14 Oct Framing a Joke
What does it mean to frame a joke? How can someone be funny? Why is the scene not working?
These questions are very common when it comes to practicing, performing, and understanding comedy. One major theme of comedy is: timing. More specifically, comedic timing. Comedic timing is important for many reasons.
One of the many reasons comedic timing is important is that it creates, for lack of a better word, the timing for a scene. It creates moments of humor, but it also gauges places that allow the scene to breathe – because even though something is funny, there is heart and emotional depth as well.
And that’s where the idea of framing a joke comes into play. When framing a joke, a performer allows not only the comedic timing to shine, but also the humor, the heart, and the breath. And in turn, all of these elements not only help with the comedic timing, but they help tell the story through the framing of a joke.
Another reason that comedic timing is important is the idea of playing for laughs. A lot of times scenes are not funny because they are being played for laughs. When this happens, the scene doesn’t always have that emotional depth, the comedic spark – or that perfect comedic timing. Even characters who are funny or tell jokes are human. That’s what makes them relatable. Portraying the realism of the character sets a joke up for success.
Framing a joke is more than just the comedic timing and creating a funny joke or punchline – it’s about the character and how they are grounded in realism that allows us to see their vulnerability that makes these jokes funny. Sometimes, the humor comes from misguidance, sometimes from misunderstanding, sometimes from misinterpretation, but it always comes from human emotion. The comedy comes by framing a joke via the emotional connection from the heart.
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