One of the most frequently asked questions I receive while touring is "how to I get into this business?" I've been a professional touring comedian for 25 years, so I've heard this a lot! In the larger, sense, becoming a comedian is really a three-pronged endeavor.
Write your material
Hone and develop your comedy material (rehearse your "set")
Get work.
Sound simple enough? Well now comes the complicated part; actually doing it. The hard facts are that even if I gave you all the answers only one to two percent of you would actually apply it and go out and do it.
Comedy is not just an art. It's a skill-based science and a business. However, most comics--both professional and novice-- equate comedy with frivolity and they treat their careers frivolously. Like anything worth doing, comedy takes work. It takes work to write new material and it takes more work to go out and get the gigs. Show business is two words; there's the "show" and there's the "business" and it might surprise you to know that much of the time, you have to put more effort into the business than the show. The good news is, when you do it right, you're having such a blast that you don't really work a day in your life!
Sound like fun? Let's move forward!
Let's start with writing and developing material. There are a whole lot of people out there that think that you can't learn comedy, that you're either born with it or you're not. That's a pure and simple fallacy spoken by people that don't have a clue about the science behind laughter or the structure behind it. If you really think about it, have you ever seen a baby pop out of his mother's womb:
"So two people were making love...then boom! Out pops me! Is this thing on?" You call that a birth canal? It's more like trying to push an egg through a stir stick! Hey Mom? (spit, spit), you should shave that stuff! Haven't you heard of a 'Brazilian?'"
It just doesn't happen! Granted, there are some people that seem to naturally have a sense of humor built in. They seem to get it. My theory is that they grew up around comedy, either listening to the greats at a young age, or they were raised in a family that was filled with humor. All the comedians I know that make me laugh had exposure to funny people at a young age and began adapting comedic behaviors. Those behaviors got them attention. They began to recognize the patterns of behavior and language that resulted in laughter and applied them to other situations with good results.
The key word from the above paragraph is "patterns." There are certain patterns that professionals use time and time again, to get laughs and it's usually a pattern that creates surprise. According to psychologists who study humor, in this context, surprise is the number one element that triggers human laughter, If you can surprise someone with what you are going to say, they will usually laugh. One of the easiest ways to do this is to apply one of the 12 major comedy formulas that I discovered over the years of studying the greatest comedians. Heck, you don't even need to study the greats to recognize this formula. If you have a friend (I think we all do), who turns everything you say into a sexual connotation, than he/she is probably applying this formula. It is known as the "Double Entendre." This literally means "two meanings." You basically take a common phrase and spin the intended meaning to mean something totally different, but it could actually fit in the statement, but its exaggerated...
Dunya News-4th death anniversary of legendary... by dunyanews Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6959226
Write your material
Hone and develop your comedy material (rehearse your "set")
Get work.
Sound simple enough? Well now comes the complicated part; actually doing it. The hard facts are that even if I gave you all the answers only one to two percent of you would actually apply it and go out and do it.
Comedy is not just an art. It's a skill-based science and a business. However, most comics--both professional and novice-- equate comedy with frivolity and they treat their careers frivolously. Like anything worth doing, comedy takes work. It takes work to write new material and it takes more work to go out and get the gigs. Show business is two words; there's the "show" and there's the "business" and it might surprise you to know that much of the time, you have to put more effort into the business than the show. The good news is, when you do it right, you're having such a blast that you don't really work a day in your life!
Sound like fun? Let's move forward!
Let's start with writing and developing material. There are a whole lot of people out there that think that you can't learn comedy, that you're either born with it or you're not. That's a pure and simple fallacy spoken by people that don't have a clue about the science behind laughter or the structure behind it. If you really think about it, have you ever seen a baby pop out of his mother's womb:
"So two people were making love...then boom! Out pops me! Is this thing on?" You call that a birth canal? It's more like trying to push an egg through a stir stick! Hey Mom? (spit, spit), you should shave that stuff! Haven't you heard of a 'Brazilian?'"
It just doesn't happen! Granted, there are some people that seem to naturally have a sense of humor built in. They seem to get it. My theory is that they grew up around comedy, either listening to the greats at a young age, or they were raised in a family that was filled with humor. All the comedians I know that make me laugh had exposure to funny people at a young age and began adapting comedic behaviors. Those behaviors got them attention. They began to recognize the patterns of behavior and language that resulted in laughter and applied them to other situations with good results.
The key word from the above paragraph is "patterns." There are certain patterns that professionals use time and time again, to get laughs and it's usually a pattern that creates surprise. According to psychologists who study humor, in this context, surprise is the number one element that triggers human laughter, If you can surprise someone with what you are going to say, they will usually laugh. One of the easiest ways to do this is to apply one of the 12 major comedy formulas that I discovered over the years of studying the greatest comedians. Heck, you don't even need to study the greats to recognize this formula. If you have a friend (I think we all do), who turns everything you say into a sexual connotation, than he/she is probably applying this formula. It is known as the "Double Entendre." This literally means "two meanings." You basically take a common phrase and spin the intended meaning to mean something totally different, but it could actually fit in the statement, but its exaggerated...
Dunya News-4th death anniversary of legendary... by dunyanews Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6959226
