Interested in humor? Want to know how to summon charisma on command? Always wanted to take acting lessons? HOW TO BE FUNNY talks about three things I’ve learned so far from acting in comedy films. This video focuses on screen acting, but the information can be applied to theatre.
Transcript
Hello, everybody in this video I’m going to talk about a few things. I have learned from my own experience with acting in comedy I’m going to focus on film, because that’s what I’m used to I’m going to discuss three things.
I’ve learnt so far. The first one is: don’t try to be funny. What I mean by that is, everything must be sincere as if it weren’t funny at all, the comedy actually comes out of the situation itself and It’s the actors duty to find the truth.
In that situation, I’ve got an example here to help. There are two characters in during a relationship breakdown. This is a serious scenario.
The therapist in this film is going through her own relationship problems and is hungover, so she’s not happy at all put on the show clip in this video. But it’s the sincerity of the actors in this clip that brings out the natural Underlying humor within the context of the whole film. If you think about it, all comedic actors act sincerely.
We believe those comedic actors really in those situations, even though some comedic narratives can seem quite fast. This is why mockumentaries, typically comedies mockumentary is require the actors to act as truthfully as possible. It’s played as if it could be real.
This next cliff. I have exemplifies what I mean: it’s done in a documentary style, It’s essentially a mockumentary [, Music ] hi. My name is Josh, and this is my countess, leah van Doorn and we’re vampires.
If you read the comments on the video, you can see that the majority of people actually think it’s a real documentary, even when the subject matter is so farcical. Pauses pauses worked really well in comedy. They allow the character time to react, and this can help the actor as well in this next Example that I have no words are being set, but there’s still a lot of meaning being portrayed in these moments.
You can’t fall back on words. You can’t rely on the text you have to have that thought in your mind. It’s got to be strong, you can see in the eyes and that’s what’s really crucial.
I’ve got another example of using a pausing comedy when there is text involved again. I can only show you a clip of this, but here the characters pauses help the Punchline, no, not by kind of a hotline, sir great, if they’d be no pause like the punchline, would have been less effective. Now we’re on to the third thing I’ve learned about acting in comedy reaction reaction is something else I found to be very important in comedy.
A character’s reaction itself can sometimes be the punchline to a jerk in this next example. I have here there’s a moment of silence that allows the character to react. Well, Relationship challenges arising in several different ways and being able to communicate with your partner is an integral part of our healthy relationship.
Okay, look. We can refer to a variety of different methods in which to fix this, but if you ask me – and girls generally go close for doing things together, this is also an example of how are the three things can interact abused at the same time in this scene. The character is one she’s being sincere as She can in the moment.
There’s a pause and three she’s reacting acting sincerely. Pausing and reacting can interact within comedic acting within one scene or moment, and these three things combine to make a moment. That’s actually quite humorous.
In a way, that’s not trying to be humorous, everybody has their own different humor as well, but in terms of acting within comedy, I find this is the best way to act. Don’t try and force the humor, don’t Neglect the pauses and by all means reacted situations, because that is often where a lot of humor lies. So that’s just a bit about three main things I have learnt from acting and comedy so far.
If you have any questions or would like me to discuss anything in more detail, then please feel free to leave a comment down below .
