Growing up with Adolf Hitler

I know it's politically incorrect, but when I was growing up, my Austrian father (who sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger) would occasionally impersonate Adolf Hitler. He would froth at the mouth, girate his hands in the air and begin a tirade in German, but then he'd always burst out laughing.

To watch these Hitleresque renditions as a kid was the funniest thing.

So when I came across the above video, it took me back to those happy days of Nazi-parody.

I was pleased to see that I'm not the only one who can see the lighter side of Hitler's public performances.

5 rules for managing volunteers at a film shoot

Some people need a good old-fashioned wedgie

I was clearing out old e-mail and I came across this little diatribe I wrote after my involvement in a student film a couple of years ago.

It's good to laugh about it now.

5 rules for managing volunteers at a film shoot

I volunteered to assist a fellow-film student with his shoot over the weekend and it was a good exercise in witnessing how people & time management skills apply equally to film projects.

Here are some rules that every budding director/producer should be aware of:

1. Make sure you know how to operate your camera before the shoot. Hire the camera for a few days before the shoot if you have to.

2. Make sure there's a prepared timetable so that people know what to expect and when they are likely to finish. They have lives outside of your film shoot.

3. Volunteers don't want to hear the struggles you are going through as a creative genious as you decide what shots to take or how you might edit the shots later. They don't care, they just want to shoot the scene and move on.

4. Don't spend hours in idle chit-chat, stick to the timetable. That's why you should have one.

5. Don't expect other people to spend money on your project. Since people are already more than generous in volunteering their time, then don't take advantage of them by expecting or hoping they will also spend their money on things like catering and props. At least offer to reimburse volunteers for every expense they incur for you, even if it's as simple as a battery. Otherwise you can guarantee they won't help you again.

Comedy Structure

Larry David

Early this year, I came across this article in the New Yorker about one of my comedy inspirations - Larry David. See Angry Middle-Aged Man.

A part of the article that grabbed my attention is how he weaves his plots together for his great show, Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Referring to his tattered notebook:

He leafed through the notebook. “Most of the ideas stink,” he said. “But you’d be surprised. See, a lot of these I’ll use, not as a big story but like a little piece of filler. And then all of a sudden it somehow leads into something.”

When the time comes to begin writing the new season, David scans his notebook for possibilities. “He’ll go through the notebook and find three or four stories and extrapolate them to worst-case,” ... “He starts to weave them together. Sometimes you can brainstorm ideas with him—you can even pitch B stories to him. He’s used stories from Larry Charles and me. Cheryl got a story in there. And then he just sits down and sweats it out.”

Larry David is the master of the setup. He places his characters in innocent situations that usually escalate to an unexpected catastrophe. The humor just pours out of those situations because of what the characters have to suffer.

It's the comedic structure that keeps his stories fresh and interesting.

Most stories have an 'inciting incident' that sets the protaganist (main character) on their journey, however Larry David gives his characters multiple inciting incidents so that they get boxed in and can't get out.

The hero in Curb Your Enthusiasm usually doesn't win the prize at the end (but he does in that great restaurant ending episode to season 4), but instead of the hero's loss being upsetting or depressing, it's usually hilarious.

I know his humor doesn't appeal to everyone, but I enjoy how he tackles human suffering seriously, which is fairly typical of American Jewish humor. Larry David clearly stands in that tradition.

He reminds me of that old joke attributed to the ancient Israelites, God's chosen people, "Next time Dear God, please choose someone else."

Hot Writing

Someone hand this man a razor!

I came across this quote today:

"Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience."

~ Henry David Thoreau

It's true - writing is fast and easy when the thoughts are hot.

Too often for me I get ideas in the most inopportune moments.

The trick is setting aside the time for the ideas to heat-up while I'm AT THE KEYBOARD.

So you wanna be in the movies? Make your own!

Don't talk about it, just shoot it

I have the good fortune of being able to make videos for the fine software company I work for, plus I've created some for myself for my own amusement.

I've discovered that "creating content" in audio and video format can be far quicker compared to the laborious task of writing and editing text.

I was going through some old e-mail and found these links that might be helpful for future reference:

• http://www.cartoonsmart.com/ – cartoons and flash
• http://keepvid.com/ - download youtube videos, only saves them as FLV’s though you can encode them into avi’s
• http://www.findsounds.com/ - SFX search engine
• http://www.therecordist.com/pages/downloads.html - free SFX

The most enjoyable part of making video clips for me is adding music and sound effects (sfx), they can add a lot of humor to dry and dusty material.

Why being a bloody idiot doesn't hurt Guy Sebastian

Sorry Guy, you can't please everyone...

Some Catholic friends of mine recently complained that the 2003 Australian Idol winner Guy Sebastian, will be singing his theme song 'Receive the Power' at the World Youth Day in Sydney in 2008.

Their complaints focused on two things that they thought were quite unCatholic about this famous Assembly of God church member. Apparantly, he made some favorable comments about the homosexual lifestyle in a news report last year (so he's a poor role model for Christians), and the other was that even though he is a Christian, he's not Catholic, so this should be enough to disqualify him from participating in the Catholic-run World Youth Day.

Someone asked in exasperation, why are we "having some bloody 'Christian' idiot singing at a Catholic do."

So being suitably irritated by their pointless whinging, here are the TOP 10 Reasons why we are "having some bloody 'Christian' idiot singing at a Catholic do"...

10. Because Catholics can't sing.
9. Because Catholics don't have a 'personality'.
8. Because Catholic 'personalities' have really bad hair dos.
7. Because Guy Sebastian can supply his own band.
6. Because Guy Sebastian's band members can play without needing sheet music.
5. Because Catholic musicians don't know how to tune their guitars.
4. Because the organizers will get a cut of Guy Sebastian's CD sales.
3. Because nobody will buy CDs from a Catholic singer.
2. Because Traditional Catholic hands are too exhausted to hold a microphone from all that hand-wringing.

And the number one reason why we are "having some bloody 'Christian' idiot singing at a Catholic do"...

1. Because all the Catholic idiots were busy.

Mantras for the Improviser – Part I

How do I get out of this one?

Nick Byrne of ACT Impro Theatre has given his students of the Stage 1 Workshop a list of mantras and jargon terms for improvisers that will I put here for easy reference.

It's best to think of these mantras as though you're standing on stage and you have to respond to whatever is going on around you - and you have no idea what's coming next.

It's one thing to think you understand these mantras when you read them, but it's quite another to remember to practice them while in the middle of performing. The only way to really appreciate these mantras is to practice them over and over again with other improvisers.

I'm currently doing the Stage 2 workshop and no matter how complex the games and scenes are getting, I seem to be OK if I stay focused on the moment, with these rules blaring in the back of my mind.

I’LL SAY “YES”!
Ask me, I’ll say “Yes”! I accept what you’re saying. I love what you’re doing. I yield to your wishes. Ask me, I’ll say “Yes”!

WHAT IS IT YOU NEED?
What is it you need? I’m ready and listening and I’m coming to save you. What is it you need? I look good when you look good. What is it you need?

I’LL DO IT!
I might say it. I do do it! I act first and ask questions later. I do do it!

I HAVE SOMETHING TO OFFER
I have something to offer. All offers are good. My first thought is my best offer. Here it is, now!

It's hard to beat that advice. This open and fast attitude is helpful too for comedy writing. You have to kill that left-brain critical editor and give your ideas a chance to live...

How improvisation can help with comedy writing

Improvisation = mind mapping in time and space

Last night I performed in my first ever stage performance as an actor, in the "Schlocky Horror Improv Show" run by Impro Theatre ACT. I was nervous, but once I hit the stage I focused on the job at hand and discovered doing improv is a lot easier than worrying about it.

One of the reasons I took up improvisation was to enhance my comedy writing. I wasn't exactly sure how it might help though. I've never heard of strategies one can borrow from improv and apply to writing, but I thought there might be something to it.

I was recently reading a book about mind mapping and I finally realized a connection between improv and comedy writing.

One of the core rules about improv is to "accept all offers." That means no matter what someone says or does, you HAVE TO accept that it's now part of the story and you go with it and use it.

Applying the technique of mind mapping, you start with a main, primary idea (such as a murder weapon - "pink flamingo"), and the actors build a narrative around or towards that main idea. As a story progresses, it's like branches spreading in multiple directions from the main idea: someone might add to your branch of the mind map, or they might create their own branch.

Sometimes when someone comes out with an idea, you've got no idea how it connects to your branch or the main idea, you might think to yourself, "What's that go to do with pink flamingos?", but the rule of improv is to accept ALL offers, which means that there is a connection, and if you don't see it now, your quest is to make that connection. That's part of the creative challenge of improvisation.

In comedy writing, the lesson I've learned from improv (so far) is to start with a basic idea or premise and take multiple points of view, mapping out the possible direction or related ideas that stem from the main idea, and accept that all ideas are legitimate, and even try some seemingly random ideas, but connect it somehow, someway back to the main idea.

Unlike improv, when I'm writing by myself, I have to do all that brain-storming by myself, but with a tool like mind mapping, I can replicate the seeming randomness of improvisation and still have it connect together and make sense.

I can transfer the idea of a group-acted mind-map to the page and make my own comedy mind-map.

Stand up comedy in Canberra

The silence can be deafening

I went to see my first stand-up comedy in years last night at the Front Gallery in Lyneham. It's a very small venue, primarily catering to university students. Most people sat on the floor.

All of the acts were fairly new, but they were surprisingly polished given their lack of experience.

I was invited to attend by someone I met through Impro Theatre ACT who's trying to break into the whole comedy-thing.

Canberra presents some challenges if you want to do stand-up comedy. There aren't many venues and you'd probably need to take the 3-hour drive to Sydney most weekends if you really wanted to break into the scene.

That's not for me. I'm happy to continue with Improv Theatre. There's safety in numbers. It's awfully lonely-looking standing there all by yourself at that microphone.

Years ago I wrote stand-up material for Gary Bradbury, which he never paid me for. That kind of dulled my interest in trying to write professionally for comedians (show me the money!), but hanging around the impro people lately has rekindled my interest in comedy writing.