Day: November 11, 2008

Using the Snap Z program to capture footage in Simple Men was a lengthy process. I had never used Snap Z before, and did not realize there was neccesarry information to know before capturing. For instance, never place anything over the Snap Z area while the footage is rolling. I didn’t know this, and only after I finished did I realize that I recorded half Simple Men and half of me checking my email for twenty minutes. Also, make sure you click on the audio box. When veiwing the recording that included me checking my email, I realized there was no sound, eventhough sound was present as Snap Z captured. So, no biggie right? One foul up, no sweat, lets just do it again. Starting from scratch, we fixed our first two mistakes, and continued capturing the footage needed to renarrate. Finally getting the proper audio and visual scenes, we began to render the footage into FInal Cut Pro. I must say, this is the closest I have ever come to strangling a computer. Since we did not alter the number of frames per second(?) in our footage, it took forever to render some scenes. We found that trying to render both the audio and the visual at the same time was inefficient. What if either the audio or the visual somehow got screwed up? So, we decided to render the audio first because we could save different voice over clips, and generally it took a shorter time to complete. Following the audio, we rendered the visuals that we wanted in our narration. Trying to render long clips was a joke. I am completely serious when I say that a box popped up one time to provide an estimated time for our visual rendering, and it said 44 hours… Yea, I better get an A. However, once we completed rendering all our information, we ran into a third and final problem, probably the most limiting. Anytime we added on to a scene, or cut and moved clips to present a different story, we had to re- render the already rendered clips. This became tiresome, and in some ways limited the creativity of our group. We told the story the way we wanted, but maybe if we weren’t waiting for so long other ideas might have developed. Not only does waiting for clips to render take a long time, but it limits the amount of times a group rewatches their narration. Other than that, I had a great time working on this project. It was interesting coming up with a new fabula from the footage of another film. In many ways it reminded me of the article we read on Annie Hall, which describes Woody Allen’s editing process.   

Comedy has evolved through the varying styles of disruption, gag, and narrative techniques over the years. There are many similarities between the sub genres of comedy, but only one that truly captures the spectrum of comedic possibilities. Examples from slap stick, situational, romantic, dark, political, improvisational, and standup can be seen in screwball comedy films; being a style that can incorporate a plethora of characteristics under one filmic idea. In Romantic vs. Screwball Comedy Irene Dunne is quoted as saying: 

“Things are just the same as they always were only you’re the same as you were too. So I guess things will never be the same again” (pg. 29).

As the authour of the book, Wes D. Gehring, explains this excerpt in simple terms, ” To clarify the nature and role of screwball comedy, the films of the genre can be examined for five key characteristics of the aforementioned comic antihero: abundant leisure time, childlike nature, basic male frustration, a general propensity for physical comedy, and a proclivity for parody and satire” (pg. 29). Using Some Like It Hot as a reference, I will attempt to show how screwball comedy’s formal constants relate to its maleable comedic form; allowing the genre to apply to many audiences,  and overlap with different comedic sub genres. In describing the common motifs within screwball comedy, I will also highlight how the construction of the fabula and szyuhet alert the audience to its desired comedic quality. Using both template and procedural schemata, ideas like absentmindedness and gender roles are present in these types of films. Also, after defining the central characteristics of screw ball comedy, I will look to compare its advantageous nature with other sub genres like slap stick, situation, and romantic comedy. Highlighting how screwball comedy is not just another style of comedy, but a compilation of the other sub genres.

Tenative Thesis:

Discussing the formal constants in screwball comedy I will highlight how they enhance this sub genre while allowing for comedic creativity which identifies with situation, slap stick, and romantic traits.   

Dale, Alan. Comedy Is A Man In Trouble: Slapstick in American Movies. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. 2000.

Gehring, Wes D. Romantic vs. Screwball Comedy: Charting the Difference. The Scarecrow Press, Inc. Lanham, Maryland. 2002 

Gehring, Wes D. Screwball Comedy A Genre of Madcap Romance. Greenwood Press. Westport, Connecticut. 1986   

Horton, Andrew. Comedy/ Cinema/ Theory. University of California Press. Los Angeles, California. 1991. 

Karnick, Kristine Brunovsk, and Jenkins, Henry. Classical Hollywood Comedy. ROutledge. New York. 1995.

King, Geoff. Film Comedy. Walflower Press. New York. 1988.