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BPS 341: Creating Comedy's Hero's Journey with Steve Kaplan · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

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You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
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podcasts, just go to ifahpodcastnetwork dot com. Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast,
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Episode number three forty one. Cinema is a matter of what's in the
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frame and what's out. Now, more than ever, we need to talk
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to each other, to listen to each other and understand how we see the
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world, and cinema is the best medium for doing this. Martin Scorsese broadcasting
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that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and
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business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your screenplay bulletproof. And here's
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your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof
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to covermiscreenplay dot Com. Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullets. This
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week's guest is one of the most sought after coaches in comedy. His first
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book, The Hitting Tools of Comedy, was one of the one of my
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favorite books that came out in the past couple of years, and it's been
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an international bestseller. At His new book, which we're going to talk all
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about, The Comic Hero's Journey, is out now everywhere. So, without
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further ado, was Steve Kaplan. So, Steve, you've been on twice
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before and this is your third time on the podcast. How does it feel.
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It feels good. I'm still waiting for my third time jacket, you
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know, like they do on SNL. But I'll just wait. I'm sure
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that's in the mail. It is, and if it gets lost, well,
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you know what, there's been a lot of cutbacks at the post office,
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Steve, so oh boy, okay, well I'll continue nevertheless, By
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the way, here's a funny story for you, Steve, really quickly.
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I used to work at the post office. So that explains it. They
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were so desperate they hired me. Can you believe that? So did you
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experience what it meant to go postal? Well, see, I have an
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unfair advantage, and that part of it because I've always been like, you
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know, that unhinged guy. So I kind of walked in with a chiple
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by shoulder. So okay, and what what were you? What were your
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duties at the post office? Were you walking around or were you behind the
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desk or uh? Neither. I actually was the guy who was in like
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the in the like the warehouse, and we would like sort mail. We'd
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move like tons of mail from here to there. We would like stock up,
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we would help like the actual postal workers. We actually like, you
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know, here's all the mail for your route today, and here's what you
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gotta do. Yeah, it was. It was not a very glamorous job.
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So if you think, tell me, tell me one thing that you
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hoped your supervisors never found out that I probably took the only thing I could
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do say is I took longer breaks than I should have. I didn't like
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steal any mail or hide in wins mail, nothing like that. I never
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I would never do anything like that, So so sorry, I don't have
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any like crazy stories like I didn't. I didn't help a bag of mail
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down like a sewer or something. But uh, did you ever did you
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ever know anybody who did oh oh stuff would go like I mean, Steve,
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Like they used to like throw stuff across the the entire floor, so
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like you know, they would take a box that says fragile and they would
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just boot it all the way across the whole ruin. Oh I knew it.
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Oh yeah, that happens on the regular. Okay, Well, this
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is the basis of a new Sun Dance comedy. I can I can see
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it now going stolen. I thought you were going to say, like a
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new lawsuit against the Post Office. I got this guy. Oh No,
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everything is story. Everything is a something to generate story. That's that.
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That's very true. And you know, I've seen a lot of the interviews
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you've done, Steve, and not just the ones that you've done here.
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You know you've been on twice before, but you know you've been on Film
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Courage. Uh. You know, you've done a ton of interviews, and
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you know you're you're you're very good at you know, sort of putting comedy
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in perspective, which and what I mean by that is putting putting you.
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It has to be a story. There has to be a reason it's funny,
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because if it's just a series of events, it really doesn't mean a
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lot. Right, Well, it's it's not that it doesn't mean I've been
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thinking about that a lot in the new book that I wrote, Comic Hero's
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Journey. I was thinking today that I didn't give enough props to totally silly
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comedies that that have nothing on their mind other than to be totally silly.
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And I was thinking about the fact that one of the reasons that I don't
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have a section on that is because it's so hard to do because you're not
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you have nothing to hang hang the narrative on, don't you You kind of
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have characters, but they're not fully dimensionalized characters. I'm thinking of things like
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like The Jerk that I just recently rescreened. You you don't have a story
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that you really care about because you know that the character are just there for
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laughs. And when it works, it's it's it's amazing, but it's it's
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very hard to work. I can think of a lot more instances where it
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doesn't work, like Scary Movie four or or you know, Naked Gun the
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seventh sequel, because while it's possible to do, it's it's a very hard
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trick to pull off because what it means is that you are entertaining the audience
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in one particular way for ninety five minutes or one hundred or one hundred and
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five minutes, and and that's extremely difficult because you don't have a love story
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to fall back on. You don't have you don't have any real tension to
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fall back on. There's no suspense, there's no drama, there's no there's
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nothing thematic that hooks in. And what I found. What I find is
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that when I go back and watch these movies like The Jerk, they don't
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hold up that well. I mean, for me at least that, you,
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you know, having being familiar with the comedy of it, the jokes
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of it, I'm not as as I'm not taking for a ride anymore,
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and I kind of see the shallowness of it. Although at the time I
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loved it, I was a big fan. One movie that's like that that
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still works for me is Airplane, And I think the reason for that is
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because, even though it is as silly as the day is long, you
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care about that Robert Hayes character. You care about him somehow. They make
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you, you know, they make you concerned, They have a not It's
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kind of the reverse of a save the cat in drama, you have a
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saved the cat moment. In comedy, you often have the cat scratches your
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hero's face and then you know, then peece on his leg and then walks
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away. You you're made to feel sympathetic, You're made to feel bad for
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the for the character, and and that that makes you care. And if
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you care about the character, then no matter how silly the circumstances are,
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you're you kind of fall into the narrative. You're hooked in the narrative.
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So so that's what I've been thinking about that's a that's a long answer to
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a question you didn't even ask. And those are the best ones, Steve,
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trust me, because you know, people tewn it into you always hear
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the guests, like I always say, and it's always good to you know
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when the guests you know, uh, you know, talks more than I
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do. And uh, I look good too, because I didn't have to
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ask a question. You already gave me an answer. So thank you,
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Thank you for that, Steve. Well there you go. So, but
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you know what, I I watched The Jerk again recently. You know,
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I still love the movie. I absolutely think it's hilarious. But I and
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I see what you mean. Uh, but you know, and when I
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watch movies like The Jerk and then you kind of compare it to today,
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you know, I still think The Jerk has more character development because some movies
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today maybe you know, maybe there's not so much character development, or maybe
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there are too many you know, there are too many jokes that really don't
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kind of tie in with it. So, you know, and then that
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kind of ties with one of the questions I want to ask you, is,
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you know, what, what are some of the recent movies that you've
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seen where that have that have not only been funny, but you also thought
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they were good because they actually told a story, you know, that actually
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focused on a character. Oh well, I would say, you know,
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I would say, Lady Bird, if you're gonna go on the on the
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spectrum of of amusing too hilarious, Lady Bird might not be on the hilarious
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side of that spectrum. But it's moving, it's funny, it's true,
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it's authentic. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and
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now back to the show. Uh, I like I liked the Grand Budapest
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Hotel. Again, it's it's just this perfect little fairy tale that has very
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exaggerated characters. But ultimately it's it's about Uh, it's about honor and integrity
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in a strange way because it's about this matre d who you know, who
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screws all the all the elder guests the hotel. But in a strange way,
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it's it's about holding on to something that's valuable from the past and and
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mourning the things that are lost. Uh. In terms of movies that I
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thought I thought were just funny, uh, I thought Spy was very successful.
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In terms of parodying that James Bond formula and yet finding its own comedy
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in in what Melissa McCarthy does. So, uh So, I think let
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me see, was there something? Uh? You know, most of the
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comedy that I see today aren't aren't movie. You know, successful comedies aren't
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movies as much as as what you see on television and and especially on this
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on the streaming channels. Brockmeyer, uh is uh is a binge worthy favorite
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of mine. Uh It's because I love baseball and I love hankas area and
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he just takes this dissolute character to its ultimate illogical, logical conclusion, and
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it makes sense. It's him, Hank's area. Amanda Pete great stuff,
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very funny, and the marvelous missus Mazel? Did I pronounce that right?
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I can never figure that out. I'm just starting to watch season two.
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Uh So, that that's very good. I I think it's hard to it's
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hard to do feature comedy because the marketplace kind of demands them to dumb down
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their material. So you have something like have you seen Tag? Right?
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I've seen Tag? So I don't know what you thought of Tag, but
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I thought that that it's kind of an odd quirky story that I couldn't see
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the reason why they made it into a movie, because even though there were
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some funny things that happened, it kind of eluded me. Maybe you had
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a different experience. But I find that a lot of what gets into the
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theaters is something that they're condescending to the audience. They're thinking, well,
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this is funny, they'll like it, as opposed to what's the best story
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we can tell, and it's the most comic way we can tell it.
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Yeah, I saw tag and I again, I kind of felt that way
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too. It's kind of like, you know, how did this, you
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know, get made into a movie. It's kind of like one of those
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things where you're like they made you kind of see the poster and you're like,
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well, maybe it could be good, you know, and then and
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then it's kind of like, you know, they made this into a movie.
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I'm sure there was a market for it. I don't know how well
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it did, I really, I don't have the numbers, but I don't
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know what. I don't think there's gonna be a sequel, No, I
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don't think so. You know, in a way, sometimes the best comedies
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nowadays are the animated comedies because they're they they're creating, especially the Pixar comedies,
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they're creating material that has to be four quadrant, that has to appeal
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towards everybody. So it can't just be silly jokes that the kids like.
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There has to be something for the parents. They want something for the parents.
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And those Pixar movies are all driven thematically as opposed to driven by plot
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and gag. So Incredibles to Coco, is that was that the one with
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the Day of the Dead. I think that's I think I'm getting that right.
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Yeah, I think that was Coco. Yeah, I mean those are
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those are wonderful, inventive, imaginative and and and moving, moving pieces of
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comic film. And I guess, I guess there's the sense because it's not
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R rated, that they can just tell a story and they're not beholden to
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do something outrageous or gross every ten minutes to keep this imaginary audience of thirteen
14:48
year old boys happy. So, you know, you mentioned Brockmeyer. I've
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never seen an episode, but I have a friend who swears by it because
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he just like Hacker's area as well. But you know, speaking of baseball
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shows, have you ever seen east bound and down. I do like Eastbounding
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Down. And the thing is is that I like Eastbounding Down, I like
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Danny McBride, And if you put the two of them together, the thing
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that I like more about Brockmeier is that it it expands the the the envelope
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of what's, what could be, what could actually have have happened, and
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it doesn't break the envelope, whereas with Eastbounding Down you often have to just
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leave your your good sense off to one side and just to just enjoy Danny
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McBride, is this outrageous? Uh? Not too bright? Ex baseball player?
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So those are actually two similar projects, which I think one is is
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done better, but both both have both have amusing things. I mean,
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you know for me, you you start with the hardest question for me,
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Dave, which is what have you seen that you like? Which makes me
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feel obligated to well, what's what did I like? That's good? But
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the taste is subjective. That's one of the things that I I I teach
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strongly in my workshops and my books, is that is that funny is subjective.
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I mean, what I find funny you might not find funny. It
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doesn't make me right and you wrong, or vice versa. So you so,
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if you're not going to try to create funny what's going to make me
16:30
laugh as opposed to what's going to make you laugh, then you then you
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want to try to create comedy, which is telling the truth about people,
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what's true about people, and telling the truth about that using you know,
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a variety of methods that that make it, that bring it out of the
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mundane and the ordinary, and and elevate it to to common kind of comic
16:55
art and comic truth. So uh so, if you ask me, what
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what have I seen that I really like? I'm really drawn to movies that
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I've seen years ago that still stay with me, like About a Boy or
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five Hundred Days of Summer. Movies that are funny, but they have something
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on their mind and they move me. They move me in three ways.
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They move me kinetically I laugh, they move me emotionally I feel, and
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they move me intellectually I think. And to me, those are the best
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movies. And to me, I still I still go to my favorite,
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which is Groundhog Day. And I guess my second favorite might be forty year
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Old Virgin, which I just spent a day screening for a class in Milan,
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trying to teach them how it works in terms of the comic hero's journey.
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So when you screen that, by the way, those are two very
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good choices. By the way, so because you know Groundhog's Day, you
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know, we could we could dissect that right now. But I mean,
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it's it's such a great movie because you know, repeating the same day over
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and over and eventually you're right. I think you touched upon this in an
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interview before, maybe you and I talked about this, But where he kind
18:23
of assumes that he's God and he kind of assumes these things, that's how
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people would have really, you know, that's how if that happened to you
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or me, you would assume that same thing, right, I mean,
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And that's that's really the brilliance of the Herald Ramus revision of the originally of
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the original Danny Rubin's script is that in at least in the final shooting version,
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they he kind of holds very closely to Okay, this impossible thing happened,
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that he's waking up and it's the same day over and over again.
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But having having admitted that, having just got along and said, okay,
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this impossible thing happened, What would happen then if this were true, what
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would really happen out of that? And I think one of the things that
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makes Groundhog Day work so well is that is that even though incredible, weird,
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funny things happen, it stays within the reality of the impossible situation that
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they created. He wakes up the same day, he remembers everything. Nobody
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remembers anything. So he can go to a girl and try to pick her
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up. And if he makes if he says something wrong and turns her off,
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he can come back the next day and make it better. So she'll
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say, what should we toast too? And he'll know he's at a bar,
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and he'll say, let's toast to the groundhog and she kind of gets
19:52
turned off by that. So he comes back the very next day. We'll
19:57
be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the
20:04
show. And she says, what should we toast? Two? And he
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turns all solemn, and he says, I'd like to say a word for
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you know, a prayer for world peace. And and of course, because
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he figures, having gone through trial and error, he knows that that will
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that will endear himself to her. So I, you know, I like
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the fact that it takes an impossible or improbable situation, which in in in
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my book I call the WTF moment though, what the fuck moment, And
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and after that, everything that happens after that evolves organically and an honestly out
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of character guided by theme. Yeah, it's uh, it's kind of like
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every guy's dream, right, Yeah, the unlimited chances to actually pick up
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a girl. Right. So but uh, but no, it's it's it's
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like those days, you know, And at the heart of Groundhog's day was
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you know, it's basically, you know, he had to find out what
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was missing in his life and and basically, you know, find out all
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the mistakes that he was making. And you know, even when he thought
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he had the perfect day, he would he wherever he woke up again and
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he goes, what the hell I thought? I did? You know,
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I got, I did all this right, and he he still didn't wake
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up. And then finally, as it had progressed, it was he had
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to, uh, I forget the uh the female character's name in there that
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he ended up with at the end, Yeah, right, right right,
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and read it played by Andy McDowell. Right, Well, I remember his
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name was Phil because I remember that guy was like, hey Phil at the
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Groundhog. See it stuck with me. It's like an a mock device.
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But and then you have four year old version, which you know, I
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think, you know again, that's brilliant, especially you know, I mean,
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it's probably even more true today than it was what it was made even
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a few years ago, because you got a lot of millennials still living at
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you know, they know what I mean that you're still living at home.
22:00
And that's true, that's true. But I think for me, the thing
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the brilliance of the Appatoe film is the brilliant combination and and and uh and
22:15
the balance between gross out humor and real heart uh where Whereas before you had
22:26
lots of films, you know, like those uh Rob Schneider films, which
22:32
were just basically, how can we be grosser than the Farrely Brothers and and
22:37
get away with it and get some laps. But what Judd Apatow did is
22:41
he he kind of hit the sweet spot between uh, you know, a
22:48
conservative sentimental story and uh, you know, balls to the wall gross out
22:56
humor. Uh and and in fact, in talking about the film. He
23:02
he, He often talks about the fact that there were things he cut out
23:06
because they lost the audience. They might have gotten some laughs from some from
23:11
some people, but if he when he showed it to the audience, for
23:15
instance, there were there was much more pornography, uh literal pornography, uh
23:22
that that they were looking at on the screens because they were in this uh
23:26
you know, the True Tech or whatever the name smart Tech was the electronics
23:32
store. And there was a sequence in which they lock Andy, which is
23:36
played by Steve Carrell in the in the booths where you could test out,
23:41
you know, sound systems, and they locked him in there with a pornographic
23:45
film to get him, you know, out of his I don't know,
23:48
virgin dumb and in the in one of the original cuts, uh, there
23:55
was a lot more uh porno film in it. And in fact, I
24:00
this is a very this is a very uh I think, uh odd point.
24:04
But the actress in the porno film I think is Stormy Daniels. You
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could check me on that, but I think that that's Stormy Daniels in there.
24:12
Uh. And And what they founded at a test screening was that it
24:21
was funny. It got a laugh. But it lost the audience because you
24:26
know, maybe they were a little uncomfortable, or maybe they just thought,
24:30
oh, is this the movie we're gonna watch now, it's it's gonna be
24:33
as you know, more gross than more gross and more gross grosser and grosser,
24:38
as supposed to dumber and dumber. And so he he edited that out,
24:44
and he trimmed it, and he took out the part that that pushed
24:48
the audience away, not offended the audience, but pushed them out of the
24:51
narrative, push them out of the caring about the character. Uh and and
24:56
and so to me, one of the one of the one wonderful things about
25:00
the movie is that right when you think, oh, now they're going to
25:04
really make fun of this character and they're going to mock him, you empathize
25:10
with him. You sympathize with him, you feel bad for him. After
25:15
it's revealed that he's a virgin at the poker game, there's not a sequence
25:19
where he's like doing something dumb. He's riding his bike home in pain,
25:26
in agony. The first thing you see when he gets to his apartment is
25:30
a shot of him screaming, like this primal scream of pain. And humiliation,
25:38
And the result of that is that you're thinking, oh my god,
25:44
this isn't just a joke that's supposed to last for ninety minutes. This is
25:51
a human being who's you know, has this improbable I go back to impossible
25:59
or improbable, improbable thing. He's forty years old, he's still a virgin.
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It's not impossible, but it's improbable. And what would happened? What
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would he do? And and the guys at the at the at smart Tech,
26:14
they don't just make they don't make fun of him. Some of them
26:15
do, some minor characters who we see for a second, but the main
26:21
three buddies seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, and Rominy Malco. They're out to
26:25
help him. It's actually a very heartwarming and an inclusive movie about about growing
26:33
up and transformation. So so to me, those those are movies. When
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I go to the movies and I see something that's not not really a transcendent
26:48
experience, I often have to go and watch something else that I think I
26:53
think is. And it could be something as as classic as Shop around the
27:00
Corner, or You've Got Mail, which is the same story but updated,
27:06
or it's a wonderful life or Meet Me in Saint Louis. These stories that
27:12
combine comedy with heart and and a point of view and an idea in their
27:18
head. You know, you mentioned The Fairly Brothers. One of my favorite
27:23
movies of all time, by the way, is Dumb and Dumber. And
27:27
you know, because you also mentioned Dumb and Dumber. I don't know if
27:30
you met that on purpose, but you know what I mean, And so
27:33
I just wanted to say, what do you what do you think of Dumb
27:34
and Dumber? I think it's one of the things that when I when I
27:40
talked about movies that are just kind of designed to make you laugh and not
27:45
not a lot else. That's one of the movies that succeeds wonderfully because they
27:52
they have this silly premise where these two dumb guys are going to go on
27:57
this road trip and they just keep on finding inventive ways to keep it fresh.
28:03
And one of the ways that they do it is by uh, at
28:07
any one point one of them, one of the dumb guys is slightly more
28:11
aware and smarter than the others. So it's this wonderful Abbot and Costello,
28:17
Laurel and Hardy routine all the way throughout. But they but they switch it
28:22
enough so that it doesn't become repetitive or predictable. So I I I love
28:30
I Love Dumb and Dumber and uh, and I think it's it's it's one
28:36
of the it's one of the few movies that I think tries to be funny
28:40
from beginning to end and then succeeds. But it's really really hard. And
28:45
if and if you want proof of how hard it is, take a look
28:48
at The Fairly Brothers Three Stooges, which is you know, listen, these
28:55
are the same guys. They're talented guys. Bobby read my book and wrote
28:59
me in nice note about it, which I love, you know, which
29:00
I liked. But the Three Stooges, it only works sporadically because there's not
29:07
you know, because there's really no story other than hey, we're doing the
29:11
Three Stooges and and it's got some silly plot, but you don't really care
29:18
about them the way you care about the characters in Dumb and Dumber or or
29:23
more, uh, even more the characters and there's something about Mary. Yeah,
29:30
and you know, that's kind of one of the hardest things to do
29:33
for writers, right, is to create empathy for a character, so so
29:37
the audience, you know, they they not only they don't sympathize, but
29:42
you know, sympathy is feeling sorry for somebody, but empathy is putting yourself
29:47
into their shoes so you can see things from their point of view. And
29:51
that's kind of one of the hardest things that I think for writers to do,
29:55
because it's what Pixar does so well. Will be right back after a
30:00
word from our sponsor, and now back to the show, which is,
30:08
you know, right off the bat, caring about characters getting involved in their
30:12
story so you actually give it damn if they succeed, if they succeed or
30:15
not. Well, in a way, it's actually the easiest thing to do
30:19
because all you have to do is tell your own story. One of the
30:22
things that Pixar does so well is they spend so much time on story and
30:29
they're willing to throw out years of work, hundreds and thousands of dollars worth
30:36
of work, in order to get the story right in inside out. For
30:41
instance, at first it was going to be Joy, the character of Joy
30:47
and Fear going on that journey, and then they spend a lot of time
30:51
trying to make that work, and it didn't work, and ultimately they had
30:55
to go. They had to realize that what Joy needs is her opposite.
31:00
Joy needs sadness. And the way you get there is not by intellectualizing,
31:07
by going you know what, I think joy should be what you do,
31:11
what you get. How you get there is by sharing your own feelings,
31:15
sharing your own sense of what's happened to you as a person. I can't
31:22
remember exactly who on the creative team it was, but somebody had the experience
31:26
of leaving Minnesota and going to a new city as a kid, and that
31:33
became the movie. So it's not a matter of how can you make a
31:37
character empathetic, Tell your own story, be honest in the fictional in that
31:44
fictional world, tell your own story. Somebody once said that all fiction is
31:51
autobiography. Every piece of fiction is back as actually telling you more about the
31:59
person who's writing it then about the characters who are in it. And I
32:02
think that's true. So in There's Something about Mary, there's this wonderful moment.
32:09
It's not the first moment in the film, but it's one of the
32:13
flashback moments when we see Ben Stiller as a teenager with really terrible graces.
32:21
Go to pick Mary up for the prom, and he rings the doorbell and
32:27
this the door opens, and I forget the name of the actor, but
32:31
the actor is Africdavid. Keith David, Right, Keith David opens the door,
32:37
and you know, Mary's not African Americans. So he's confused for a
32:40
second, so he kind of peeks up at the door number for a second,
32:44
and then the guy says, what are you here for? And he
32:46
says, I'm here to pick up Mary for the prom. And Keith David,
32:51
because Keith David's this practical joke, he says, all Mary went to
32:52
the prom twenty minutes ago with a boy friend Woogie. And there's this moment
32:58
where you see Ben Stiller's face just just you know, fall apart. You
33:06
know, he's and he's trying, you know, he's trying to hold it
33:09
together and just goes kind of okay, and he's about to walk away,
33:14
and yes, then the mom comes in and says, oh, he's kidding,
33:16
come on in. But in that moment, we confronted all our disappointments
33:23
from adolescence. Everybody who's ever stood up or or didn't have a dat or
33:29
had a bad date or or or was passed over for being picked for volleyball.
33:35
You know, we we all empathize with that moment. And it's not
33:38
saved the cat. It's basically the cat scratched me, and and and and
33:45
it's a universal feeling. So what happens, what happens in the comedy is
33:51
you want to make sure that the more the more exaggerated and ridiculous event that's
34:00
going to happen later on in the movie. That means that you have to
34:05
be more honest and real earlier in the movie to make us care, make
34:08
us care, because eventually later on in that scene, Ben Stiller finds himself
34:15
in a bathroom and he zips up too quickly and he catches a very important
34:20
appendage in a zipper, which is ridiculous. I mean, it's it's just,
34:25
you know, flat out silly. But if we don't care about the
34:29
character, that's all it is. It's just silly as opposed to us,
34:32
us kind of putting ourselves in his shoes and going, man, what else
34:37
what else wrong could happen today? And and basically, you know, well
34:43
you always said Steve the the in like an action movie, the hero has
34:47
all the tools. But but in a comedy, the hero has no tools
34:52
whatsoever. Well, not not no tools, but the hero lacks some,
34:58
if not most, of the tools. I mean, Woody Allen's very very
35:01
witty and very bright, but he's a physical coward. So you can't it
35:07
can't be a total normally, it can't be a total loser. But but
35:13
somebody who lacks some, if not, if not all, the skills.
35:15
I mean. One of the in working on the comic Hero's Journey, which
35:19
was taking a look at the hero's journey from a comedy point of view,
35:23
one of the things that we that we came to in the beginning was the
35:27
fact that in a in a drama, in an action film, the hero
35:35
has all the skills necessary. Sometimes they're hidden within. They have greatness hidden
35:39
within, only they don't know it, perhaps like Luke Skywalker. But in
35:44
a comedy, your character shots the movie off with, well, there's no
35:47
greatness within there as far from greatness within as is humanly possible. And basically
35:53
the story of a comedy is a story of a character who is comfortable.
35:59
Youse too, has has resigned themselves to being this imperfect person. In fact,
36:06
most of the times they don't even know that they're imperfect, and something,
36:09
some impossible or improbable thing happens to push them out of their comfort zone
36:16
and they're forced to transform. And they do transform because they because like in
36:22
Big where he wakes up, he's thirty years old. In Groundhog Day,
36:25
he's waking up, it's the same day over and over again. There's no
36:30
choice but to transform because their circumstances have changed so that they're our characters in
36:37
a comedy, become somebody who is a more actualized human being. It has
36:45
more skills, but they start off as big zeros what we call you know,
36:51
take you know, taking your zero and making him into a hero.
36:55
Right, And to go along with where you just said, you know,
36:59
you're right, I misspoke when I said lack of lack of skills, right,
37:01
No, or sorry, it has zero skills because you have to have
37:06
at least one trait for the audience to be like, maybe this guy has
37:08
a shot at something. Yeah yeah, so so you know, you see
37:14
that's where my head's at. Steve. I'm always like, look, just
37:15
so let's just give them nothing and go from let's go for no, no,
37:19
give give them something. I mean, uh, In Bride's Maids,
37:23
Christian wig is Is is totally messed up, but at least she has a
37:28
good best friend in Maya Rudolph, even even though she doesn't have a job
37:34
and she doesn't have a boyfriend and John Hamm is terrible to her. So
37:37
so so our our heroes, our comic heroes start off with something, but
37:43
most of the time that they're they're they're not aware of how of how bad
37:50
their predicament is, or how uh what what their what their minus is,
37:55
their negative is, and and most of the time times our comic heroes start
38:01
off with a short sighted goal. You know, uh, Bill Murray and
38:10
Groundhog Day only wants to get a job at a at a bigger station where
38:15
it can be newscaster. Uh. Steve Carrell in The fourty year Old Virgin
38:22
Only he just wants to continue what he thinks is a great life. You
38:27
know. He makes an omelet every morning by himself, and he plays with
38:30
his dolls, and he he has all his h his his merchandise still in
38:37
their original packaging, and he watches Survivor with the elderly couple upstairs. He's
38:42
to him, that's okay, I'm not he's not. He doesn't complain,
38:45
and he's not even totally conscious that he's that he's unhappy. But what happens
38:51
as our characters transform is they get what we call the discovered goal. That
38:55
in comedies, our characters discover a goal halfway through midway through that that that
39:01
then becomes their ultimate goal, their their outer goal in order to accomplish whatever
39:07
they're trying to accomplish in the in the movie. Because like in four year
39:10
Old Virgin, you know, if if it were to be like let's just
39:14
say, you know, real life, and and you know that main character
39:17
never ever realized how unhappy he was. You know, he was always forty
39:22
uh, he was always just going to do the same old thing essentially.
39:27
You could see that he would never change his routine and he would just kind
39:30
of you know die so to speak, physically, and it was just surrounded
39:35
by that stuff and he would never there was an issue. Yeah. So,
39:38
and then again when when you're just going back to the four ye old
39:40
Virgin, when when his whole goal was just to get laid at first,
39:45
and then he realizes he's found somebody he actually loves. By the by the
39:49
yeah, we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now
39:58
back to the show. So the first thing he says is I respect I
40:02
totally respect women. I respect them so much I stay the hell away from
40:07
them. And then later on it's like, no, I don't want to
40:12
go to bed with the girl from the bookstore. I I I love Trish
40:16
played by Catherine Keener. And and he he does something which is way outside
40:22
his comfort zone. He races after her on his bike, uh to you
40:28
know, to get the girl of his dreams. So so there there are
40:30
a lot of there are some similarities between the hero's journey and the comic hero's
40:35
journey. You know. You often at the end of an action film,
40:38
you have the race to the finish. Uh. In a comedy, you're
40:44
you're seeing character transform go from uh, you know, uh a zero to
40:53
a mensh and a mention's Yiddish word that means like a good man, uh,
41:00
a complete person. And so in an action film, Bruce Willis is
41:07
going to kick ass from the minute he shows up on screen screen to the
41:10
end. But our heroes in a comedy, uh, they're not going to
41:15
kick ass in the beginning. They have to learn, they have to gain
41:19
skills. They have to gather allies, and they have to become better,
41:28
better human beings in the world, more more comfortable, more integrated into the
41:36
world that they live in. And you know, we've kind of been,
41:39
you know, talking sort of in a round about way about the comic hero's
41:44
Journey. So let's look about your new books, my new books. Funny,
41:47
you should mention that that's my new book, The Comic Hero's Journey,
41:51
Serious story structure for Fabulously Funny Films, now published by Michael We see productions
41:57
now available in your local Amazon. Well, you know it's funny. I
42:00
look down by my foot and there it was, just sitting there. I
42:05
was like, hey, wait a minute, here did this get here?
42:07
But you know, we would you know, talking you know in a right
42:12
about way about you know, creating characters and you know, finding out their
42:16
their sort of wants and needs and goals, and you know, so what
42:20
was sort of the impetus for you to sort of write this book, uh,
42:22
you know, for for the Comic Here's Journey. Well, I had
42:27
been I had written my previous book, They Hidden Tools of Comedy, which
42:31
was which were specific tools and principles that you could apply towards film or television,
42:38
and I would be teaching these workshops and people would say would say,
42:42
well, how would this happen at this part in the movie. And it
42:45
just made me think, Okay, there are all these books and and and
42:52
about story structure, and and a lot of my friends have written books about
42:57
story structure, like Michael hay and and and John Truby and Chris Boebler,
43:04
And I thought, well, well, is that how the how is that
43:08
story structure that the three act format or the sixth uh you know, plot
43:15
point turning format. How does that work for comedy? So I started to
43:21
explore that, and I realized some of it is similar, but there are
43:25
important elements that are completely different and that that are different in a comedy than
43:32
than in h than in a dramatic or or action film. And so I
43:38
started working on it. I started, uh, and I pitched into my
43:43
publisher and I I mentioned it to Chris Foebler, who's written the you know,
43:49
the Writer's Journey, which is based on the Joseph Campbell work The Mono
43:53
Myth and The Hero of a Thousand Faces, And I said, uh,
43:58
Chris, do you mind? I'm going to steal your title and and your
44:02
idea. I'm going to use it for comedy and and after a moment he
44:06
said, okay, only only only mention me as you're doing it. So
44:12
I did, and so I and so this is a template for writing a
44:21
comic feature. It's not it's not the only way to write a comic feature.
44:24
It's not uh the uh, the end all and be all of how
44:31
to structure a story. But it's one way of taking a look at the
44:36
hero's journey and seeing how that that mono myth works for comedy and and the
44:44
the I think one of the big differences is understanding that your hero starts off
44:52
at a loss, and you know that we talked about, and understanding that
44:55
the funny thing that happens to them at that what we call the comic premise,
45:02
the impossible or improbable thing is the only time in the story that you
45:10
can make ship up, that you can lie that. After you impose that
45:16
impossible or improbable event or or happenstance, then you have to play honestly,
45:23
develop the develop the narrative, honestly true character and truth theme. We talk
45:32
about the fact that that characters are transforming, they have a discovered goal uh,
45:37
and then we talk about the fact that and this is uh to me,
45:44
this is almost uh. It goes without saying, but I found out
45:50
that that it was a little bit of a revelation to people that I was
45:55
working with or talking to in workshops, is that in order for the comic
46:01
hero's journey to work, there has to be real pain and real loss.
46:06
There has to be there has to be honest moments where where you where you
46:12
drop into drop into drama. Otherwise it doesn't it doesn't mean anything, it
46:17
doesn't matter. So so that's that's a part of the of the comic hero's
46:25
journey that's essential for comedies. And I can think of a good comedy in
46:30
which there isn't some moment where we're all where the healer, where all is
46:36
lost, you know, the the the hero seems that they've given up,
46:39
that they're not going to achieve their goals, that that the story is not
46:44
going to end end happily. And it doesn't mean you have to have a
46:46
happy ending, but it does mean that you have to allow your character to
46:52
experience not funny loss and pain, but real loss and pain. Right,
47:00
So there actually has to be some real stakes, some actual losses, so
47:04
you know what I mean. So it has to feel like you feel real
47:07
and feel that there's actually something at stake here rather than just kind of like
47:09
going, oh, you know, it'll it'll work out, or or it's
47:14
all silly, so don't worry about it. You can't be It can't be
47:16
a bugs Bunny cartoon where where you shoot bugs in the face with a shotgun
47:22
and and hey there's when the smoke clears. He just has, you know,
47:25
a bad complexion, but everything else is okay. So so one of
47:30
the one of the things that I've noticed in examining a lot of movies to
47:36
write the book is not only are there moments of loss and pain near three
47:43
quarters of the way through, but a lot of movies start off with the
47:47
characters having having dealt with loss and pain, or dealing with loss and pain,
47:54
starting with you know, Sleepless in Seattle, where it starts off following
48:00
the death of Tom Hanks's wife and now he's a widower or spy with Melissa
48:05
McCarthy, where in the first ten minutes, uh the hero of the movie
48:12
her the person she idolizes, Jude Law, who's this very James Bondian kind
48:17
of spy is is killed spoiler spoiler alert, seemingly killed right right in front
48:25
of her ears because she's she's monitoring everything back back in Langley, Virginia.
48:34
That that a lot of the comedy comes out of real loss and pain as
48:39
opposed to, well, it's a comedy, so nothing serious can really happen,
48:45
you know, and there's a you know. It was a great example
48:47
was the Hangover because you kind of felt and as some actual pressure there,
48:52
and you know what I mean, because because hey, look there's a groom
48:54
that we have to find because you know, and we're the guys that lost
48:58
them. Right. Actually I like parts of The Hangover, but I wasn't
49:04
crazy about the Hangover precisely because, uh, those the you know, especially
49:09
the Bradley Cooper character, was so a moral is like this teacher is drinking
49:15
and let's just go off and do this thing and let's just party. And
49:21
their relation, none of their relationships, I mean, certainly the who's the
49:25
guy who lost the tooth at Holmes right, the Aed Helms character, his
49:30
his relationship is horrible. You don't want him to end up with her.
49:36
So so so one of the things that that that I was not crazy about
49:40
in The Hangover was the lack of of empathetic characters and and and and thematic
49:49
uh, thematic development and resolution. We'll be right back after a word from
49:54
our sponsor, and now back to the show. But what was brilliant about
50:04
The Hangover was how it melded a frat boy Las Vegas movie with a mystery.
50:12
And to me, that was that was what what made it very special
50:15
is that once you woke up and there's a baby and a tiger, and
50:21
how the hell did those things get there? Everything else worked because they had
50:25
to They had to go on this this mystery, you know, had to
50:29
solve this this impossible mystery. And the way that they did that, you
50:35
know, led them into funnier and funnier situations. For me, the funniest
50:39
moment is when the I think it's Ken Young, the naked Asian guy jumps
50:44
out of the trunk of the car. That was funny. But the most
50:49
satisfying moment of the movie was the was the credits where you see the night,
50:53
you know, in all those photographs, you see the night that they
50:57
went through. And and because at the heart of the Hangover is a gag.
51:05
That's why Hangovers two and three, while they might have made money,
51:07
were aesthetically not very satisfying for me at least because there's nothing there. You
51:15
know, I don't really care about those guys. Uh and and the only
51:20
guy I might want to care about, uh was in Hangover was basically on
51:27
a roof lost for for most of the movie. So so so I I
51:32
I have to be ah, somebody who is on the don't love Hangover side.
51:43
Well, I'm still a great guy, Dave, You're still a wonderful
51:45
guy. Nevertheless, oh, thank you, thank you. I'm gonna hold
51:49
you to that. Steve by the way, Okay, well, I agree
51:52
that the Hangover sequels I I I and you know this too. When whenever
51:58
there's a hit movie, you know, there's an inclination in Hollywood to say,
52:00
hey, you know, let's start churning out those sequels. You know,
52:04
let's hang Over seventeen. Sounds good to me, right, But then
52:08
again, you know, if I was in a position where somebody was like,
52:10
hey, look, davey, if you if you make a hit movie,
52:13
we'll give you a couple of million to write the sequel, I'd be
52:15
like, you know what, I'm going to write to my handfalls off.
52:17
You know, I think I think I'm with you there, but yeah,
52:22
I'm like, I'll be in my grave writing sequels to that movie as well
52:25
as you're writing checks. But hey, there's there's a comedy idea right there,
52:30
Steve. There's a comedy story somewhere in there. There's a comedy story
52:34
everywhere. That's that's the whole point. Our lives are comedies, and we
52:39
just have to be brave enough to tell them. Yeah, and you know
52:44
that's a very good point, Steve. And you know, you know,
52:46
and that's why I made sure to pick up your book, your you know,
52:51
your other book, The Hidden Tools of Comedy. By the way,
52:53
just as a quick side note, the other two episodes of the of the
52:57
podcast where you're on Steve, they do phenomenal numbers still to this day.
53:02
Wow. Yeah, so a year and a year and a hair perspectively,
53:07
are still doing great numbers, Like you know, when I when I pulled
53:09
like a three month kind of window of the past downloads, you're always in
53:14
there. Wow, that's great. Well, then we should let people know
53:16
how to get in touch with me. Where can people find you at?
53:20
Steve? People can find me at my website, which is www. Kaplan
53:24
with a K Kaplan Comedy Comedy with the C Caplincomedy or one word Kaplincomedy dot
53:30
com. Or they can email me at Steve at Kaplincomedy dot com. Or
53:36
they can frame me on Facebook at Caplincomedy and or or they can follow me
53:45
on Twitter at sk Comedy. And I'm going to link to all that in
53:51
the show notes everyone, including a link to Amazon to buy Steve's new book,
53:54
The Comic Heroes Journey and his other book By the Way, they Hidden
53:59
Cool hit they Hidden Tools of Tomedy. Did I say the Hidden Tools of
54:02
comedy? Set the Hidden Cool of Comedy? Which I like even better?
54:07
I was like, wait, it didn't sound right. Wait next printing,
54:09
that's that's going to be the new title. Wow, I think I think
54:13
I just gave you your next your next book, Steve. The hint.
54:16
I'm working on that right now. And I'm gonna link to everything we talked
54:22
about in this show notes everyone at Dave Bullis dot com. Twitter, It's
54:25
at DV podcast Steve Kaplan as always, man, thank you so much for
54:30
coming on. Thank you Dave, and be able to look out for that
54:34
jacket in the mail. By the way, okay, third time jacket.
54:37
You know they're aren't a lot of us here, There's not. It's a
54:39
rare club, Steve. Okay, I feel honored. I have a going
54:45
buddy you too, Thanks Dave. I want to thank Dave so much for
54:49
doing such a great job on this episode. If you want to get links
54:52
to anything we spoke about in this episode, head over to the show notes
54:54
at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv. Forward slash three forty one. Thank you so
54:59
much for listening to guys. As always, keep on writing no matter what.
55:02
I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast
55:07
at Bulletproofscreenwriting dot tv.