonality so well.
|
| He discusses this in many interviews over the years and many
| which were shown in is documentary. What's even crazier to
| think is that he was kind of a recluse and an introverted
| person, which is insane considering how much of a wildman he
| was for most of his career.
| bink wrote:
| It was over the course of 10 years or so and I got to see
| the slow decline, sadly. His final years had really very
| few jokes (at least in Vegas).
| solarmist wrote:
| Interesting. This sounds exactly like what's been happening
| with me trying to get down talking about my startup.
| simonw wrote:
| I tweeted a thing the other day about how there are
| surprising parallels between stand-up comedy and coming up
| with good questions for interviewing job candidates. In both
| cases there's a lot to be said for thinking VERY hard about
| the exact wording you are using, and the way in which the
| material is delivered.
| https://twitter.com/simonw/status/1556277081691959296
| germinalphrase wrote:
| I've taught at the high school level for about ten years.
| The mental process is familiar. I may teach the same lesson
| several times in a day, but there are constant alterations
| to pacing/phrasing depending on specific students in the
| room/time of day/personal assessment of how earlier
| phrasing landed/etc
| JabavuAdams wrote:
| Teaching is a kind of performance. I love that part. I
| need to get better at the marking/admin.
| gotmedium wrote:
| If you like standup comedy you should watch the french standup
| comedy series from Netflix! Amazing cast and great throughout
|
| https://www.netflix.com/fr/Title/81233911
| janandonly wrote:
| "Monday, Tuesday, Banana". The first two components, which create
| an expectation, are the set-up; and, the third that confounds the
| expectation is the payoff, or the punchline.
|
| To take an example from Jimmy Carr. A lady with
| a clipboard stopped me in the street the other day. She
| said, "Can you spare a few minutes for Cancer Research?"
| I said, "All right, but we're not going to get much done."
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| It's called the "rule of three". 2 examples to define a trend
| line, and the 3rd one to subvert expectations.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_three_(writing)#Comedy
| altdataseller wrote:
| I'm dumb.. what's the punchline in that joke?
| Joeboy wrote:
| "Can you spare a few minutes for Cancer Research?" is a thing
| people say when they're trying to get you to donate to cancer
| research charities. Jimmy interprets it instead as meaning
| she wants him to spend a few minutes doing actual cancer
| research himself (which would be unlikely to be very
| productive).
| SuperCuber wrote:
| The lady meant to spare a few minutes to talk about cancer
| research, the punchline is misinterpreting that as a
| suggestion to do actual cancer research
| orionion wrote:
| > A lady with a clipboard stopped me in the street the other
| day. She said, "Can you spare a few minutes for Cancer
| Research?" I said, "All right, breast is fine - but I draw th
| line at colorectal on the first date."
| neonate wrote:
| Your comment is nothing but a quote from the article. Why?
| simonw wrote:
| Much respect for sharing a video!
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6miCy-nmXIY
|
| I /really/ like that opener: "My favourite London bus is the 24".
| NesquikMike wrote:
| Haha thanks for linking!
| curiousgal wrote:
| It gave me a good chuckle. Bravo!
| lisper wrote:
| Made me laugh! :-)
| ozim wrote:
| Decent set :)
| [deleted]
| stomczyk09 wrote:
| I love point 7 of "let the audience laugh". I can totally see
| this being a pain point of not having a pause before your next
| joke. Pausing and silence is so powerful and is also exhibited in
| sales calls, and can drive suspense to the next joke or even a
| joke you're in the middle of
| presidentender wrote:
| I've been doing standup for just shy of 5 years. I started with a
| similar class, attended a lot of open mics, hosted several of my
| own mics, and produced shows. With covid I left SF and came back
| to Montana, which might seem like it would be bad for a comedy
| career, but in many ways it's easier to make headway here. The
| Punchline and Cobb's have so many eager comics that they can pick
| and choose and it's difficult to stand out. Here I'm a biggish
| fish in a teeny pond; I can rent a theater and fill it and make
| hundreds of dollars instead of the $25 I could hope for from
| shows in the city.
|
| Of course sometimes you're still looking at empty rooms and empty
| tip jars or no ticket sales, but most of the time, I get to tell
| more jokes to a larger number of people and get more money at
| each show working in flyover country.
| rcurry wrote:
| True story: A few days back my wife and I were doing Wordle. I
| could tell the answer was "RUSTY", her pet name for me. So I told
| her the answer was sitting right next to her and she says "No,
| STUPID is six letters."
| wonder_er wrote:
| This was a great read! I had a planned sabbaticle from work,
| scheduled to start in April, 2020, and I planned on
| studying/practicing standup at a local comedy place in Denver.
| Covid blew a hole in that, obviously, and I've not done it.
|
| This all reminds me of a paper I've read, and think about
| regularly. The author, or others, might be interested. I've
| posted notes and a link to the paper here:
|
| https://josh.works/driven-by-compression-progress-novelty-hu...
|
| The argument is something like "when our expectations are
| subverted, and new visible order snaps into view, we feel
| satisfied and interested". Curiosity and expectation seems to
| play a large role in humor and standup.
|
| Thanks for this article, Michael! I've subscribed via RSS! I am
| thankful to have found your website.
| NesquikMike wrote:
| Thanks! :D
|
| Really like the quote and your website. I've had a good play
| around with your "find a random blogger from Hacker News"
| project.
| corytheboyd wrote:
| Was it Rise Comedy? I did the standup 101 class, it was a good
| time! I had fun with my showcase but definitely decided it
| wasn't for me. Totally recommend doing it, performing on an
| open mic for the first time(s) is such a wild experience that
| you won't get anywhere else :)
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| Good read though the linked performance fell rather flat - it
| seem to be almost preternaturally obsessed with London bus
| routes, you would have to have an excellent set of diamond
| pickaxes to mine any worthwhile material from that particular
| domain and most of it barely warranted a chuckle from myself.
|
| The self congratulatory estimating himself as one of the worst
| performers but coming out as one of the top three was a little
| hamfisted, and if that was honestly the case... I cannot even
| imagine what the other comedians used for material... a list of
| ones favorite mosaic bathroom tile patterns perhaps?
|
| Comedy feels like writing, if you need to take a course it's
| probably just not for you.
| labster wrote:
| Agreed, bus lines aren't nearly as funny as subway lines:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mornington_Crescent_(game)
| simonw wrote:
| If you don't think that was an impressive _first-time_
| performance from a comic you are massively under-estimating how
| difficult this is.
| ncr100 wrote:
| Somewhere I learned that comedy is about surprise.
| jrm4 wrote:
| I read somewhere that literally all humor stems from
| "incompatible frames of reference" and I thought that was
| interesting.
| sonofhans wrote:
| Frank Herbert said, "Laughter is a human reaction to non-
| lethal surprise."
| SeanLuke wrote:
| And he should know! The Dune series was so, so funny.
| butterknife wrote:
| Muad'Dib we call instructor of boys.
| moviewise wrote:
| Because being surprised is funny.
|
| This is the best way to get a laugh:
|
| "You show the fat lady approaching; then you show the banana
| peel; then you show the fat lady and the banana peel together;
| then she steps over the banana peel and disappears down a
| manhole."
|
| --Charlie Chaplin
|
| Laughter is the reaction to being surprised in a safe
| environment.
|
| From:
|
| https://moviewise.substack.com/p/the-funniest-movie-scene
| strict9 wrote:
| What is it about threes?
|
| - The rule of thirds for visual imagery [1]
|
| - Three-act structure for storytelling and plays [2]
|
| - Three-part setup for stand up comedy [this article]
|
| Rules for content often fall into a rule of threes, and I'd love
| to know why.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds
|
| 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-act_structure
| NesquikMike wrote:
| Mathematically the minimum number of elements necessary for a
| pattern is three.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > Mathematically the minimum number of elements necessary for
| a pattern is three.
|
| An assertion about mathematics requires a definition, and I
| don't believe this one for the usual definition of 'pattern'.
| For example, if I wanted to exhibit a linear pattern, two
| data points would be sufficient.
|
| (But we're not talking about mathematical constructs anyway,
| so it's not clear what the relevance of mathematics is.)
| guhidalg wrote:
| 2 points establishes local linearity, not global linearity.
| f(x) = x^2 looks linear if you take any 2 arbitrary xs, add
| a third and you can no longer draw one line that intersects
| all 3 points.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > 2 points establishes local linearity, not global
| linearity. f(x) = x^2 looks linear if you take any 2
| arbitrary xs, add a third and you can no longer draw one
| line that intersects all 3 points.
|
| Yes, certainly. And 3 points can show you a pattern that
| looks quadratic but isn't, and so on. More to the point,
| 3 points can _rule out_ a claim of linearity, but they
| also cannot _demonstrate_ a claim of linearity (e.g., you
| can usually find 3 collinear points on the graph of a
| cubic). My point was not to make a mathematical claim
| myself, but rather to argue that the claim "the minimum
| number of elements necessary for a pattern is three" is
| so vague to, I think, be nearly meaningless--and, in
| particular, unfalsifiable; in my mind, it doesn't deserve
| the adverb "mathematically".
| guhidalg wrote:
| In that I agree. Maybe a better word is "normally" as in
| "normally don't assume a pattern until you see 3 of them"
| whoooooo123 wrote:
| Only on HN could a comment thread devolve from "light
| observation on the nature of comedy" to "arguing about
| the nature of linearity in mathematical equations" in 6
| comments.
| latexr wrote:
| The three-act structure and the three-part setup are the same
| thing. You establish the premise, build-up the concept, then
| provide a payoff. "It's as easy as 1, 2, 3".
|
| What's the simplest way to represent most stories? You draw a
| line. It goes from point A to point B, start to finish, where
| the characters begin and where they end. There's a whole lot of
| "middle" there too. What a coincidence, act two tends to be the
| longer one! Again, "1, 2, 3".
|
| How about the simplest way to count to (say) start a race? "Go"
| is unpredictable; "Ready, Go" is barely better; "Ready, Set,
| Go" gives you a clear cadence. 1, 2, 3. Beginning, middle, end.
|
| As for images: humans are symmetrical with two eyes, we
| naturally divide the picture into two sides so you wouldn't be
| impressed by a "rule of halves". A rule of thirds is no more
| than a grid, one where there are clear sides and a middle to
| the image. A rule of fifths would also work, as would a five-
| act structure (which is a thing).
|
| Three is the smallest number to which you can reduce a lot of
| concepts by establishing a pattern.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > Rules for content often fall into a rule of threes, and I'd
| love to know why.
|
| I would like explicitly to appreciate your choice to give 3
| examples.
| runevault wrote:
| People inherently pattern match everything, looking for how it
| fits their worldview. Three points either lets you see the
| pattern and see everything fits it, or gives you enough setup
| to create payoff.
|
| If you only do single setup plus payoff the audience may
| instead try to make the two fit together. If you give them two
| points of reference, it allows them to prebuild an assumed
| pattern with less work from the story/music/whatever for you to
| either play within or subvert.
|
| An example of using just two to build patterns in the audience
| (but doesn't give a chance to subvert expectations per se) is
| cutting between shots in movies. The audience inherently tries
| to deduce the meaning of going from one image to a second.
| David Mamet has a great book, 'On Directing Film', that is not
| very long and talks about the shot transition version of this
| in great detail. You can use the ideas there and expand it to
| three to get into the ideas I've talked about above.
| paulpauper wrote:
| It does not need to be three. It can be: set-up and then the
| punchline
| whoooooo123 wrote:
| Or less.
|
| Jimmy Carr says that the shortest joke he's ever written is
| two words: dwarf shortage.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Well for comedy its patterns. You hear something once and its
| just a thing, the second time you hear it you remember the
| first time and you might chuckle, the third time your brain
| recognizes it as a pattern and building off the first two times
| you heard it and its, "funny".
|
| I'm over simplifying but that is really the basis of a lot of
| comedy. Stand up less so. Most improv runs on the rule of
| threes though. It's an easy way to make something not funny at
| least a little funny.
|
| Try it in a meeting or presentation sometime. Start with some
| goofy line or joke. Mention it again in the middle. Close with
| it. You'll probably get laughs. Even if its not that funny and
| got crickets the first time.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| 80/20 in sports, and a few other things.
| mike10921 wrote:
| Back in the day, I used to frequent Comedy Cellar and I was there
| multiple times when Chris Rock was trying out his material in
| order to decide which jokes he would later use with his larger
| audiences.
| morley wrote:
| IIRC when Rock tries out material, he deliberately speaks in a
| dull monotone. He's such a great performer that if he uses his
| normal standup instincts, he can get laughs off of weak
| material.
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