Whammie-size it

Higgins · Apr 14, 2008

I just checked and I have only two whammies (unexpected people in Oriental Pupperty at 26 minutes and elderly archaelogist on bicycle collides
with love-sick student at 53 minutes) in my first hour.

Should I scale up a few other incidents to whammie-size them or scale down the whammies to make the whole first hour one rock-solid whammie of sold shock-adillo?

CACTUSWENDY · Apr 14, 2008

Know nothing of this art.....so, what did you just say?

Oh well, I have popcorn for you anyway....

kullervo · Apr 14, 2008

Well, what movie are you writing? Are you writing an action movie, in which case a whammy is a big action sequence with unique filmic elements? Or are you writing a comedy, in which a whammy is a comedic sequence with unique filmic elements? Note that a whammy is rarely just a "wham" that takes an instant. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end all its own.

It's almost never a good idea to merely inflate an existing element. A reader can tell that you've done it, and it feels strained. Reference, well, most any big studio movie from the last ten years.

Higgins · Apr 14, 2008

kullervo said:
Well, what movie are you writing? Are you writing an action movie, in which case a whammy is a big action sequence with unique filmic elements? Or are you writing a comedy, in which a whammy is a comedic sequence with unique filmic elements? Note that a whammy is rarely just a "wham" that takes an instant. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end all its own.

It's almost never a good idea to merely inflate an existing element. A reader can tell that you've done it, and it feels strained. Reference, well, most any big studio movie from the last ten years.

I was worried about inflating.

Comedy. Or more exactly Sex farce with a few collisions and even some Romance. So...in a comedy, a whammie is a small (say 1/2 to 2 1/2 minutes?) comedic element that builds satisfyingly and then releases. I guess I have a fair number of those so...suddenly I'm not as worried about whammies.

Thanks for enlightening me. Comedy sort of lives and dies by proper inflatory and deflatory techniques hence the importance of not inflating any whammies at all except for comic effect.

NikeeGoddess · Apr 14, 2008

honestly i don't know how you can expect us to answer this question. we don't even know your story. anyhoo - i have some advice:
get a hard copy of a comedy script (similar to one you want to write)
get the dvd of that comedy script
watch and read simultaneously
every time you hear or see a whammie - mark it on the page
then go back and count how many there were and how often they come

preyer · Apr 14, 2008

i'm an idiot. what exactly is a whammy (not that the word itself shouldn't be all the context clues i need, but just for the sake of me knowing...)? can you give me some examples, please?

Whammie-size it

Higgins

CACTUSWENDY

An old, sappy, and happy one.

kullervo

minion

Higgins

NikeeGoddess

preyer

excessively spartan