Write Funny! Characters, Sketches, Scenes, Story
NEXT UK EVENING DATES
5 x 2 hour sessions on Zoom
3 x Wednesday/ 2 x Thursday sessions
Weds: 11th, 18th, 25th Sept
Thurs: 3rd, 10th October 2024
7pm-9pm UK time
8pm-10pm European time
11am-1pm Pacific time (PST)
2pm-4pm Eastern time (EST)
£135 (repeat fee £125)
As I write, at the recent BBC Comedy Festival in Glasgow, Jon Petrie, the BBC's Director of Comedy, said they are oversupplied with comedy drama ideas and are now looking "firmly sitcom first, with a high joke rate." Meanwhile, US TV producers have apparently called for more "hard comedy," by which they mean proper, laugh-out-loud shows. As this course is about writing funnier comedy scripts it feels highly timely.
On this course you will:
- hang out with a friendly bunch of comedy writers
- get expert input into your writing
- learn new writing techniques and finesse old favourites across a structured five weeks
- develop your existing project and/or be inspired for your next one!
there will be a course Whatsapp group for sharing notes and work between sessions.
I will also share videos the sessions so that you can catch up if you miss a class and you can watch again if you want a recap.
With this course, I have created a training programme where comedy writers can come together and develop the projects they’re working on as part of a group and where the coaching is responsive to where the group are at.
And the coaching is focused on the funny!
As well as getting feedback and inspiration on scripts you're working on, we'll also analyse and discuss comedy clips you nominate, in order to understand how to make characters, scenes and stories funny.
You’re welcome to join it if you’re new to working with me. It’s also an ideal follow on to previous online courses I offer. Plus it’s different every time so you can come back as many times as you like.
We’ll explore:
Ways of creating funny characters
Setting up comedic relationships that will be an engine for stories and comic situations.
We’ll look closely at how comedy dialogue and action works so that you can write better comedy.
You might have a specific project you are working on or you can simply come along for inspiration. You might be working on sketches, sitcom or comedy drama script, or even a movie script, a play or a radio show.
Each week you will have a bespoke homework to develop the project you are working on, alongside an optional group homework to explore a particular comedy tool or technique.
How it works
Each session in the first half we go over the scripts you have submitted that week. They are read aloud in the session. It can be so helpful to hear your work read aloud – or to read it aloud with others. You get a different perspective on it and can see issues and opportunities with it that you can't necessarily spot on the page.
Once the scene is read we go into analysis and discussion where you get immediate helpful and inspiring feedback.
We will look closely at your scenes to look at where and how they can be enhanced with key edits and rewrites, drawing out principles you can apply to future scenes too.
Comedy writing is all down to rewriting so this is a vital skill to develop.
And on this course we go over everyone’s scripts. On my other courses, we only have time to look at a selection of work actually in the class, but here we go over everyone’s pieces and here we really learn about rewriting – both in the specific and helpful feedback on your own script, but also learning from the feedback that others receive.
Leave the course inspired, with lots of new writing and with new tools and techniques to create more.
5 x 2 hour sessions on Zoom
Wednesday 11th September - 2nd October 2024
7pm-9pm UK time, 8pm-10pm European time,
11am-1pm Pacific time (PST)
2pm-4pm Eastern time (EST)
£135 (repeat fee £125)
Opmerkingen