Related posts tagged 'Advice for aspiring comedians'
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Related posts tagged 'Advice for aspiring comedians'
getting paid does NOT make you any better at standup, trust me. i wish it did. it's all about getting as much stage time as possible. it took me 2 years - my first gig, i got paid $20 and i drove 8 hours to do it. worth it.
advice: get onstage, however possible. there are no shortcuts. you need to put in the time.
I started when i was 17. I got a good head start, skill-building wise, but I sometimes think I missed out on a lot of “Life” that I could be drawing from now. Try to go to college and get some knowlege. If you don’t do that, make a deliberate attempt to read a lot and educate yourself, so that you don’t just become a siv for American pop culture.
If you spend all your time on stage talking about the cover of People magazine, you won’t go far, you won’t last, and you’ll be bored before you get good. Take advantage of the head start you’re giving yourself by stopping as often as possible to live your life, explore America and grow as a person.
When you go to some shit town to do a one-nighte...
I never had a plan. I just sort've ambled along, doing exactly what I wanted every day of my life. It turned out well. I could easily be sleeping in a ditch now. I'd say always follow your passions. Even if you fail, you've had a great time trying.
The thing I try to remember with hecklers is just to take my time and listen to them. I believe it was Chappelle who said, "A heckler's first punch is their best punch." They're generally not clever people. You don't see a lot of scientists going to comedy clubs and heckling. They're just drunk. And mostly women. So you just have to take your time and then eviscerate them.
Well, it didn't seem like I had much of a choice. I don't think that - you know, I don't think that my hand would have cooperated with my brain if my brain was telling my hand to write something it didn't really want to write. But I remember when there was some interference from NBC with "Seinfeld" when we first started doing it. And fortunately I didn't have a family at the time. So it's - it was very easy for me to say to them, no, I'm quitting; I'm not going to do that. I don't want to do that, and I can't do it.
And for me, it wasn't a big deal to just pack up and go home. Like I said, I hadn't - I didn't have a family. It's much harder. That's the first piece of advice I'll give anybod...
Louis CK once told me to never let go of a bit. I tend to throw away a lot of ideas if they're not working, but now I think I'm going to go back to stuff I once believed in, and see if I still find it funny and can maybe re-shape it into something good.
Start a show. Host the show. at a bar or any space. then you have guaranteed stage time and you do other comics favors by giving them spots so then they will give you spots on their shows. also hang out a lot at comedy clubs.
read a book called save the cat, watch every great pilot, read as many tv scripts as you can, watch you tube videos on great writers processes
Related posts tagged 'Writing'
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Related posts tagged 'Writing'
It was actually really similar in the big creative ways: thinking about how to find comedy and surprise and emotion in the unexpected and the everyday.
I don’t go, “I’m gonna write a joke.” I just go through the world and see stuff. It’s like I exercised the part of my mind of noticing things, to the point where I’m now noticing things without even trying to notice them.
The more you can do the better. Always write your own stuff. Most people aren't interested in writing for you. Beeleedat.
I got started in comedy writing because i would write serious things and people laughed. My advice is growing up exactly like me with my brain and body.
9am. Wake up, turn on some music I like, put on a pot of coffee, and sit down to start writing! A few productive hours and then a break for lunch, and then a couple of more hours if possible: sounds like a plan! 9:15am-4:30pm: Read, text, look up stuff on the internet, read, text, look up stuff on the internet, in a trance cycle 4:30pm: Think "Jesus Christ, have I really done NOTHING all day?!? The day is almost fucking over! I am really fucking worthless." 4:30pm-7:30pm: Write like a maniac. 7:30pm: Decide, "okay, at least I got SOMETHING done today. Tomorrow, I'm going wake up early, be at my desk by 9, and really make up for lost time. REPEAT
I still have the same freedom because i don't care, when I'm writing, that I"m famous. It doesn't help or hurt.
plotting can be tough because you're never quite sure you're doing it right - it's usually kind of like an exploration. You try something, and figure out what it needs. For instance, one episode we were plotting last night, I felt like it was all things happening, and no emotional connection from our charaters. So we figured out what my own personal connection to the plot would be, and that actually helped us figure out the things that would happen more easily. It's also helpful if your characters can have opposite points of view about what's occuring.
To motivate, I would try to outline as much as you can before you ever start writing a line of dialogue. If you're having trouble plotting, ...
This is Harold Pinter: ‘A writer’s life is a highly vulnerable, almost naked activity. We don’t have to weep about that, the writer makes his choice and is stuck with it. But it is true to say that you are open to all the winds, some of them icy indeed. You are out on your own, out on a limb, you find no shelter, no protection, unless you lie. In which case, of course, you have constructed your own protection and, it could be argued, become a politician.’
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