Introduction to the Art of Comedy

Introduction to the Art of Comedy

W.Churchill once said that "A joke is a serious thing". And he was right. Writing comedy and making people laugh is not easy, but when achieved its very rewarding. Why do people laugh? We take our hero and we put him/her in a very unpleasant, dramatic, I would say situtation, where he/she has to solve problems and conflicts. We describe and present our hero's adventure from a humoristic point of view and our audience will laugh. Why? Because our audience is watching from the safety of their living room (TV) or cinema, safe, knowing that what our hero is going though, won't happen to them! And that triggers the laughter. That's right! It's brain hormons: first fear that turns after into laugther!

Looking into the art of cinematic comedy, we may identify a lot of "laughter thematics", "laugther tricks" used, as well as techniques, to render our joke even funnier. In addition, one could identify certain mechanisms for making jokes. To this end, objective of this class is to 

-analyze the theory on laughter: we do we laugh

-talk about the first organised comedy ever

-look into existing writers' techniques 

-talk about comic tricks 

-analyse joke-making mechanisms

On laughter, comic tricks and joke making mechanisms

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What you will learn

• be able to understand that comedy means and what are its elements, how good comedies are made and make jokes of their own.
• Looking into the art of cinematic comedy, we may identify a lot of "laughter thematics", "laugther tricks" used, as well as techniques, to render our joke even funnier. In addition, one could identify certain mechanisms for making jokes. To this end, objective of the class is to: a)analyze the theory on laughter: why do we laugh , b)talk about the first organised comedy ever, c)look into existing writers' techniques, d)look into the types of comedies that exist , e)talk about comic tricks , f)analyse joke-making mechanisms.

Rating: 4.5

Level: Beginner Level

Duration: 30 mins

Instructor: Georgia Chioni