how do i think of a funny concept?

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jaus tail

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Hi, at my new job, I need to think of a funny concept for a short film. One example which they gave was, 'if technology was given to guys in Flintstones age.'

How do you write funny scripts?
How do you think of funny scripts? Where do you get the ideas from? Any advice...
 

dclary

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Hi, at my new job, I need to think of a funny concept for a short film. One example which they gave was, 'if technology was given to guys in Flintstones age.'

How do you write funny scripts?
How do you think of funny scripts? Where do you get the ideas from? Any advice...

Think about the types of humor that are out there, and then riff those against common, non-funny elements. The best comedy twists reality with just enough force to make it surprising, and in the surprise, you find laughs.

As an example, my one-gag website that went up this weekend:

http://ibola.us.



But you can go through each comedy element. Pair it to something you wouldn't expect to have that comedy element, and go.

Slapstick. Paired with Robotics. Boom! Inspector Gadget.
Absurdism. Paired with the Napoleonic wars: Crash! The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Parody. Paired with Mass Murders and Horror: Sound of my heart! Scary Movie

Comedy is the hardest of all scripts to write. You have to work it onto the page, if you want to find it on the page.
 

Jaycinth

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Hi, at my new job, I need to think of a funny concept for a short film. One example which they gave was, 'if technology was given to guys in Flintstones age.'

How do you write funny scripts?
How do you think of funny scripts? Where do you get the ideas from? Any advice...

Nothing is funny.

Everything is serious.

Example: A man is unloading cream pies from his truck just as I am walking down the street on my way to a job interview. I have a new $100 hair style and my best suit on.

...Then I walk right into the pie man. I get cream pies all over myself.

Example: I'm getting married. I'm getting pictures talks with all the brides maids in our gowns. The gowns are pale pink silk. We are on a gazebo over the pond at the Wedding venue. All at once a big goose rushes us and one of the brides maids panics and we all wind up in the pond...ruining our dresses....


Two serious situations....seriously NOT FUNNY.....

or are they?


Lady walking down the street, dressed to the nines, yapping away on a cell phone and doesn't see the cream pie man...and walks right into him--- and is now doing a 'Lucille Ball' imitation ...wiping the cream pies off of her face. (well.. that's hilarious!)


Bridezilla wants the perfect wedding photo and she wants it over water. And she has bullied and prodded and gotten everyone together on a platform that is supposed to be off limits. All it takes is one angry goose and someone steps on the wrong board and everyone winds up in the water. Memorable picture. (And it is hilarious!)


Things are funny in the context of ridiculousness.

Take something mundane, and make it ridiculous.
 

ewong

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Hi, at my new job, I need to think of a funny concept for a short film. One example which they gave was, 'if technology was given to guys in Flintstones age.'

How do you write funny scripts?
How do you think of funny scripts? Where do you get the ideas from? Any advice...

I believe it's dependent on your target audience.

Think of how standup comedians/comediennes work. They
take all these real-life issues and impart some sort of
slant to them. People still relate to these issues, so they'd
find it funny. Those who don't relate to these issues, won't.
(Like stand-ups poking fun at married couples and their
daily routines. If you're married, you'd relate. If you're
not, while you can empathize, you might not find it funny.)

So you'd really have to determine your target audience first, then find situations which your target audience would find
funny.

Just my $0.02.
 

ToonedInWriter

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Hi, at my new job, I need to think of a funny concept for a short film. One example which they gave was, 'if technology was given to guys in Flintstones age.'

How do you write funny scripts?
How do you think of funny scripts? Where do you get the ideas from? Any advice...

Writers use various approaches. Mark Twain usually employed an unreliable narrator who was often literal-minded. Statements representing his naive view of the world often deflated the arrogance of other characters. (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a classic example. Twain said, by the way, that he based his novel on Alain-René Lesage's Gil Blas.) In Don Quixote de La Mancha, Miguel Cervantes satirizes chivalry and other knightly codes of conduct by having Don Quixote mistake mundane persons, objects, and events for fantastic ones (windmills, for giants, for example). (In fact, as William Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors title suggests, much humor can derive from various types of mistakes, misinterpretations, and misunderstandings.) Jonathan Swift uses exaggeration and absurd situations to criticize real social problems and moral evils. (His "A Modest Proposal" is a famous example.) George Bernard Shaw juxtaposes the ideal with the real (as does Twain, at times). Erma Bombeck and Bailey White make reasonable claims that they then "support" with absurd examples. In addition, White often depicts eccentric, even grotesque, characters. Much humor results from a narrator's point of view; if the perspective itself is humorous, often the character's statements will also be humorous. A good example of the use of this technique is Shakespeare's Falstaff (King Henry IV, Part I); the humor is an effect of Falstaff's own jaded and self-centered view of life. Not everyone appreciates the humor of Mad magazine or the National Lampoon, as I do, but these publications, nevertheless, can be instructive (although they tend toward visual, rather than verbal, humor). Neil Simon said that he effected humorous plays by creating conflict between characters with completely opposite views and values (think The Odd Couple). As a learning strategy, there is no substitute for reading the actual works of acclaimed humorists, past and present.
 
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Max Vaehling

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Basically, it all comes down to creating contrast. Look at a topic straight, it's not inherently funny. Find a perspective that's somehow twisted, the contrast may make you laugh. Irony is the contrast between what you see and what you're told. absurdity is the contrast between what you see and how the world works. The richest comedy probably comes from contrasting characters and their goals. as in the Neil Simon example. Or characters in contrast to a machinery that's entirely unaware of their goals, as in Modern Times.

Stuff you can try for your topic:
Formulate the opposite and present it as fact.
Find something that is the opposite of what you're trying to show and have it coexist with your thing.
Exagerate. Then exaggerate some more. But6 play it straight.
Make something small big or something huge tiny. (Trump is funny because he's a small-minded guy running for the biggest office. He's also quite big-heraded in attitude which would be funny if he tried to run a lemonade stand.
 

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The first step is that, you should create a humor mood in yourself.
 
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