Film Courage: What is the lie that tells the truth?
Steve Kaplan, Author/Instructor/Script Consultant: The lie that tells the truth is the comic premise, you’re constructing a lie in order to get to the truth of something. How can you be a good person in the world? Well, maybe you wake up and you do good things and maybe you work for a non-profit and if you see somebody homeless maybe you give them a dollar but not very amusing. So you create a lie to get to that truth. You start off with somebody who is not a good person in the world (as in Groundhog Day) and then there’s this lie, there’s this impossible thing that happens or improbable thing that sends him on a journey in which the question that you’re pondering is explored because it’s ultimately for me theme is best expressed as a question as opposed to love. The theme of Romeo and Juliet Love conquers all, maybe but don’t they both die at the end? Theme as a postcard is not as useful to you as theme as a question because in Romeo and Juliet maybe Shakespeare is exploring what’s the nature of love because you’ve seen Romeo and Juliet there’s all different sorts of love. There’s the love of Romeo for his Bros Benvolio and Mercutio. There’s a love of Juliet for the nurse. There’s the malicious kind of grasping love (if you can call it love) of Tybalt (the evil cousin) for Juliet because he wants to control her and not have her see Romeo, there’s all different sorts of love. You’re exploring a question that you’re taking the time to explore in your writing as opposed to the answer. Now you’re just kind of connecting dots because maybe you don’t know the answer. Maybe it’s just something you’re thinking about and you’re not sure and so by using this narrative you’re exploring it yourself. Otherwise it’s four months to six months of hard work and you already knew where you’re going to go. A lot of script books tell You should always know where you’re ending up but even that’s not always true. Not every great writer writes that way. If you’re going to write a mystery I think you should…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
BUY THE BOOK – THE HIDDEN TOOLS OF COMEDY:
The Serious Business Of Being Funny
BUY THE BOOK – THE COMIC HERO’S JOURNEY:
Serious Story Structure For Fabulously Funny Films
BIO:
Steve Kaplan is the author of The Hidden Tools of Comedy and The Comic Hero’s Journey, best-sellers in their field. He’s working on a third book about writing comedy for television. In addition to having taught at UCLA, NYU, Yale and other universities, Steve created the HBO Workspace, the HBO New Writers Program and was co-founder and Artistic Director of Manhattan Punch Line Theatre. In addition to development projects for HBO, he has taught workshops online and around the globe and at companies such as DreamWorks, Disney Animation, Aardman Animation, and NBC’s Writers on the Verge. Steve has worked as a script consultant and script editor for productions companies, studios, directors and individual writers.
UPCOMING COMEDY INTENSIVE ONLINE CLASS WITH STEVE KAPLAN
Kaplancomedy.com/product/the-comedy-intensive-online-2023-spring
MORE VIDEOS WITH STEVE KAPLAN
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