—Michael Palin, comedian (Monty Python), actor, writer

The Warehouse Comedy Festival is my godsend. When I found they were recording two shows I had missed at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, Celia Pacquola’s Delayed and Frank Woodley’s Bemusement Park, I snatched up tickets immediately.

This “festival” is held in order to record shows by some of Australia’s A-list comedians for DVD sale by Madman. This is a genius move on their part. Up until recently, comedy shows would come and go and never be seen again. A large part of Australian culture was disappearing without a trace. This year I noticed they are also taking punts on a few B-list comedians. I’m overjoyed this included the supremely talented Michael Workman.

The Setup

For those of us in the A-list wannabe category, it’s worth knowing what is done and how to make these DVDs, because nothing says you can’t do the same thing yourselves. If not for a DVD, you really must make a sampler reel of your work for YouTube to interest audiences and producers in your shows.

Hey Hey had a large recording studio with automated fly systems; numerous cameras on cranes, trucks, dollies, and the like; and loads of microphones. In television as with the rest of life, you either spend time or money. With ongoing productions it’s worth spending the money in order to buy more time, since your schedule is tight. Spicks and Specks was similarly outfitted, though with a few cost cuts here and there.

The Warehouse Comedy Festival was on an even tighter budget and barely had a fly system. The recording outcomes have been fine, but from personal experience, I’m certain editing is a longer process for them. This is acceptable, because they aren’t on a tight schedule.

The festival had one low camera on a dolly to the left of the audience, a higher camera on a dolly to the right of the audience, and a hand held camera. They may have had more, but I couldn’t see because my eyes were focused on the performance, which was my job as the audience. They also had a microphone on the audience, a boom mic, and a head mic on the comedian.

Filming with Audience

ABC News frequently gets away with single camera recordings, because they need to capture the moment fast, they are capturing a slice of life and so situations are allowed to be messy, and people are used to cheap quick interviews with post-recorded “noddies” edited in (a way to fake a two-camera effect).

When recording standup comedy, you should always have at least two cameras, since one camera needs to be dedicated to recording audience reactions. The same is true for microphones: at least one for the comedian and one for the audience. I know people deride laugh-tracks, but audiences really do need to hear the laughter of other people to enhance their response. Very few shows use laugh-tracks these days, instead they bring in live audiences whose “laughter levels” they carefully check to make sure their mirthful guffaws are fully captured.

That audience response is so important, every television comedy show I have been to has had an up-and-coming comedian warming up people before the show. Madman was a little stingy in this regard, but Pacquola came out and told a warm-up joke before her show. With Woodley it was hard to tell, since his show was largely about getting things started and messing it up. However, to maintain the energy of the room, whenever Woodley or Pacquola had to wait for technical issues to be sorted, they would start humorously improvising to keep the punters on side.

The Shows

Celia Pacquola’s recording was mostly straightforward. She delivered her show Delayed with delightful aplomb. Despite self-deprecating jokes about awkwardness, Pacquola took the stage with an easy slow grace. Her eyes and her smile were where all the vibrant energy concentrated, making it easy for the cameras to follow her. She re-did only a few jokes. At the end the producer asked for two moments to be repeated: her silly dance routine, which would benefit from inter-cutting various angles, and the appearance of her giant hand prop. We were allowed to leave the building (and I do mean allowed) only five minutes later than estimated.

Frank Woodley’s recording of Bemusement Park was an entirely different story. Woodley doesn’t focus on standup, as such. He is largely a physical comedian, and he repeated much of his antics to get the timing right. Also key to Woodley’s performances is that he enjoys improvising. So, when he started improvising with a little boy in the audience, the film crew had to have the boy repeat some of what he said for the camera. A continuity person actually read back to the boy his own words.

Woodley is an endearing performer and a longtime favourite with the Australian public. Which was useful that night, because he had a lot of goodwill to ride on when he took seventeen takes to get a particular shtick to work. I would not have been so brave. One of the crew asked Woodley, “How many times did you tell us this bit worked?” Woodley sheepishly replied, “One in eight.” We left his show an hour later than estimated. I don’t think anyone begrudged him the extra time, we were all too busy smiling.

If you get the chance to see a live recording, I highly recommend it. The insights it gives you into the television industry are tremendous. It’s also a lot of fun. If you end up buying any of Madman’s DVDs for Sammy J, Celia Pacquola, or Frank Woodley keep your eyes open for a woman in the audience with a big white ribbon in her hair on the back of her head…that would be me.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

Madman Warehouse Comedy Festival

Writer and Dramaturge
I can help with writing, co-writing, researching, or editing comedy works. I am a published author. My screenplays have won awards. I have written for Nickelodeon Cartoons. I was a post-graduate supervisor in the Professional Writing and Editing Department at RMIT and a lecturer in storytelling for digital media at both RMIT and Victoria University.

Directing and Producing
In South Australia I was a director/producer for both theatrical and film productions, including a feature length film. The Media Resource Centre sent me out as a consultant to help student filmmakers learn how to manage volunteer productions.

Marketing and Publicity
I worked in the publicity department of the University of Washington Press and was head of marketing for indie comic company Miscellania Unlimited. In recent years I helped with arranging photography for Cameron Marshall, poster design for Mick Neven, and publicity for Meg Pee’s show Close to You. I am also a respected expert and professional in electronic media, and can help you with Websites, podcasts, vodcasts, smartphones, and social media.

Let me know if you could use a hand!

Peace and kindness,

Katherine
muse@glasswings.com.au
Melbourne, Australia

I have been both guest and attendee of the Williamstown Literary Festival for a number of years. Every year I have attended Shaun Micallef has been wandering around and having his say in various sessions. I have also had chats with Denise Scott, and this year Kim Gyngell was strutting his comedy stuff.

Rebecca Lister may not be a name with which you are familiar, but she is an award-winning playwriter and a presenter on 3RRR’s book review show Aural Text. She offered a workshop on the monologue at this year’s Willy Lit Fest. Since most comedy shows are basically monologues, I thought it would be worth listening to her perspective on how to write an effective one.

Here is what I learned from the marvelous Ms Lister.

All speech within a play is a representation of how people speak, not actually the sorts of things we hear said. It needs to be compact and it needs to forward the story, while remaining completely in character.

Monologues come in two types: the interior/internal and the exterior/external.

The interior monologue is about a character revealing their inner thoughts. They may be speaking aloud, but they are speaking to no one but themselves. Frequently these monologues are confessional, they will always be revealing of thoughts and feelings. This sort of monologue is also known as the soliloquy.

The exterior monologue will be directed to an other. That other could be a single character, a group of characters, or the audience. The monologue and the actor must make it clear to the audience who is being addressed. In this case thoughts and feelings are also being shared, but usually concerning relationships between characters. A greater sense of appeal can be present.

After providing this ground work, Lister presented her “Top Ten Tips for Monologues”.

The Hook

Capture people’s attention in the first two to three sentences of your speech. You don’t need to spell the complete situation out in those sentences, but you will need to suggest the scenario and give people a good emotional reason for caring.

The Grab

This also needs to be simple and quick. Here’s where you start answering people’s questions about who, what, where, and when. We must also know why this character needs to express these thoughts now. We must begin to understand the heart of their story, which will be expressive of larger themes within the play.

A way to get at this thematic heart is to write out a one page summary of the story. When you have that page, find a way to reduce it to one paragraph, then one sentence, then one to three words. Let’s say your story is about how a married couple have drifted apart and a journey to another country helps them to renew their relationship. This could be reduced to “Love rediscovered”.

Tell the Story

Tell it deliciously, excitingly, humorously, passionately, sorrowfully, yearningly, angrily, surprisingly, wistfully.

Build the Character

We must be shown by their speech who they are, what they want, why they want it, and suggest what they need, even if they don’t recognise that need themselves.

Build the World

Layer in specific details that provide physical and emotional context to the character’s situation. These details give the piece colour and a sense of tone. In a drama you might start by describing the day as grey. In a comedy you might start by saying, “I knew it was a mistake moving into a town with no donut shop.”

Rhythm and Pacing

Be aware of the musicality of your own writing. Vary the pitch of how and what is said, pacing yourself with series of pulses and beats that lead to a crescendo. Understand too that every character will have their own rhythm based on their general emotional outlook.

Read It Aloud

How does it sound? Does it flow? Does it suit the character? It’s highly worthwhile getting acting friends to read out your monologue, so you can more easily see where others may be having difficulty with the wording.

Edit

The soul of writing: rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. Don’t be prissy, slash out anything that doesn’t work. But keep drafts, since some edited items can prove useful seeds to future works.

Make Every Word Count

People’s patience is even shorter for performed works than for written works.

Bring it Home

The monologue is an emotional journey. It must tell us things we could not know in any other way. As such it will have at least one moment of real surprise and one moment of “AH-HA” where the pieces fall together and you finally understand something crucial about the character.

If you want to know more about Rebecca Lister, she has a Web site you can visit here:
http://www.rebeccalister.com.au/

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

As well as a great comedian he was recognised as a satirist and social critic. One of his most famous routines is “Seven Naughty Words”. This is an amiable piece that nonetheless makes use of language that is deemed indecent. The broadcast of the routine over radio landed Carlin in the US Supreme Court.

In the 1978 case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation the court held in a 5-4 decision that the govenment is allowed to regulate indecent language on public airwaves. George Carlin’s right to free speech was deemed not to extend to the new media of the era.

Despite the scenario suggested by the routine, the FCC has never maintained a specfic list of prohibited words. However, they claim to have internal (non-transparent) guidelines which sufficiently determine what is and isn’t indecent.

In follow-up rulings the Supreme Court has softened its stance about instances of obscene speech, however they have never over-turned F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation. Free speech continues to be a point of contention in any media other than print press or public declamation (and even that is questionable). The US government is very much into the letter of the law and apparently not the spirit of freedom.

This is why in addition to bodies such as the American Civil Liberties Union or Civil Liberties Australia we also have the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Electronic Frontiers Australia (of which I am a lifetime member). Other countries face similar problems and some have similar bodies. People in power continue to fear words more than weapons and sex more than violence.

In memory of George Carlin and in support of free speech I encourage people to download the “Seven Naughty Words” routine and find places where you can read it publicly with your friends. This could be in a comedy club, a cafe, or even the steps of Parliament.

The version of the routine which is held by the Supreme Court is copyright free and you can download it from here: http://www.georgecarlin.com/update_10-29-08/documents/index.html

I prefer the version found on Carlin’s album Class Clown. Those words can be found on many lyrics Web sites.

Read “Seven Naughty Words”, rediscover George Carlin’s genius, have fun, and do something on the behalf of free speech. Let freedom ding-a-ling.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

—Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister

I couldn’t wait for success, so I went ahead without it.

—Jonathan Winters, comedian, actor, artist

In the end we had twenty people attend. Most of the women were comedians, but we had a couple of producers and directors as well. I was pleased with the skill range: we had beginners enthusiastically joining in like joyful puppies and we had a few award-winning old hands, as well as everything inbetween.

Everyone’s volunteer performances were amazing. We have such talented people in our community. My thanks to Jan Maree, Jennifer Wong, Sarah Jones, Bianca Bruce, Mayumi Nobetsu, and Sophie Prints for sharing their talents.

Lou Sanz was our guest speaker and inaugural winner of the Ha-Ha Ta-Tas Award for services to women in comedy. She told us of her work with the Skirt Network. She also spoke about how she achieved her success as a standup comedian and the many people she has worked with as a writer and producer of comedy. Sanz then answered questions from our attendees. I was interested that she had chosen to tour North America rather than the UK, as a way to develop her career and make a living.

I noticed many women exchanging phone numbers and email addresses. The conversations were lively and people were talking about how they could help one another. Exactly what I was after as an outcome for this event.

I would love to run one or two Funny Females events during the year between comedy festivals. Perhaps for more networking, but perhaps for skills development as well. Networking also opens up other possibilities such as putting together a skills and props bank or opening a non-pub venue. As a group we can support one another and reduce our production costs. I need to hear from you about what you find interesting.

I promise that by next year we will have the ticketing and venue aspects running more smoothly. It’s amusing how the idea started out as, “Let’s get together and have pancakes and champagne somewhere.” I was being funny, but it communicated the idea well. In the end we basically had champagne and pancakes. Bravo to Breizoz Crêperie for stepping in so quickly and efficiently at the last minute as our venue.

My warmest regards to everyone who helped make the Funny Females Networking Brunch a useful, warm, and fun experience.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

Saunders clips to the curtain behind him a list of topics his show will be covering, such as awareness, names, exercise, and technology. He then begins each topic with a short story about his cat, then follows this with stories about how humans fit within that same topic. We don’t fare well in the comparision.

The show is well-calculated to start out by bringing the non-catlovers on side. He clearly understands that some people are dog people and some people are unenthused by cats, but funny is funny no matter where you find it. He also demonstrates that cats have a certain machismo as well, if that’s important to you. His own cat, Jerry, has a frown so deep it sucks all the negativity out of a room.

Once people are comfortable with the humorous combination of bloke and cat, Saunders weaves more of Jerry into the stories. He then caps the evening with the story of how Jerry came into his life. It’s real edge of seat stuff. You want him to find that cat and make his life complete.

The jokes in The Cat’s Meow are down to Earth and accessible. The storytelling action and humour steadily rises and rises. Saunders expertly keeps you anticipating the next set of anecdotes. He then ends on a memorable high note. Perfect.

Steele Saunders can be seen year-round performing at Comedy@Spleen.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

http://www.steelesaunders.com/

Timing.

Gorman maintains a brisk even pace throughout his performance. He relies largely on anecdotal humour with the odd one-liner. If a joke falls a little flat, it still forms part of a larger story structure, so people are willing to take it onboard in anticipation of a bigger payoff. His story about happy clocks and the absurd lengths marketing has taken that concept had a beautiful snowballing effect about it whereby the laughter just got louder and louder.

He has an excellent ear for hearing the ebb and flow of people’s reactions. He is also skilled at using those tides to push the humour even further.

Maintaining centre of focus.

Many comedians grossly misuse their multimedia elements. The images in Powerpoint Presentation are well realised, crisp, and easy to interpret. Gorman at no point loses his audience as they try to disentangle the meaning of a poorly designed slide. A common problem other comedians face.

All images are in support of Gorman’s jokes. You have to pay attention to Gorman if you want the payoff. Though he changes images, generally Gorman is the only one moving and not the pictures. This is important because the instant anything on the screen moves, it’s more interesting to the audience than the live human being.

Surprise.

This is where you separate the entertaining from the outright LOL-meisters. Gorman would set up a joke and you would think, I know where this is going, then take a left-angle turn into something relevant but completely unexpected.

Certain subjects are funny enough we laugh even when we aren’t surprised. When Gorman throws out a few jokes of this nature, he takes you to the punchline and lets you fill in the blank. I think we all relish this respect for our intelligence. But his surprises are masterful sleight-of-hand that give the world a magical sparkle I believe we all crave.

If you are a budding comedian, I would strongly suggest watching some of Gorman’s performances to set the bar for yourself. Dave Gorman and Powerpoint Presentation are superb.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

http://www.davegorman.com/

The media focuses people on the intense and the extreme, turning people into drama junkies. Marshall focuses on savouring the everyday—a focus of sanity and even fulfilment. This doesn’t make it devoid of ups and downs. Marshall speaks poignantly about the death of his father and the birth of his son. You just have a better sense of the continuousness of life. We laugh, we cry, we learn, we move on.

Marshall is at his best when he illustrates his points with vignettes. His characterisations are lively and full of warmth and energy. I would love to see him explore this sort of comedy more. I was particularly charmed by his portrayal of a shopping expedition with his son.

Small children don’t understand our cultural codes to do with gender or status, and just like what they like. A girl could want a football helmet as a hat, a boy could want his toy car in pink without a second thought as to any implications. It’s an honest way of being. Marshall’s moment of letting go of social rigidity and learning from his son is both touching and a belly laugh.

A point I would make with Marshall, because I’ve seen several comedians in need of this same advice, is pull in your chin.

I call it “computer chin” because people often jut their chin out when they are sitting in front of a computer, then wonder later why they have a headache. Pull in your chin and tip your head so that it is perpendicular to your eyeline. That way people see your facial expressions better and you come off as more personable. Muppeteers are taught the same thing with their puppets for the same reason.

Left: strained neck, features not visible to audience. Center: optimal. Right: optimal for audience when they are seated below your natural eyeline.

Marshall is an amiable storyteller. If he tours Father, Father, buy a ticket, buy a glass of wine, sit back and enjoy the journey.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2012/season/shows/in-father-father-cam-marshall/