Structuring A Comedy Screenplay: The Comic Hero's Journey - Steve Kaplan [FULL INTERVIEW]

a lot of people in my workshops would ask me about uh story structure and and originally uh the workshops were more about what you know what we called the hidden tools of Comedy but the more I thought about it the more I thought that uh there was a very particular kind of story structure in comedy uh my friend uh Chris bogler wrote this great book The Writer's journey and the writer's Journey uh is a takeoff on the hero's journey Joseph Campbell's hero with a thousand faces and if you've seen Star Wars you've seen a good uh example of the hero's journey the um the young uh protagonist uh who has greatness within them and then there's a a call to action and then there's the refusal of the call they meet the mentor and and on and on uh and I and in thinking about it I thought that there are a lot of structures uh similar structures uh to Comedy but there are also very uh important differences as well and and so I started working on this book called uh the comic hero's journey uh and in the comic hero's journey it starts sort of like the hero's journey in in the normal World um uh we see the uh protagonist uh whether it's Bill Murray in Groundhog Day or Melissa McCarthy in spy we see them in their normal world but the big difference one of the big differences in the comic heroes journey is that whereas in the hero's journey uh the protagonist has greatness within them only they don't know it in the comic heroes Journey usually the protagonist does not have greatness within them in fact the protagonist has really messed up um in a spy Melissa mcarthy is uh self-doubting um she uh she's very uh beholden to what other people think of her she really wants the attention of her uh spy uh Bradley fine played by Jude Law uh in Groundhog Day Bill Murray's a jerk and he's a uh just a just an out and out creep um who doesn't like other people and doesn't care that other people don't like him so in in the comic hero's journey you start with a character who is in some way broken or or flawed or they they they have a hole in them and but they don't know it they're happy to be in their world they think that whatever is happening in their world is the way it's supposed to be and so they have initial goals and uh in the uh in the comic heroes Journey the initial goal is always something shortsighted and soon to change uh in Groundhog Day Bill Murray simply wants to get a job at a bigger uh television station right now he's a newscaster weathercaster in Pittsburgh and he wants to go to a bigger television station in spy Melissa McCarthy uh simply wants uh this gorgeous James bondan type of spy uh Jude Law to fall in love with her and that's her that's her fantasy that's her goal in the comic heroes Journey you have these seven steps um that uh the comic heroes goes through there's you start with the normal world you then go to WTF something impossible or improbable happens then there's a reaction connections disconnections new directions and race to the finish and we can go through all of those and see how it applies to uh a classic movie like Groundhog Day uh and uh a new movie like spy or Tropic Thunder or this is the end so uh in the normal world we see our main character um who is broken or or they're lacking something uh and and we get a glimpse of who they are uh Michael hay uh in his work uh likes to talk about uh Essence and identity um my terminology is is different but it's the S it's the same idea uh mask to mench uh in the First Act uh the first part of the the comic heroes Journey you see a character have a flash of who they really should be there's a moment in Groundhog Day when Bill Murray first sees Andy McDow Rita the producer and all of a sudden you can see in his eyes that there's a change that's happened to him but it's just a flash it's just uh kind of a a flash of who they might be their mask is taken off and for a moment you can see the mench that they're going to be in spy Melissa McCarthy is guiding Jude Law through a series of fights in in a uh in a mansion and you can see how good she really is how how really capable she is in terms of what she knows and what she can do but it's just a second and then she goes back to uh being all fluttery when he says something nice to her um and she's she goes back to her sense of her not being enough um so you have the sense of who these people are the other thing that happens in the normal world is you also get a a sense of the theme you hear the theme Echo and re-echo uh in these moments uh in spy uh Melissa McCarthy is sitting with her best friend Nancy at the CIA cafeteria I guess and she's talking about the lesson that she Melissa McCarthy is talking about the lesson she got from her mother and her mother used to put a little note in her in her lunchbox you will never achieve the dreams that you have for yourself uh and and in a sense that's that's the theme of spy is is Having the courage to follow your own dreams and at this point in the movie uh Melissa mccarth who's playing uh this uh CIA analyst Susan Cooper doesn't feel like she can measure up to the camor uh spy Karen Walker or Jude laws spy Bradley fine um and in Groundhog Day for instance uh he's uh when Bill Murray first gets to punk Satani he's walking down the street and he meets the obnoxious insurance salesman played by Steven tobolowsky and one of the things that Steven tobolowsky says to him uh in talking about being an insurance salesman and selling him insurance is Stephen talasi says you know a lot of my friends are into actuarials but I say it's all big one crapshoot anywh who and that's that's a line that that Echoes what the theme is going to be is that what what is our future what what what can we make our future can we predict our future and can we change our future because ultimately that's what is going to be happening in Groundhog Day is a man's going to have to live the same day over and over again and not uh be able to move on to his future uh so after the normal world you have the what the moment the WTF moment and that is the essence of the comic premise a comic premise is an is the idea that something impossible or improbable happens uh impossible in the sense of a man living the same day over and over again that's impossible improbable that a uh somewhat out of shape uh uh not to physical uh analyst could be put out into the field and do the Daring Do that a James Bond would that's not impossible but it is improbable and so the comic premises revolve around the thought that this impossible or improbable moment happens and it asks the question well what would happen then and the best comedies then develop that premise through true character uh Paul Fe talks about how he wrote the script for spy focusing not on what funny things he could do but what comic moments would come out of character of Simply putting Melissa McCarthy's character in these perilous situations and then seeing how she would cope how she would grow how she would uh become not not only a better person but a more fully realized person of who she is so after you have the WTF WTF moment you have uh the what we have uh what we call the reaction now in most comedies when the character is faced with a lifechanging life-altering impossible situation most characters desperately try to claw back to the normal world now remember in the normal World your characters are m Shen they're your your your protagonists are are not who they want to be or need to be but they don't know it they're unaware of it they're they're like um they've turned themselves into a pretzel to try to convince themselves that they're having a happy life that their life is okay uh and when the comic premise occurs that's all taken away from them the rug is literally pulled out from under their feet so in in most reaction sections there's a mo there's a a large part of uh the action that's denial the the characters desperately trying to go back to who they were uh the way they were before this occurred in Tropic Thunder for instance the WTF moment is Steve kugan the director has taken uh Robert Downey Jr and uh uh Ben Stiller and all these other actors out into the the country out into the jungle because they're making a Vietnam era movie and he wants them to experience the country you know you know n the country and uh he accidentally steps on a landmine and uh blows himself up and while some of the actors uh especially Jay barell kind of thinks well this is not this isn't part of the movie this is not right Ben Stiller uh the protagonist of the movie uh I is convinced that it's simply part of the director's plan and he keeps on trying to go along and keep filming this this movie this Vietnam era movie so he is in denial that this has happened um in Groundhog Day Bill Murray spends the the first day that he has relived in denial he he says have we lived this is it still Groundhog's Day it's only until the third day when he finally starts to then figure out what's happening and how he can deal with it so the first part of reaction is usually denial but the second part of reaction is uh starting to cope with the new situation but without any character development or or personality development or personality change um for instance uh Bill Murray uh in Groundhog Day is kind of a jerk so when he realizes that whatever he does will have no consequence for him he still is a jerk he figures out that if he can go talk to a girl and get some information from her he can come back the next day he'll remember all of the conversation but she won't and he can pick her up and have sex with her and and there thereby he has sex with all the women in patani after a time so so you can see that he's dealing with the situation but really without any character growth uh for Melissa McCarthy her reaction uh is both pain and sorrow because she loved Jude Law but it's also anger and a sense of that she has to avenge his death um uh Jude Law gave her this terrible piece of jewelry that he put on a lanyard um a a crazy cupcake uh that he gave to uh Melissa McCarthy and of course it's it's it's a terrible idea to give that to a girl who is in love with you but but it becomes very important um symbolic touchstones tangible touchstones are very important uh in in film because you can say a lot with a little so so at his uh funeral or or the memorial uh service for him at the CIA you can see meliss McCarthy taking out the crazy cupcake ceramic kind of touching it and you could tell that she's trying to hold on to Bradley Coop uh Bradley fine played by Jude Law um and then in another scene at the CIA when they realize that uh everybody's cover's been blown and there's this nuclear bomb on the loose but none of her regular spies like Jason Statham's uh uh Ford can go after it uh Melissa McCarthy takes out the crazy cupcake holds on to it and and quite out of character jumps out and says I can go they don't know me so that's her reaction her reaction is is that even though she's scared uh and even though she uh really doesn't have any faith in herself she still is because of her great love for uh for Bradley fine for Jude Law she's still going to do it so so reaction uh is the moment when characters are still trying to deal with this impossible or or improbable set of circumstances that they're now trying to deal with and what happens in this sequence is your your characters are given simple tasks and missions to try to uh get to where they're going to go or or do what they're going to do for uh Melissa McCarthy and spy uh first she sent to Paris and and all she has to do is go into an office and spy on uh this bad guy who's going to lead her to other bad guys who are going to lead her to the nuclear bomb um that's simple she doesn't have to become a super spy to do that but because they're on to her and because they've blown up the office building where she was supposed to be one thing leads to another and there's a series of of discreet missions or or tasks that she follow that she follows one after the other that lead her on the path to trying to uh recover the bomb get the bad guys uh and uh and then avenge her love Jude Law and all the while she's doing this without her realizing it she's changing because what happens in in a comedy uh and you can argue uh in in almost any movie but especially in comedies because you're you're starting with characters who are more than flawed they're they're broken they're there's something wrong with them um you can absolutely say there's something wrong with Ben Stiller in Tropic Thunder because he's an idiot um there's something wrong with Bill Murray in in Groundhog Day he's a jerk there's something wrong with Susan Cooper Melissa McCarthy and spy because she's got no confidence she she has no sense of who she is and because of this impossible situation that they're now going to have to react to uh characters are transformed in um in romantic comedy it's love that transforms a character um you know psychiatrist will tell you that you know if you marry a jerk uh 30 years later you have an older fatter Boulder jerk but in romantic comedies uh love is a magical power that is transformative it transforms people uh in ground talk day it transforms Bill Murray from a jerk into a really good guy he has to live through several lifetimes to get to be able to do that but still for Melissa McCarthy and spy what's transformative is even though she's not aware of it she's being able to come up with new powers new SK skills and in reaction is the part of the movie in which new skills that had been hinted at in in the normal World new skills start to appear in Melissa McCarthy's case courage uh boldness everything that she wasn't back in the normal world back in uh in her basement office in the CIA with that verman verman ridden basement office uh so uh you have uh the reaction and then there's uh a part of the movie that we call connections and connections is the part of the movie when your characters start to find unexpected allies and sometimes unexpected enemies um in uh in Tropic Thunder uh the two main actors Robert Downey Jr who's an Australian playing an Australian who's playing a black uh sergeant in in Vietnam uh is always at odds with Ben Stiller's uh lead uh actor and they they barely talk to each other they don't get along but in in the middle part of the movie they start to actually talk to each other and it's the first time that they're actually trying to make a connection um connections is when uh things slow down in the movie where you have uh heart-to-heart conversations you you tell the truth about each other I I guess the one thing the one caveat that I'd like to put out there is that all these elements are in all these comedy movies but they're not necessarily in the same order um uh after uh connections and and new directions when characters get uh uh the dis what we call the discovered goal you have disconnections which is the dark dark KN of the Soul uh and that's usually the part about 3/4 of the way or or four fifths of the way through where everything seems lost and every your your hero is is going to fail um and then somehow they they find the power the strength to to try one more time and they win now normally that comes at about 3/4 of the way four fifths of the way through the movie in Groundhog Day however that moment that Dark Night of the Soul happens about Midway through uh it happens after the sequence in which Bill Murray who because he's found the the the the skill to get whatever he wants by simply being able to anticipate what's going to happen because he's living this day over and over and over again he's able to rob a a a uh a truck with money he's able to sleep with all the women in town um and then he gets the idea that he wants to have a relationship with Andy McDow the producer Rita and even though he tries over and over again it always ends with this great slap Montage slap slap slap and now we're only about halfway through the movie and that's the time in which uh he has lost all hope he goes through this great um series of uh suicide attempts they're attempts because he does kill himself but he wakes up the next day um in fact Groundhog Day is a really interesting structure it's basically structured after the long First Act in which it sets everything up it's structured like the five stages of grief uh of Kua Ross it's there's a very there's there's denial there's a very short uh section of anger then there's a long neg NE iation period Then There is uh depression and finally there's acceptance but in Groundhog Day there's three acts to acceptance there's first uh getting Rita to believe in him that's an entire act uh then there's the act of trying to save the old man uh in which he's got to come to grips with the fact that he's not God he's he's simply a man going through an an impossible situation and finally there's the Final Act of Acceptance in which he simply accepts his fate he's never going to live to see February 3rd he's always going to be living in February 2nd and he's okay with it he's found out that the purpose of life for him is simply to do as much good as he can in the one day he has um so so that's that's a way of of just understanding that this framework this structure isn't a cookie cutter form that must be followed that all these parts of the journey happen they don't necessarily happen all in the same order or all at the same time um the thought that everything certain things have to happen on page 10 and certain things have to happen on page 26 is probably not a really good way to approach writing a screenplay to go back to Connections in spy we have uh Melissa McCarthy meeting all sorts of people who are going to come to help her uh she meets Aldo who um uh is this seemingly Italian uh spy who's working for the CIA but who's always on the Mak and seemingly is always trying to stick his tongue down Melissa McCarthy's throat uh her friend Nancy uh who's there uh helping her from the basement in Langley shows up in uh Rome and uh and is going to help uh her deal with all her uh missions uh as she's trying to retrieve the uh the nuclear bomb even Raina um who is seemingly uh her Nemesis played brilliantly by Rose Burn turns out to in the end in fact be another Ally so in connection is the part of of the movie in which your protagonist not only is moving outside their comfort zone becoming a a more actualized more complete person but they're able to uh reach out and create new relationships uh and on on a new basis one one of the things that I do want to talk about in terms of the normal world one of the things I I didn't mention yet is that in the normal World your protagonist has flawed or absent relationships um Bill Murray doesn't have a girlfriend you know he doesn't really respect women uh uh Ben Stiller in Tropic Thunder his only relationship is his agent uh and even that is just kind of you know somebody to get him a a too um you to be sent to this this jungle where he's shooting this movie and of course Melissa McCarthy uh has no relationship she Pines for Jude Law but we can see from an early scene in which Jude Law takes her out to dinner to thank her uh for being such a good uh helper um as you know back in the CIA basement uh that's where he kind of gives her this terrible crazy cupcake piece of jewelry because we can see that he doesn't really see her uh as as an equal um so in the connections part of the comic heroes journey is where your character because your character is transforming your character is growing and again without them knowing it we in the audience can see it but they're still not aware of it uh uh that's when these unexpected allies and also unexpected enemies uh can come out uh that's the part of the movie where meliss McCarthy realizes that Karen Walker who she idolized who was a star uh fem fatal spy at the CIA was really a double agent in connections which may happen at different points in different movies the the important thing is that these connections are emotional connections they're not just uh silly set pieces to continue the comedy it's important especially important for a comedy comedy need to at some point slow down tell the truth drop the facade um in Groundhog Day that that moment happens uh after Bill Murray has convinced Rita that something that something weird is happening to her to him uh and he convinced her because he goes through everybody in the cafe and he tells tells Rita all their stories because he's known them for so long he's he's seen their stories for so long um and afterwards they go back to uh I guess U his hotel room and they're just talking to each other on on on the on the bed and and he's saying you know I I I I wake up and it's the same day and and she says to him well maybe it's not a curse you know I'd love to live a thousand different lifetimes he says boy you're a perky lady and later that night uh she's asleep uh and he's reading French poetry to her because he's found out that she likes French poetry and he starts to open his heart to her and and the the funny story is that um this part was written into the script because Bill Murray told Harold RIS about the time that after he got married and his wife and he got to wherever they were going to Honeymoon uh it was really late the wife went to sleep and Bill Murray told Harold Ramis that what he did was while she was sleeping he was able to kind of open his heart to her and tell her everything that was on his mind and in his heart and he was able to do that to her sleeping um uh that he wasn't able to tell her uh to her face and Harold rayis and Danny Rubin put her right into the script and so it's this beautiful sequence in Groundhog Day where it's just the truth he's just telling her what he feels there's a similar moment uh in in spy when having gotten to the villains Lair uh she and and everybody's holding a gun and everybody else uh she simply reveals to to Jude Law I love you I've always loved you I you who wants to sit in a in in a basement filled with you know Vermin and rats I would have quit that a long time ago but I just wanted to be around you and and so it's the moment when when things slow down people start to really uh share what's in their hearts with each other Michael hay calls this the getting naked moment in many romantic comedies it happens about halfway through um in in spy it happens about three4 of the way through just before the race to the Finish and in uh in spy she tells Jude Law exactly what she's thinking in Tropic Thunder uh it's a moment about halfway through when for the first time Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr started talking to each other and the Ben Ste was talking about how he did this serious film called Simple Jack um and he was kind of aced out of the Oscars you know the Oscars didn't give him any love and Robert Downey Jr says well I mean you know why Ben S no why Robert John you said no come on you know why Ben s says no why and and that's that's the whole sequence when Robert Downey Jr says well you went full you can't go full you can go half you can't go full uh and it's it's a very silly sequence and you know in a very uh non-pc way it's it's funny but it's also the first time in the movie that these two characters have actually talked to each other spend time with each other shared with each other so so connections is that moment of the comedy where you can slow the comedy down people have to just say what's on their minds tell the truth a as Michael heg says Get Naked not necessarily naked physically but naked emotionally and so after connections you have the part of the journey called new directions and new directions is when your discovered goal happens in in a hero's journey the hero goes off to write or wrong and whether they write the wrong or not um that's the whole movie are they going to save the Rebellion or not and they might meet uh Yoda along the way but their goal stays the same really but in comedy because your characters start off as as missing apart or broken um their initial goals are are broken as well they're shortsighted they're not really the best the best for the for the character and the discovered goal is what the characters discover along the way what they really want Bill Murray starts Groundhog Day thinking all he needs all that would make his life perfect would be to be a weatherman and a big at a bigger better station but along the way he realizes what he really wants is having a real relationship and specifically a real relationship with Rita um in in Tropic Thunder uh the initial goal for all the actors is simply to get back to the base camp and get out of the Jungle where you might step on a land mine and blow yourself up but along the way they realize that their fellow actor Ben Stiller has been captured by these drug lords and so you have them have a different goal their goal now is simply not well do we just leave them here and go back or do we try to save him even though we're just actors we're not action heroes we're we're not really soldiers and that's when another important part of a comedy comes out uh is decision points you need real decision points in terms of your comic hero's journey um you want to avoid a situation where there's no question of what your character is going to do it's it's uh completely obvious the way it should go why even bother wasting my time um one example of that uh in an you know otherwise well-received movie but one I thought did not really give its character its protagonist a great decision point is Midnight in Paris um because in Midnight in Paris uh Owen Wilson had to choose between this whining harp Harpy of a girlfriend who he's engaged to or one of the women that he's met in his time travels in in Paris of earlier years and to me that's not a real decision point do you really think he's going to give up the romance of of Paris and go back to California with this really annoying woman a a better decision point is in a another romantic comedy Sleepless in Seattle in which uh Meg Ryan uh is engaged to Bill Pullman and Bill Pullman is a great guy but is he the guy and that's a really great decision point because you could support her going either way you could see it from her point of view going either way you know there's this maybe waiting for at the top of the Empire State Building but there's Bill Pullman right in front of you being such a nice guy so you want real decision points and in spy you see meliss McCarthy having real decision points she she has a new goal her goal is no longer to just have Jude Law be her boyfriend yes it uh this whole mission started out as a way of of kind of avenging him in fact she she often uh hurts her her adversaries by saying that's for you know that's for Bradley uh but eventually her goal changes her goal goal isn't just to avenge Bradley fine her goal is to do what she was meant to do which is I can do this I can be this spy I have these skills I don't have to hide behind somebody else I can do this and and I can save the world I can save the world from uh having terrorists get this nuclear bomb and so you see this moment in which she's been given the instructions follow and Report Court do nothing else and there's there's a bad guy who's running away from her that's obviously the best lead to get to uh where the nuclear bomb is being hidden and you see it in that moment do I just follow orders or do I follow my own emerging transforming sense of self and do what I think is right and so at that moment we see her discover a new goal for herself her new goal is no matter what she's going to see this through to the end now after new directions comes disconnections uh disconnections is that moment in a movie when the lovers break up when all seems lost and for Melissa McCarthy and spy that comes at the moment in which it appears as though Jude Law has been a double agent working against the CIA all the time and she's uh she's knocked out and she's tied up and she's thrown into a dungeon along with Aldo and she says I failed it's it it's over um and the disconnections is when you're you literally have disconnected from the people that you need to be with and be a part of uh in Tropic Thunder Ben Skiller literally says listen you guys can do what you want I'm keep I'm going to keep on shooting the movie and he goes back into the jungle by himself assuming that the dead Steve cougan uh has cameras all over hidden cameras all over shooting this Vietnam era movie uh and he's going to keep on doing it so he's literally disconnected with all the other uh cast members of this movie um in Groundhog Day uh that's where Bill Murray after many many tries realizes or thinks he realizes he can't get Rita and so there's no point to living and he just gets more and more depressed uh and that's also where it seems like Melissa McCarthy is going to going to um give up but after the moment of disconnection and disconnection is also when the mask is put on for a second um it's the moment in DodgeBall in which Vince vongh who seemed like he was becoming a nice guy seems like he's going to be a creep sell out his team and and take the money and just uh fly back to his um where you know his gym or wherever he was from uh it's the moment in which Melissa McCarthy begins to doubt herself again um it's the moment in which you think what's the point of being this nice guy I'll just go back to being who I was so that for the Moment The Mask uh if you think of a character wearing a mask taking the mask off and there's the mench there's the essence of the character that's the moment when the mask is put back on but then after that moment what usually happens is a full realization everything becomes clear who they are what they are what they need becomes clear now they might not win just because you're in a comedy doesn't mean that your character is going to succeed uh in Love and Death Woody Allen dies at the end of the movie he comes back and comments comments on it as a ghost but he's still dead but but that's the point of the movie in which re everything has been revealed all Revelations have taken place and now your protagonist can try to achieve what they need to achieve what they want to achieve and and that's the part of the hero's journey that we call the race to the finish and and in that race to the Finish success or failure has to uh hang by a hair's breath it's always got to be uh a a situation where it could go either way uh believably go either way um and uh in in the race to the finish your your character literally has to take action um now that seems like it would be self-evident and yet I read a lot of uh screen plays in which you're a passive protagonist passively lets something happen that passively um allows them to succeed in the end and if there you know if there's one thing you need to do uh at that moment in the hero's journey is the character must take positive action that's why we see U Dustin Hoffman racing to the church that's why we see uh Billy Crystal running through the streets of Manhattan to uh to tell Meg ran he loves her um and and it doesn't need to just be a literal race I mean in uh that's enough uh with the the very uh soft you know kind of small softs spoken comedy uh with Julia Louie dfus and the late great James gandini um uh he's broken up with her because uh he's found out that she was trying to keep the fact that uh her his ex-wife is her new best friend and and massuse client uh and he he just couldn't deal with the duplicity and he breaks up with her and what Julia Louie dfus does is she simply drives by his house and stops outside his house so it doesn't need to be racing down the street but it does need to for your character to take some positive action to make their dreams come true to to achieve their goal um and then the end of the uh the comic heroes journey is you don't necessarily need to have a wedding or celebration but there has to be some hint of of the future that the future is going to be set on a better path if you think about your protagonist your protagonist starts off like a guy or or a girl who slipped on a banana peel and they've been stuck mid midall and they're they're in some odd contorted position and then the comic premise kind of pushes them off balance well they're off balance to begin with but they don't know it and so the first half of the movie is all about them trying to regain that that contorted position that they had become used to but then in the second half of the movie they begin to find a new way to stand in the world so that's what the end of the comic hero's journey is you want to at least give a hint that things are going to be different even if you don't spell it out that there's going to be uh a better future for them now that they've transformed and they've come out on on the other end of the journey the important thing is that while your characters are transforming they cannot become perfect they can't become Saints so that their the growth of the characters are inconsistent um uh sometimes accidental and always with a sense of who they really are so even though uh Melissa McCarthy becomes a really badass you know Kick-Ass spy she still enough of who she was to begin with that when she steals the Maserati to uh to drive to uh the villains Lair and and save Bradley fine and uh and um you know save the world from the nuclear bomb she still is enough in the moment to go I love this new car smell um uh in in to Hog Day uh Bill Murray spends his last day helping everybody he can in town the first thing he does is he knows that every morning this kid climbs up a tree and is going to fall from the tree backwards and crack his skull so he's going to get there every morning catch the kid save the kid but because he's still human he's still a comic character he's not he hasn't turned into a saint or or a perfect person he catches the kid and then he says says to the kid you going to thank me you going to thank me you've never thanked me he's still human enough to want to be thanked for putting himself out and catching kids who fall out of trees so so that's the important thing is that your characters uh transform but they don't transform to the point where they're no longer human the whole point of your characters is that in a comedy is that to be human is to be flawed and so they have they retain who they are a as people who what their flaws are there are a couple of important character types that you're going to have in your comedy um they don't they don't all have to be in the same function in every screenplay but every screenplay will have them there there's going to be a trickster character uh somebody who breaks the rules who bends the rules who um you know the Bugs Bunny of your film uh in Groundhog Day it's Bill Murray but in um in fact in spy it's actually it's actually Jason Statham who shows up all the places he always does what he's not supposed to do he's you know he keeps on having these incredibly hardto believe Tales of you know I'm immune to 178 different kinds of poison because I took them all at once at one time um uh you're GNA have a fool in that in spy Jason saim is also the fool uh in Groundhog Day it's uh the uh Ned Ned ryer in the the insurance salesman you can have uh the voice of Innocence often times in romantic comedy you're your the object of of uh desire um the girl or the boy if uh the protagonist is a woman um uh is your innocent uh and and you're also you're you're going to have a voice of reason uh somebody who gets to say what the truth is how we see it uh in in many comedies your protagonist your comic is the voice of reason because your comic is is commenting not only on the external uh ramifications of what's happening in the plot but also commenting on all the idiosyncrasies and and The Oddities that are happening in the plot so there's a moment uh there's a point in spy in which Melissa McCarthy because her initial cover is blown has to pretend to be uh a bodyguard bodyguarding um Rose Burn and she becomes the kind of foulmouthed comic that we that we have become to we've come to associate with Melissa McCarthy uh and you know she she looks and and at roseburn roseburn says what are you doing says well I'm trying to not get attacked by all the birds that are nesting in that in that nest of yours in the hair I'm misquoting of course the voice of reason is that character who sees the truth and tells the truth um sometimes comically sometimes just because hey that's what's happening here no one else seems to see it uh in in both um this is the end and Tropic Thunder Jay barell is The Voice of Truth is the is the voice of reason s somebody simply saying but you know I think the guy's dead and I think we got to get back to base camp so you're going to have these these important character types your protagonist could be a trickster your protagonist could be the innocent but these are the kind of types that are going to be here and you're going to meet along the way uh in the comic hero's journey so talking about the comic premise a great comic premises is something where uh something impossible or improbable happens that could never happen but since it does happen it it begs the question well what happens next a and the the thing remember about the comic premise is that it is one big whopping lie and you get to lie only once in your scenario once after that everything has to uh has to develop organically based on character and theme the premise is the is the engine it it it shoots you into the narrative um for me comic premise is a tool um it's uh it's not so much uh you know a a a pitch or or a log line or an elevator you know the elevator speech you know you know the elevator speech you're in the elevator uh stepen Spielberg gets on and you have between floors one and floor seven to pitch them on your great idea um my best elevator speech is would you press three please but but for me the comic premise as a tool because it it's such a delicious idea to you that it shoots you into the narrative what would happen then what what would what could happen you you create some impossibility and then you then you're constantly creating well this would happen and that would happen and and there are a couple of kind of rules of thumb to follow the first is you can't lie again you cannot lie again you have you can tell one big mother effing lie but after that you have to play honest and by playing honest I mean you're just basing it based on character and characters are brought on two ways characters are brought on through need and theme um uh what's need uh you're at a at a cafe with a girl and so you need a waiter or a waitress so that characters are brought on through need but characters are also brought on through theme so um uh what's the theme of Groundhog Day you could say that the theme of Groundhog Day is you know is what does it take to be a good person in the world and so uh you know so here's who you don't see in Groundhog Day you don't see his mother because it has nothing to do with family you don't see the president of the United States because it has nothing to do with politics uh you don't see the character Stephanie uh because uh the character of Stephanie in an earlier draft was an ex-girlfriend of Bill Murray's who put a curse on him that creates the time warp and we're all really glad that they they got rid of the character of Stephanie because it it it would have changed the theme of Groundhog Day from how can you be a good person in the world to how can you be a better boyfriend um so so theme calls on characters and so the so the only characters in Groundhog Day are uh the character of Bill Murray uh you know our uh wly crafty servant uh trickster the character of Rita who's the object of Desire uh the love interest um the cameraman and he's there because of need because otherwise you're going to have a terrible shot on your remote if nobody's holding the camera the only other character in the movie really after the first uh 3 minutes set in the Pittsburgh TV station is the town because the theme is how can you be a better person a good person in the world and the world as encompassed by Punk saton so you meet the piano teacher you meet the mayor you meet the insurance salesman um you meet the land lady I mean the only other characters in the movie are are the uh the town uh so that so that characters are are brought on through need and theme so rather than thinking about the way to develop a premise is you you uh create lots of stuff for characters to deal with the Better Way the what what Paul F talks about is what would the characters do this is this is what um Chris Rock talked about in his last movie um uh top five what would the charact given this C you know weird impossible situation what would the character do given who these characters are um and that's the rule of thumb is that is that you have to create all the events based on characters um and uh and if you do your movie will be uh will make sense um in terms of in terms of developing the premise and if you don't you're GNA have a movie like what's what's a good example um sometimes I use the animated example of Chicken Little in which the first half of the movie is about an anthropomorphic chicken who humiliates himself and his father by claiming that the sky is going to fall and the second half of the movie is an alien invasion those two halves of the movies fight against each other it's they're two totally separate movies so so the whole idea of a comic premise is that you are developing this impossible situation through and by characters

Channel: Film Courage

Views: 45,221

Keywords: steve kaplan, the hidden tools of comedy, comic hero’s journey, the serious business of being funny, skcomedy, comedy, funny, interview, video interview, screenwriting, comedy writing, comedy and drama, comedy characters, filmcourage, film courage, romantic comedy, humor, screenwriting tips, screenwriting help

Id: BE0IfkPGQjM

Length: 54min 40sec (3280 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 22 2017