This project was for being funny. So I tried to be.
A brief explanation of the project is also available at the later half of the video, so if you prefer to listen to my influences and such, you can watch the video through to the end.

I think this video was probably the most daunting task I’ve had at Freestyle, not because it would’ve been the most technically challenging, but because of the fear of people not laughing. For some reason, all the other projects felt like I had an out, like “Oh, I’m new to Photoshop!” or something— but there is something intrinsically terrifying about presenting a video to a dead room, when all that video is meant to do is make people laugh. Go figure.

As far as how I went about writing the script, I started with the concept of doing a stand-up routine, which I ran with for most of the process. I wrote jokes and tried to follow a basic comedic monologue skeleton (particularly following comedians like Jimmy O’Yang and Trevor Noah), using my own humor and things I joke about on the day to day to fill that skeleton in. However, when we were coming up to the day of, I decided to switch gears and make it a recorded performance, since I became more afraid that the jokes wouldn’t land. Making the switch, I decided to add in more elements that couldn’t be done in a live setting, like different characters with different costumes, more seamless prop-assisted jokes, and awkward low-resolution zooms (Likening it more to Fairbairn Films or Nigahiga’s sketch comedy). The actual script worked out pretty well for the video I thought, and I color coded the script so I’d be able to do the shots in order based on costume and camera position.

There is a lot that I could’ve done better— i.e the pacing I think could’ve been a bit more rapid, I wanted to try and get to the jokes faster since I spent too long setting up the anecdotes in my first draft (which created a theoretical coffee shop scene). Aside from that, I also think I’d need a lot more practice on stage and figuring out what kind of jokes are safer, and which are not- I think it’s quite difficult to write a good set, and it seems extremely audience dependent. It’s probably something that makes sense after a good amount of trial and error, to be able to see what is “funny” through the awkwardness of seeing it written rather than performed.

If you would like to see the Humor Project Proposal which I turned in for approval before writing the script, you can click the link. Be warned, it’s quite unprofessional and scatterbrained near the end, which I guess reflects my stability on this project…