Katherine Phelps

in search of LOLitanium

Friday Exercise: Saving Lines

Katherine | July 10, 2009

A saving line is a joke told to rescue a situation where a standup may have forgotten the next bit, messed up a punchline, or a joke has fallen flat with a particular audience (what works one night with one audience, may not
another night with a different audience, and vice versa).
A comedian can either have [...]

A Definition of Story

Katherine | July 1, 2009

Some declaim that story is about conflict and suffering. You will hear this being aphoristically spoken of by filmmakers.
Our current culture has made an idol of violence. Conflict seems to inevitably lead to it, even though that is seldom our experience in every day life. Violence makes films, novels, computer games, etc thrilling and bankable [...]

Friday Exercise: The MacGuffin

Katherine | June 26, 2009

A MacGuffin is an object that drives the plot forward and is the focus of suspense. Someone or many people often are quite desirous of this object, or have some intense emotional connection with it, and find their actions concerning that object somehow frustrated. The greater people’s desire for the object and the greater lengths [...]

Comedy Dance Steps

Katherine | March 18, 2009

I thought I would take people through some of the dance steps of comedy:
* The One-Liner
* The Two-Step
* The Three-Step
* The Running Gag