Welcome to 13 to 19 July 2015. There’s no image this week – I racked my brains for hours and couldn’t come up with anything. 🙂

I mentioned last week that the rough outline I had felt undercooked. I sussed out the problem early this week – I hadn’t done a dedicated gag pass. John Kricfalusi (creator of “Ren and Stimpy”) whose blog I can’t recommend highly enough mentions the gag session as part of his story development process. (Turns out I’m already doing something like it.) So this week I’ve been brainstorming funny stuff.

To find opportunities for gags, I’ve been working from the resolution to the end of the film (not too far), and from the resolution back through to the beginning of the film. Writing backwards means I know what I’m meant to be anticipating.

To write gags, I just find an opportune spot in the rough outline and brainstorm funny stuff that could happen off to one side. (Writing gags directly into the outline doesn’t work. There has to be a pool to pick from.) Good candidates are unexpected but expectable in the context of the story, the tone, the characters and the setting. Great candidates for gags are good gags which are also funny.

By now I know the characters and their situation well enough now that I know what gags will fit. I

know exactly how either character would react in a given situation, but I don’t think of them as fleshed-out characters with backstories – I don’t care what their favourite colour is or what they got for their eighth birthday. My only concern is what affects the story and there the emotional reaction is what counts.

I mean, what’s Daffy Duck’s favourite colour? Whatever the colour of the thing is that he’s trying to get his hands on. Of course.

Gronky doesn’t think the end of the movie is funny but that’s actually his job. Pointy doesn’t really notice the ending. That’s his job.

See you next week!