Is Heaven Funny?

Lately I have been wondering if there is any humor in Heaven — The Other Side, The Hereafter, the Far Beyond… call it what you will. If everything is perfect, which is what we are led to believe as taught by the masters of most religions, then it comes to be understood that there is no pain, no discomfort, no greed or jealousy or adultery, no suffering, no cheating or lying or gossip, no running away from fear, no being afraid, no cowering or belittling or embarrassment, no hypochondriacs because no one gets sick, no lawyers because no one sues, no bigotry, no racism, and no hatred, no Polish or Jewish jokes or blonde jokes or fat jokes or moron jokes, no yelling or screaming or arguing, certainly no prat falls, or banana peel slips, or people getting hit in the balls.

What sitcom or comedic film does not have any of these elements? Blazing Saddles, Raising Arizona, There’s Something About Mary, Austin Powers, Take the Money and Run — all cannot be made without the “funny stuff” mentioned. We comedic writers thrive on the idiot, the lame, the stupid, the nerd, the inept for a main character. What do Moe, Larry and Curly do in Heaven? Do you think Moe still slaps Curly and pulls Larry’s hair? So the question is… WHAT THE HELL DO YOU DO IN HEAVEN FOR FUNNY?! I’ve mulled this over and over again, and the only conclusion I can come up with, is we… WE… are Heaven’s solution to funny. Just imagine them sitting on a comfy cloud, getting some popcorn, and tuning in to US to laugh, and cry and keel over in hysterics. We are their funny. So it’s ok if you keep on messing things up and it’s ok if you make a complete fool out of yourself because someone up there is watching and having a hell of a good time.

Emergency Rooms and Film Production

I’ve made two films that I am most proud of. “Dr. Ded Bug”, my film school thesis project (10 minutes), and “Interviewing Norman” my feature length film (shot on 16mm). Both times, I ended up in the emergency room because of an accident on the set (luckily I was not the unlucky one in either accident). The first time, my lead actor was going to show me how he was going to slide on the floor. Of course we had no stunt doubles, it being a student film and all. The main character (a chef) was chasing a cockroach in a restaurant kitchen and had to “dive” and slide across the floor trying to nab the bug. My Assistant Director got one of those trash can dollies, so while I was rehearsing with the other actors they decided to go down the hall and “practice” jumping on the trash dolly and rolling down the hall at 15 mph. Sounds safe, huh? After a few goes, the actor decided to try it “just one more time” and ended up scraping his chin on the floor pretty badly. He wasn’t even phased as he stood up and looked at me and my A.D. and blurted out with wide-eyes, “How was that?” Production was shut down for the day and he got 9 stitches.

Years later, I finally got the means to make my first feature film, “Interviewing Norman”. One of the actors was climbing down a hill carrying a long branch, waving it in the air as he came down… yeah… here it comes… My D.P. was shooting him – backing up as he came down the hill – and… stick in the eye. Yeah. That’s what I said. STICK IN THE EYE OF MY D.P. Luckily it was only a scratch, and he was back behind the camera the next day.

What do these experiences tell me? Make sure you have insurance (at least Worker’s Comp) before you are in production. Luckily, both times I had Workers Comp. My film school (and probably most reputable ones) require Workers Comp when making a student production. The second time around, my producer insisted on it. So even if you are on a $10,000 film, do yourself a favor and spend the $100 it costs to get Workers Comp. You won’t regret it.

Crap…Now What

Every writer gets stuck in the middle, somewhere around page 50. I’m not sure why page 50, but it always seems to be right there, when I stare at the page and say to myself, “Crap… now what?”.   If you think about it, most “average” movies kind of coast about an hour into the story.  The audience begins to yawn and sometimes you hear chatter in the theater… time to get some more popcorn or go to the bathroom.  Big deal, this is the middle, nothing good happens here.

This tends to happen because a lot of writers start with a great idea but that’s about it.  A great idea will get you to page 30 without too much trouble, especially if you are an experienced writer.  But what to do when you hit that wall?  It’s ideal to be able to see your story’s beginning, middle and end before you start writing.

In a way, animators are lucky. They’re forced to storyboard the entire story, sketching out each frame and posting it on a large board before they start animating.  Writers know they should do the same thing, using something like index cards, but truthfully, writers need a lot more than just a stack of index cards.

A few years ago I was writing a screenplay where there were a ton of flashbacks.  It was the kind of story where you would be jumping from one scene to another – a real nightmare to keep straight.  I had to keep track of different timelines and dates and exactly the time of day one scene took place so that it would make sense when some future something would happen that referred to that time — you know the drill.  Even though I took meticulous notes and drew a timeline on graph paper, I constantly got confused and had to refer to my disorganized pile of notes every time I would sit down to get my head back into the story.

For this and many other reasons, I created StoryO.  As a writer, I wanted to be able to clearly see where I was, where I was going, and where I was going to end up.  Using StoryO I’m finding it easy to create segments in a timeline with sequences of events attached to each segment.  All my segments are color-coded, so they really pop on my screen. I can easily click any sequence and say, “Ok, what is going on here?”  I ask myself, “what if I were to move this entire sequence over here?”  And then I have fun clicking and dragging around parts of my story to re-order the entire timeline and all its parts.  It’s a great way to keep things straight and it lets me create an endless amount of what-if scenarios with all the pieces of my story puzzle.

Playing with StoryO makes me want to write.  I can’t say the same thing about staring at a blank page with a blinking cursor. That, I hate.