Is this clip from a feature film I did a few years ago funny?

GoodLuck

GoodLuck

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http://vimeo.com/8373596
My main area of interest is in comedy. What I'm wondering is if this clip from a feature film I did a few years ago is funny? This is a preview clip of the scene "Somewhere In Mexico" from Killing Holly (IMDb). The main character Tom (Josh Durham) has just fled to Mexico and is hiding out in a small Mexican bar. He goes in disguise to fit in the best way he knows how.

http://vimeo.com/8373596

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Snuffing one broad shouldn't be this hard.



Sometimes I find it a little difficult to judge what's funny because it's funnier to me because I know the actor, I was there, so sometimes I feel like I can't disconnect myself from it to really tell. Kind of like, am I laughing at the character or the actor as the character.

It's like when he slams the beer down and it foams up and he's shocked and tastes the foam. That wasn't in the script, he just added that in, so I laugh at the little things added that seem even funnier that others won't know about.
 
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Thanks Blaine for the honest feedback! It is long, maybe it is me more or less laughing at the inside jokes (actor as character/delivery/etc.)
 
Well, I can see that if there were inside jokes involved, it could be funny to those who were privy to them.
 
It's a big hat. It's funny.

As others have said - too long. Funny? Not especially. Unfunny? Well, not entirely.

It could be funny...maybe, but the scene has issues.

The sound isn't good, the shot design is lacking and amateur (for the most part), the lighting/exposure (if any) is inconsistent and not so hot.

However, I'm mostly bothered by the fact that the character wearing the hat isn't believable, that is, he's upset/depressed/non-talkative in the beginning...has a beer and some chips and then he's happy and excited with the prostitutes, it's just too much of a leap within this one scene, most of which is spent focused on him eating chips and spilling his beer. A lot of time is spent on that, and if you're going to do that, you've got to have a good reason - it's not apparent from this single scene.

The hat is funny, the first shot is good and funny - but the ball is dropped after that, unfortunately.

The best advice I've ever read on comedy writing, is that it's not enough to have good jokes in a given scene, the premise of that scene must also be funny, and the premise of this scene isn't funny. A guy in a bar hires prostitutes, that's the scene, it's just not a funny premise. Even a guy in a bar wearing a giant hat that reads MEXICO on it, hiring prostitutes isn't that funny...it's funnier, but it's still not enough...and those are just the fundamentals - after that, the writing's got to be good and we've got to be able to hear it and not be distracted by poor production.
 
What's universally funny? I don't know if there is any such thing. What's funny to one can be not funny to another. The hat seemed funny to me. Some of it might have seemed a little long, but not too long. I've seen feature films with moments of silence going on for a bit. And this is a feature.

I didn't find the sound very bad. The accent might have seemed American, but then when I read that he goes in disguise, this can make more sense to me.

Interesting film from what I've seen.
 
Gilbert Garboni said:
What's universally funny?
Click to expand...

I suppose in a universal sense anything can be funny, but that just isn't how it works with storytelling.

With comedy, the premise must be funny, and a comedic premise, in general, for a film (in this case) is made up of more than one element. How successful the creator of the premise is can be a matter of debate. We could come up with millions of examples and counterexamples, but let's just be sporting:

Hypothetical Premise:

A man is in a car and he's driving down a street, talking on his cell phone and he has passengers in his car.

There's nothing funny about the above as a premise, in my opinion. Maybe it is funny to some, and if so, please let me know who you are so that I can find a sympathetic audience :)

Hypothetical Premise + 1 Potentially Comedic Elements:

A man is in a car and he's driving down a street, talking on his cell phone and he has passengers in his car. The passengers in his car are his mother, his mother in law, and his wife.

Okay, so here we start to see potential for something comedic to happen. It's still not particularly funny, but at least we can intuit that something funny could happen in that situation.

Hypothetical Premise + More Potentially Comedic Elements:

A man is in a car and he's driving down a street, talking on his cell phone and he has passengers in his car. The passengers in his car are his mother, his mother in law, and his wife. The man is talking to his doctor on his cell phone and is inquiring about the possibility of getting a prescription for Viagra. The car he's driving is an Oscar Meyer Wiener-Mobile.

Now, at this point we are in the land of making a decision about whether or not we find the premise funny, which is subject to taste...however, the elements to make a comedic premise are much more fully formed.

If you pitched the first premise in an elevator to someone, I can pretty much guarantee you that you aren't going to get a laugh, a smile, or anything other than a blank face.

If you pitch the second premise, maybe you'll get a smile, but still probably not much - maybe a 10% positive response rate...but you still don't have much to work with.

If you pitch the third premise, you're going to get a mix of people laughing, people who are embarassed by the idea, and some folks who have been involved in that situation and might get depressed reliving it...

Please note that I am in no way endorsing any of the above premise(s) and they are used only as very, very quick hypotheticals and it's 2AM on the East Coast, so be kind :)
 
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