Elements of ComedyElements of Comedy

Elements of ComedyElements of Comedy

Comic timingSlapstick Pregnant pause

Comic TimingComic Timing

Comic timing is use of rhythm and tempo to enhance comedy and humor. The pacing of the delivery of a joke has a strong impact on its comic effect; the same is also true of more physical comedy such as slapstick.

A beat is a pause taken for the purposes of comic timing, often to allow the audience time to recognize the joke and react, or to heighten the suspense before delivery of the expected punch line.

Comic timing – The BeatComic timing – The Beat

SlapstickSlapstick

Slapstick is a type of comedy involving exaggerated physical violence. (E.g., A character being hit in the face with a frying pan or pie, getting matches lit between the toes, or running full-speed into a wall.)

The style is common to those genres of entertainment in which the audience is supposed to understand the very hyperbolic nature of such violence to exceed the boundaries of common sense and thus license non-cruel laughter.

The performance of slapstick comedy, based on exquisite timing and unerring calculation of execution, character reaction and audience laughter, is considered among the more difficult tasks facing a live performer.

Pregnant PausePregnant Pause

A pregnant pause is a technique of comic timing used to accentuate a comedy element.

Tips for doing ComedyTips for doing Comedy

Comedy is not clowning, comedy is doing preposterous things for the wrong reasons.

Make it all happen in heightened reality.

Essence of all comedy; you need to find the underlying basic joke throughout.

Comedy is an exact science and anyone can learn it.

How to Play ComedyHow to Play Comedy

        You must know the joke. You

have to know exactly where the laughs are and leave room for the audience to react. Your laughs come from your knowledge of them, not accidentally.

    If everything is funny, nothing is funny, you will wear audience out.

"In the end, it can't look like acting."