To peek at a these samples from Jim's home study materials using a much simpler view, please go to the new frames version of Jim's web site. This version is recommended for easier navigation,. Are you convinced? Ok, then please click here.:
Eager to get started? No problem: a home study version is already available that covers all topics on this page, far beyond my ambitions for this web site:
Note: highlighted tutorials are web pages: functioning as bare-bones introductions to topics
(more detail and depth is now available in Jim's home study versions).
Fundamentals of Stand-Up Comedy
Writing basics:
Performing basics:
Intermediate Stand-Up Comedy
Intermediate writing: formats
Intermediate performing: acting
- Acting for Comics and Speakers
- Choreographing the Joke: learning how to move around the club stage or speaker's platform, aesthetics that affect the audience emotionally
Intermediate performing: character
Advanced Stand-Up Comedy
Advanced writing: Premise Routines
- Ideal
- Simple: Classic Tirade Routine
Complex Premise Routines
- Observations Routine
- Relationship Satire Routine
- Wit Routine
- Humor Routine
- Three Dimensional Premise
- Two Situation Premise
Post-Graduate School of Stand-Up Comedy
Post graduate school: the Act to Sell Your Act:
- "Business" Side of Show Business--marketing your character locally, nationally and internationally
- For a fast overview, see Jim's example of a quickie approach to interviews at the Fundamentals level using only the 7 basic joke forms:
Selling Yourself During Media Interviews by: Newspapers, Radio & TV
Interviews at the advanced level would involve both cross-roasting and premise routines. Contemporary examples will be updated on a separate web page, available to current clients with password accounts.
Sample update to my home study materials, kinda hints you'll keep finding on this web site:
Wit vs. Humor
Three movies of Humphrey Bogart provide a quick and easy illustration of "wit" and "humor," two very different sides of the comedy coin. Fortunately, all three Bogey flicks are available in video stores and are often played on TV. In fact, (12/97)Turner Classic Movies showed the entire trio. I will list the titles in their sequence, which is at once both chronological (year released) and evolutionary (aesthetically speaking):
- "The Maltese Falcon" (1941)
--Bogey as witty detective;
director: John Huston
- "The Big Sleep" (1945)
--Bogey as humorous detective;
director: Howard Hawks
- "In a Lonely Place" (1950)
--Bogey as a screenwriter,
alternately witty and humorous;
director: Nicholas Ray
Most media and other folks use the terms "wit" and "humor" interchangeably. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
You will find a further discussion of wit vs. humor, and how it is central to any legitimate understanding of comedy in Jim's home study materials.
Which of all the subjects listed on this page would you like me to tackle next?
Let Jim hear from you.
tempadd
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Today's date and Pacific Standard Time is: Sunday, 07-Aug-2022 21:19:36 PDT
Date this page was last modified, Pacific Standard Time: Saturday, 19-Feb-2000 20:42:25 PST