Customer Reviews

Writing the Comedy Film: Make 'em Laugh

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Writing the Comedy by Stuart Voytilla and Scott Petri is an excellent primer on how to pen screenplays that make us laugh. The authors' exploration into the nature of tragedy's flip-side gives away all comedy's secrets, concluding that the rules to creating good comedy, through the basic tenets of conflict, character development, plotting and story premise, apply to drama too. So look at the book as a two for one package on how to write masterful screenplays of any genre.

This book isn't funny! It's the real deal. I found many, many important and little-known tips for writing comedy for film (and television) in "Writing the Comedy Film". I was especially grateful for the detailed and clear discussion of the differences between writing the teen comedy, the romantic comedy, the fish-out-of-water comedy script, the black comedy, and so on.
Also valuable are the descriptions of well-known screenwriters' varied styles of writing comedy, along with excerpts from their screenplays to illustrate those differences. Reading this book will have you laughing...all the way to the bank!
-Elizabeth English

Writing the Comedy Film by Stuart Voytilla and Scott Petri is such an amazing book. I am the President of Shriekfest, The Los Angeles International Film Festival and Screenplay Competition, so we see many scripts come through our doors. I am not a writer myself, but I do know that many writers should adhere to the rules that Stuart and Scott have laid out. They tell you what comedy is, how it works, the rules of writing comedy, and how to write every single type of comedy out there. They break it down into simple rules, it's so well written, it makes me want to take up writing myself. What I liked the most was that they refer to comedies that we have all seen. So, if you need help writing the fish out of water comedy, the romantic comedy, the sports comedy, the crime comedy, the military comedy, the teen comedy, the farce, or the black comedy this is your book. They break each one of these comedies down, by telling you what each one needs and how to lay it all out. I was really impressed by this book.

Stuart Voytilla is primarily known as a specialist of the Hero's Journey theory of screenwriting, so to see him collaborate on a book focussing writing comedy film is somewhat surprising. As was to be expected, the aforementioned paradigm is the structural model used in the book. Voytilla and Petri delve into what it takes to write a successful comedy screenplay, and they start off with the absolutely essential basics: finding a comic voice, and the physics of comedy. These consist of three elements: comic distance (if you're emotionally involved, it's not funny), surprise and suspense, and the rule of three. They also discern 6 tenets which are present in every comedy: truth, deception, conviction, conflict, wish-fulfilment and worst fear, and chaos. After covering these primal building blocks, they then go into a lengthy discussion of the different comedy genres, and the structural approach specific to each. They differentiate between 10 genres, ranging from the fish-out-of-water tale to the mockumentary. Unfortunately, these genre discussions are fairly brief and less interesting than one might think. The structural elements are generally applicable to every subgenre, so the reader doesn't really get enough of a sense of their uniqueness. Moreover, at least one subgenre is too generic and overlaps with several others (the ensemble comedy). The first half of the book gives good advice on the basics of comedy, but on the whole it is somewhat lacking on the level of providing actual gag-developing techniques. As a whole, a book stronger on analysis than on practical application.

This book may not inspire you to come up with the greatest comedy blockbuster idea. But it will certainly tell you why your stories aren't working, and what's wrong with your script. The authors have a very good idea about how comedy works. And regarding how scarce are the books written about comedy screenwriting, this book becomes very valuable. One thing that I loved about the book was that they didn't try to cram it with a 100 pages about hero's journey/syd field paradigm structure explanations.The only drawback was the chapter about comic stories and their structure. It could've been better, covering more and more sub-genres of comedy and using more examples, including deeper analysis of more contemporary comedies, such as those of Wes Anderson, Edgar Wright, and Coen Brothers.

I would give this book 2.5, but you can't give half stars. It had to be 2 rather than 3, because I think all the other reviews are written by the writer's mates. The book has some value, but is poorly structure, spends too much time talking about standard screenwriting form and illustrates points inadequately pointing to only a few films to make each point.

I was very impressed by Stuart Voytilla's Myth and the Movies: Discovering the mythic structure of 50 unforgettable films and I was excited to see that he also had a book that he co-authored on comedy in film. The book is well arranged, and if you are willing to engage the text honestly--meaning you have to watch the films that are referenced in the text--the book is quite helpful for comedy writers or people who just want a better understanding of how and why comedy works.

How do you teach someone to be funny? I mean, can you teach someone to be 6 feet tall? One might think either you are - or you aren't.

So I approached this book with caution, in particular after reading the dreadful 'Comedy Writing' by Josefberg. To my surprise, 'Writing The Comedy Film' is excellent and actually seems to distill the essence, the science of comedy. And rather than being a treatise on how to tell jokes, it's foundation is in solid narrative and character. As a plus, it makes NO reference to sitcoms... this is about movies, folks.

Perhaps the only downside is that some of the films referenced - like the potty-humor remake of The Nutty Professor - are not exactly high points of film. This seems unnecessary when there are so many great comedies to choose from.

On a interesting side note, the book helped me better understand scripts I've already written. Sometimes they were funny, other times they weren't (often painfully so). I have a clearer understanding why.

Great book, highly recommended.

PS - ignore moron:forest review below. While many product reviews on Amazon are flooded with fake 5-star reviews, I doubt that's the case here since the reviews are pretty evenly distributed between 2 and 5 stars.

It is difficult to have faith in a book on comedy that is so painfully unfunny.