Promote Comedy Art with Good Works (Discussion on Creative Transformation and Innovative Development)
Core reading
When we go deep into the Chinese comedy tradition and realize the skills of comedy performance, backed by profound history and culture, our confidence in creating comedy will be significantly enhanced.
Comedy art should continue to innovate with the times. The more the times evolve, the more advanced the technology, the richer the expression methods and means, the more we must go back to the source, return to the art itself and follow the laws of art
Comedy creators must remember: as a form of popular literature and art, comedy serves the audience; really good acting skills need to be honed through live performances and frequent interactions with the audience.
Comedy is the art and knowledge of creating laughter. If you study the tradition of comedy and understand the essence of comedy, comedy creation will get twice the result with half the effort.
Study the tradition of comedy and enhance creative confidence
Comedy has a long history in China.
The concept of "banter" in ancient China is an art form that creates laughter through language.
Among the unearthed pottery figurines of the Han Dynasty, there are also banter artists.
"Good words make laugh", Haiyou is the earliest name given to professional comedians in my country. As early as the Spring and Autumn Period, Haiyou, who specializes in music, dance and humor, appeared.
"Historical Biography" records the funny and wise stories of Chu artist You Meng and others in the Spring and Autumn Period. These stories are full of comedy elements and tension.
Many of our comedies today actually unknowingly use traditional forms and methods.
For example, the traditional operas "Kite Mistakes" and "Huatian Mistakes" take "mistakes" and "mistakes" as the core of the play: if there is a misunderstanding, there will be ridiculous scenes, which will lead to stories and comedies.
The current misunderstanding comedy also uses the traditional method of "misunderstanding" and "wrong". Two actors say their own things, and they can still confront each other.
It can be seen that the classic creative method is still full of vitality today.
Comedy, from scripts, rehearsals, to performances, groups of actions and lines of lines are designed to win the audience’s laughter.
Observing your eyes and your heart is like crossing a river by stepping on a stone. Each stone is a bridge section preset, meticulously prepared, and carefully arranged by the creator in the early stage.
The actor and the audience are in a communication and mutual relationship. The actor presets the burden and shakes the burden. The audience laughs, and then the actor shakes the burden according to the laughter to push the plot forward.
Therefore, comedy is the art of interaction and integration between the creator and the receiver.
When we dig deeper into the Chinese comedy tradition, understand comedy performance skills, and backed by profound history and culture, our confidence in creating comedy will be significantly enhanced.
The richer the expression means, the more we must follow the laws of art
Comedy is an art form that is always seeking newness, difference, and change.
Comedy art should continue to innovate with the times. The more the times develop, the more advanced technology, and the richer expression methods and means, the more we have to go back to the source, return to the essence of art, and follow the laws of art.
Before talking about innovation, we need to clarify the basic principles, logic and methods of comedy.
Under what circumstances will the audience laugh?
Under what conditions can a comedy be produced?
Over the years, I have been groping in my creative practice, and I have also experienced a process from vagueness to clarity.
The skit "Eating Noodles" has the shadow of the times, but the technique of the work is still slightly immature; "The Protagonist and Supporting Actor" explores the methods and applications of misunderstanding comedy and misplaced comedy; "Mutton Skewers" adds more comedy skills and unique storytelling methods Let the audience shine; "Police and the Thief" superimposes four or five comedy methods, and the means of expression are much richer than the previous three works, and it also brings more surprises to the audience.
Over the years, I have also created stage comedies such as "Taiwan" and "Balcony", pursuing a more comprehensive comedy performance, and also trying to master the balance between tragicomedy and comedy.
Participating in the "Gold Medal Comedy Class" variety show also made me understand this new form of variety show comedy.
A good comedy does not only rely on performance, it must be built on a solid text basis.
So comedy creators must perform diligently and pay more attention to the text.
Having played so many comedies, my biggest feeling is that although comedy is an art that makes people laugh, its core is to get out of trouble.
Just like the word "funny", "slip" means smooth and lubricated, and "ji" refers to a difficult situation, and this word means to get rid of a difficult situation.
"Getting out of trouble" is the internal drive of a character's action, and only when there is an internal drive can the action line be formed.
So before creating, we must first think about this core clearly and thoroughly.
Qualified comedy scripts give rise to stories through the formation of contradictory lines of action by different characters.
For classic comedies, a main story is often interspersed with more characters and more lines of action, which are superimposed on each other and act as cause and effect.
Take the building as an analogy. Only when different materials support each other can it continuously extend and heighten to build a skyscraper.
If you only pay attention to the performance of one scene after another, and do not pay attention to the structure, even if you have more building materials, you can only build a single shelf instead of condensing into an organic whole.
There are different levels of comedy creation.
The most superficial is to imitate the difference, because the behavior of laughter has a lot to do with the "potential difference".
This includes the potential difference between the roles of information asymmetry, but also the potential difference between the performer and the audience.
With the potential difference, the actors carefully circumvent, hide, walk, and dodge in the woven network of relationships, and the audience will have their own thinking and value judgments, which will trigger the "laughing point". Such a smart comedy talent It is a high-level comedy.
A very important point in comedy is the grasp of "degree".
The production of humor requires breaking the inherent order, but this breaking is conditional and cannot violate social public order and good customs.
Some vulgar, nasty comedies tend to arouse the audience's disgust.
In the long-term comedy performance, I have another experience, the audience's laughter needs to be practiced.
For example, when watching a sketch, the audience knows that this is a humorous art form, so they will naturally let go of their scruples and laugh out loud.
But if you watch a comedy in the theater, you will feel serious and can't laugh.
When a comedy baggage appears, the audience first looks from left to right and observes whether others are smiling or not. The whole theater seems to be taut with a rope.
Suddenly an audience couldn't help but laughed "hahaha", and everyone laughed with confidence.
This shows that comedians must design the burden, grasp the scale and rhythm, and lead the audience to develop the habit of laughing.
Frequent interaction with the audience, polished comedy art boutique
Comedy creators need to achieve ideology through techniques, storytelling and character actions to reach the height of comedy works.
Performance and thinking are organically unified, and you must never regard purpose as a method.
Some comedy creations don't pay attention to structure and storytelling, and only use nonsense to solve the contradictions in the story. Thinking about how to grab the baggage and "tick people" to make people laugh, this will become a problem.
Creating laughter is the starting point of the creator, but not the means of creation.
There is only "burden" in the eyes. If you don't structure the story properly, I think it's putting the cart before the horse, and it also leads to the actors' quick success in performance.
Many actors have no one in their eyes and do not feel their opponents. When performing in their respective scenes, it is difficult for the audience to laugh naturally.
Comedy creators must remember: as a form of popular art, comedy serves the audience.
Comedy creators must have a good attitude. If they don’t put the position of comedy creator and audience properly, it will only embarrass the audience and themselves.
At present, new works of stage comedy, film and television comedy, and variety comedy are constantly emerging, which reflects the strong demand for comedy in society.
These three categories are different.
In stage comedy, the creator directly faces the audience.
In variety comedies and film and television comedies, creators and audiences are not in the same viewing space.
Some actors think that if they perform well in variety shows, they can perform comedy well.
In fact, many variety comedies and film and television comedies show comedy effects through montage editing and post-production.
Really good acting skills need to be honed through live performances and frequent interactions with the audience.
Some of the sketches I used on the TV screen before were performed in front of the camera after hundreds of real matches with the audience.
In the process of going north and south, I am very happy to see that there are more and more comedy categories, and more and more audiences come to watch comedies.
Every time I see the audience smile or laugh out loud, I feel very rewarded.
Popularizing comedy and bringing laughter to the audience is the source of happiness for a comedian, and I have been dedicated to this for most of my life.
After decades of hard work and tempering, my sense of mission has become more and more determined: to promote comedy art with good works and cultivate new comedy talents.
Everbright comedy art, Chinese comedians have a long way to go.
(The author is a comedian)
Chen Peisi