Sketch Analysis: Wonga.com

So in my last post, i wrote about what was wrong with my missile defence sketch.

In this post, I'll take a look at my wonga.com sketch that was picked up and performed by the team at newsrevue.

So in the previous post, I talked about 3 things:

• No sense of the characters
• Characters not being consistent
• Inconsistent game of the scene

So what happened with Wonga.Com.

Characters

3 characters.

Betty, Joyce and George.   Who were all parodies of the 3 characters from the wonga.com commercial.
Betty and Joyce are old ladies.
Betty and George know each other better
Betty and Joyce are friends
Berry doesn't know much about Wonga.Com or about loans and Joyce does
George is an idiot chasing rainbows, not knowing much about mone and being the chancellor of the exchequer

Game of the scene

It's a parody of the wonga.com advert.
I'm not really this follows the game of the scene style.   need to think about this more.
Sure it's about the relationship of the characters but there is no normal situation->unusual thing->escalate format.   It's an advert parody.

What is slightly wrong
it should probably be clearer at the beginning that George is George Osborne.   So perhaps the dialog would be better as Where's George Osborn?
Also some of the dialog could have been slightly cut (around the sliders) but hey ho

In short, i see why it worked.

Consistent characters
Funny dialog

And I saw it being performed and it went down really well :)

So my lesson is:

Consistent Characters
Parody advert

:)

Sketch analysis: Missile defences

So I wrote a sketch a few weeks ago on missile defences.   This sketch didn't get picked up by Newsjack, Treason Show or Newsrevue.

So for my own sanity.   I thought I'd analyse why.

Sometimes a good sketch just doesn't fit a show etc and that's okay but if you can find flaws then it might be worth it.    Helps you write a better sketch.

The sketch is here: http://chuksketch.blogspot.com/2013/04/sketch-missile-defence.html

Sooooo, what's wrong with it.  Let's look at some of the elements

What is the game of the scene?

Well, the game of the scene in this sketch is inconsistent.    It's almost like 2 different sketches.

The first half of the scene is about ridiculous suggestions on missile defence systems

The second half of the scene is about quite a sensible suggestion.

It sort of makes me think that I really have 2 different sketches welded together.    As I said, the dialog is funny but it's not right.

Character Consistency

And having re-read the sketch.   The dialog is funny but I have no idea about the characters involved.  We have 3 characters.

Chief Scientist, Scientist 1 and Scientist 2.

Buttttt, they switch around in each others role.    Which kinda makes it difficult to perform.
At the beginning of the sketch Scientist 1 and Scientist 2 are making goofy suggestions and then at the end of the sketch they are speaking intelligently.    It makes no sense.   The characters aren't being consistent.

How do I improve this?

• Setup front who the characters are, get inside their head, do their voices and mannerism.
• Rewrite the characters to be consistent
• Stick to the game of the scene (and have only one)
• Maybe write two different sketches

As I said the dialog is funny, it just doesn't fit with the scene.   Since North Korea is still relevant.   I might come back to this sketch later this week and do some rewrites.

The game of the scene

As I am spending more time examining the theory of sketch comedy to help me out in my own writing.  I have scene the term "The game of the scene", quite a few times.

This term seems to crop up quite often with companies such as the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York.   Unsurprisingly it's a term that seems to originate from improvisation.   In the USA many sketch writers come from an improv background.   This is especially true for SNL (most of their writers seems to come from Second City, UCB or Groundlings).

I have zero improv experience, so it's kinda cool learning new stuff.

Sooooo, "The Game of the Scene".

Well, the best explanation I can find comes from Kevin Mullaney.

http://kevinmullaney.com/2011/05/02/game-of-the-scene-an-example/

So "The game of the scene" is basically the point of the sketch.   What is funny and interesting about this particular scene or sketch.   According to Kevin, you really need to ask 3 questions:

• What's the basic situation?
• What's the first unusual thing?
• If what, then what?

Kevin explains it pretty well in his own blog postings.    To summarize.   I think it's about taking a normal situation -> make something unusual -> escalate it.

It's got me thinking about my own sketch writing.   I have never purposely tried to write a sketch in this way.   It's a very improvy, second city / UCB / SNL way of doing it.

I might try and see if any of my existing sketches fit this format in anway.

Also, I might purposely try and write a sketch in this way.   Just to see what happens.

Anyways, food for thought!!!