Talking about Visuals with Rekha Shankar

Rekha Shankar and I worked together at CollegeHumor, but she has also worked on Astronomy Club (Netflix), Aunty Donna’s Big Ol’ House of Fun (Netflix), Animaniacs (Hulu), Grand Crew (NBC), and more.

We sat down to talk about using visuals in comedy. What follows is a slightly edited transcription of our conversation. Paid subscribers can choose to listen to this interview instead in a separate post, available now!

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TRAPP: Hello everyone. There’s no theme music ‘cause this isn’t a podcast. Don’t pretend it is. This is just audio in a newsletter, a very normal thing to do. This is Chuffah, you know, I’m Mike Trapp. You know that too. Today we’re chatting with Rekha Shankar. Hi, Rekha!

REKHA: Hi. Oh, my gosh. I’m so happy to be here. Do you do chuffah at the start of these audio—?

Yeah, we should just cut in and be like, “She said, ‘Don’t throw that llama at me!’ [fake laughter]”

“Anyway… God, you ever notice that coworker who smells?”

“Oh Yeah. The guy who smells in the office!” And then we’ll get a big old thumbnail of me looking like [makes a dumb noise]

[more dumb noises]… And that’s a sketch.

That’s all you have to do. Just get a great thumbnail of someone looking like a fucking idiot.

Yeah.

I reached out to you initially, because it was like, “Rekha is great because she can talk about just about anything with sketch.” ‘Cause you’ve edited, you’ve written, you’ve acted, you’ve directed, you’ve done TV, you’ve done digital stuff. So, Rekha could talk about anything, but what does Rekha want to talk about? And you said that you wanted to talk about visual comedy. So I guess I’m initially curious: of all the things you could have talked about, why this?

And this is where you have to channel things you don’t like into something productive because I remember growing up and watching the big hit comedy movies that were in theaters and my friends being so charmed by a scene where two men are talking forever and you find out later, like, “did you know that was all improvised?” It’s like, [unsurprised] “It really seemed like it.”

To me, I am not charmed by just two talking heads on a screen. Even if they’re the two funniest people in the world, I have to know that there was thought put into it. And I remember when I went to film school, a teacher put it this way in a writing class: she was like, “What makes this different than a radio play? Why am I watching this?” And I was like, “Oh my God, that’s been my issue with some comedies.”

It’s like, “Why am I watching this? This is funny, but this could also be like a tab in the background.” I didn’t have that vocabulary. Netflix was still in DVDs —

Oh, the ancient days!

Yes, I’m a cave person. Netflix was on [pronounced phonetically] DVDs.

But yeah, I think that that really spoke to me when she said that. And made me realize when I do watch comedy, the jokes that stick with me are ones that a lot of departments had a hand in and I really always appreciate that. Like, when I saw Scott Pilgrim for the first time — I know it was a box office absolute catastrophe — but I was like, “Whoa, everybody worked to make that one joke work.” I love that.

Yeah.

I do think people kind of forget sometimes, like, what visually could you do? Does it all have to be verbal jokes or like verbal character tics? Could there be something visually you’re doing, or in the background that’s happening? Like that whole storyline on Community where Abed delivers a baby? Beautiful. You can’t watch that on a tab in the background!

That’s my very long answer to your question.

No, no, that’s a great answer. Talking about that thing, “Why could this not be a radio play?” If you’re not putting visual jokes in there, you’re not using every tool in your comedy toolbox.

Exactly! You’re making it harder too. Every verbal joke has to fucking obliterate. You have this whole medium ahead of you and, yeah, just use it.

You get something by having the thing you’re seeing and the things people are saying. It’s another chance to juxtapose two things and get another joke out of that.

Exactly. Especially in something as economical as sketch where you don’t have a lot of time. You have, if you’re sane, like three minutes. Three to four minutes to convey your idea. Use all that time. Don’t waste it.

Am I correct that you’re currently writing on an animated show?

I am. Yeah. For Comedy Central.

And you also worked for Animaniacs. And I’m working on an animated show right now. I was wondering if your thinking about visual stuff was coming out of that because with animation... one, obviously it’s an extremely visual medium (you can do whatever you want) but also, you need to make those decisions about what you’re looking at. It’s not like you can be like, “We’ll find a location. We’ll go shoot there. It will look cool.” It’s like, “No, no, no. The animators are making the locations.” You need to decide: what does this house look like? What do the things look like around there?

Yes. What of that could be a joke opportunity and what is just distracting, right? Like, is someone wearing a funny costume just distracting? You’re making up side characters that come on screen for two seconds and say something. Do they have some funny visual gag about them? And maybe you’re also establishing something for the first time, like, “Ooh, we’re going in this character’s house for the first time. Is this a total fucking slob of a character that lives in a pristine mansion?” That’s kind of funny. Making those decisions definitely is even more pertinent in animation.

If someone is not used to thinking visually, how would you help guide someone to be like, “Hey, start thinking about these things while you’re making visual jokes.”

It’s hard. It really is. You learn it more as you go. I would say like, for the most part, especially if you’re just starting, make the visual gag makes sense. Are most people [reading Chuffah] CollegeHumor fans?

I think most of the people who have subscribed to this know me through CollegeHumor. I don’t know where else they would know me from!

[laughter] Okay, cool. I don’t know if you feel this, but I always feel disgusting when I’m like, “Well, there’s a CollegeHumor sketch where--”... You don’t have to have seen this.

Totally.

But I’m assuming that’s why you’re talking to me.

But there’s a version of “How Tall Is Grant,” a very standard, fun, already visually-pleasing sketch... you could have Grant in a funny t-shirt I guess, but that’s a sketch that already has so much visual to it: you’re playing with the camera, you’re playing with the editing, you’re playing with visual graphics, you’re playing with timing a lot. I would say that that [the funny t-shirt] would be distracting. I’m not saying it’s not possible, but it probably would be a little distracting if there was like some extra visual element there.

Yeah, it’s like a hat-on-a-hat kind of situation where you already had the game of “the height is changing a lot,” and that’s obviously a very visual thing that we’re going to be playing with, so don’t throw an extra off-game, visual joke on top.

Yes, exactly. If it’s a charactery sketch, right? That’s a place where I’m like, “Oh, really think about what that character looks like.” Is it funny? Like I’m thinking of Katie’s [Marovitch] “Instagram art” sketch. You could do a version of that that’s just people talking at a desk, but it is really funny to amplify like: “Instagram art.” “Art.” “Make it a gallery.” Got it. And now you have all these visual gags of the absolute stupidest, like “live, laugh, love,” over pixelated meme inside of a gorgeous display. You have Katie in her like weird, silver, Joan Didion, wig. You know, that all adds to the, like, “I am an auteur” kind of thing.

Yeah, playing on the game that you’ve already established. Can we play this game through costuming? Can we play this game through visuals? Through signs and things like that. It’s just another well to pull from to be able to play that game.

And I’m going to do something really, really disgusting. And you should maybe kick me off…

Please.

I’m going to cite a sketch I wrote, which is another CollegeHumor sketch, which is “Don’t Date My Crappy Friends.” Now, if you were to ask me, “Rekha, why does this whole sketch takes place at a very elaborate donut party?”

I cannot tell you. I don’t know.

I would say my reasoning is because that sketch is really talky. Like it’s so much talking that it almost doesn’t matter what’s happening in the background. You could listen to it as a radio play. But for my money, for my little yucks, I like when I’m watching it and there’s almost an entirely unrelated sketch happening in the background, where you’re like, “What the fuck is this party?” I like that. I don’t know if it works for other people, but I liked it.

Well, I’ll give you, uh, provide another example too. And I’ll also be disgusting and reference a the sketch that I wrote.

Barf!

[Barfing noises] But the, the “Christmas Elves/ Lord of the Rings Elves” sketch...

Gorgeous!

There was one moment in there that I was like— I was just making myself laugh when I was writing — Yeah, you’re pointing to your mug, because you already know what it is — where there’s a, there’s a moment in this sketch—

[laughing] I think about it a lot.—

[laughing] That’s very funny— There’s a moment of the sketch where a character is shocked and she drops a mug. We already knew these characters have big mugs of cocoa, ‘cause that was just setting the scene. And then there’s a moment where they’re shocked, and it’s like, “well, it would make sense if they're shocked; that’d be a big dramatic moment for her to drop the mug.” And then it was like, “Well, they’re happy Christmas elves where nothing ever goes wrong. So rather than this mug shattering, it would be very funny if this mug just bounced away.”

Absolutely.

And I remember in the pre-production meeting, talking with TJ, who was our VFX artist, and he was like, “What’s going on with this part?” And I was like, “If that’s too hard, we don’t have to do that.” And he was like, “No, no, no, no. I want to make this happen.” And he made it happen! It’s a very stupid, little visual side joke in that sketch you don’t need. Like, the sketch works totally fine without it, but it is just that little bit of extra spice. And that plays with the game and it plays in the logic of the scene.

Yes, and I would say too, that’s such a great point where you can use world building as an excuse for visual comedy where like, “Okay. We’ve already set an archetype, like elves in a little, cute Christmas village.” I don’t know every single rule of that world, but I know what makes sense in that world right? Like, you’re right: it might have actually even been distracting to your game to hear a mug break, weirdly. You almost made it less noticeable by making it bounce away. Because that just feels joyful and in the spirit.

Yeah. “If this is true, what else is true?” Which is very UCB, but also something I reference in the newsletter. Explore your world, see what else is true.

Totally.

I would put forward that one way to start thinking about visuals is to think about when you’re writing a joke… the kinds of things you would do in dialogue, where you have, like, set up/punchline, where you juxtapose two things that feel very different... Rather than having half of that juxtaposition be another line of dialogue, make it something you’re seeing. All the concepts we’ve talked about, all the things that make a joke work, you can mix and match your dialogue and your visuals.

And some of that is like a bit of a “Just show don’t tell,” where your joke is actually much stronger as a visual than as dialogue. Like this... [facetious] Wow. This is going to be a really good joke.

[Laughter].

Uh, Get ready everyone. Buckle up. If someone’s like, “You never wear hats.” And then you cut to them and they’re wearing ten hats.

Okay. First of all, really funny.

Solid joke.

Solid joke. But how much less funny if he just says, “Oh, I’m wearing a lot of hats right now.” You know what I mean? There’s, like, some jokes that only actually work if you kind of visually punchline them. And yeah, I think if you’re writing a really talky script, you can kind of go through and be like, “Ooh, is there almost like a visual replacement for this line?”

I think that’s a hundred percent on point because good comedy always has an element of trusting the audience a little bit. A joke is an insight with some assembly required, you know? Like, you’re taking all the pieces of the joke, and you’re kind of handing them to the audience and saying, “Look, I’ve given you all the clues. You put it together.” And it’s the audience being able to put together the thing where a lot of the comedy comes from. If you just sit and explain a joke, beat by beat, it’s like, “well, that’s not funny.” The reason those visual jokes work so well is because— in your hilarious hat example, for instance—

Oh my god, thank you. Put that in the newsletter.

It’s so funny. I’m still laughing thinking about it—

It makes you think. Yeah. It’s political.

As hilarious as that is… if you were just saying, “You never wear hats” and the other one just says, “Yes, I do.” It’s like, well, that’s just a contradiction. But if someone says that and you see that, it’s up to then the audience to go like, “Oh, what I’m seeing is contradictory. And therefore I have to reconcile that contradiction.”

Exactly.

And then there’s fun to be had there.

It’s maybe even the most amount of fun for that example.

Oh, yeah, I can’t stop having fun with these hats! [laughter]

[laughter]

It’s really making the point great ‘cause people go like, “That is the funniest joke I’ve ever heard. And now I understand how this works.”

Yes! “So, there’s two comedy writers, one of them says a really funny joke…”

[laughter]

Yes, I think that’s totally right. I’m trying to think of like a real life example of something on a TV show that was exalted by like the visual joke of it rather than saying it.

I guess I’ll use a little bit of Scott Pilgrim as an example, since I cited the famous box office flop. That movie is inspired by a comic book series, and Edgar Wright really took that to heart in the directing of it. There’s a lot of things where someone will pop into frame almost like they would in a comic book. And it’s so much funnier to me when—

There’s a scene where Scott gets up from bed. And the theme around him in the beginning is like, he’s kind of like a boy-man. He acts a lot like a young boy and as he’s saying something— you don’t know who he’s talking to— Kieran Culkin pops up right next to him, meaning, “Oh, they share the same bed!”

And letting you make that connection yourself is going to be so much funnier than someone being like, “Uh, Scott, you think you’re a man, but you share a bed.” And it’s like, well, don’t just tell me like, let me make--

Show me!

Yes, yes.

Exactly. And that’s the example I’m going to stick with.

Great. I’m cool with that. [Addressing subscribers] Look it’s up to you guys. You guys find your own examples out there of visual jokes that work.

Yeah, exactly.

We had a lot of questions come in,¹ so I’m gonna look at some of these and see which ones we want to go with here. There’s some general questions and then some specifically on the topic. I’ll start with the on topic ones first, and then we’ll maybe touch into some of the other ones here.

Man. I had this issue with the first pilot I wrote. It was super visual. It was set in a video game. (Did I say that I liked the movie Scott Pilgrim?) And I got that note. It was like, “Hey, it’s distracting how long your descriptions are.” And I didn’t see it at first, but then when I took a break from that script I was like, “Oh my god. Now that I’m not in my head space that I was a year ago, I don’t really even know what I’m talking about because the descriptions are so lengthy.” So it's almost working against you. It's almost less clear because it’s so descriptive, and you can tell the writer’s so desperately trying to get you to exactly visualize what they want, that you’re trying to, and you can’t. [laughs]

Yes.

I would say shorter is better for a couple of reasons. One, it forces you as the writer to distill it down. If it’s a sketch, especially, to the most premium necessary component, right?

Is it necessary to say “black pants, black shirt, black gloves, whatever.” Firstly, maybe you could just say black outfit, but then maybe I’m like, “oh, is it actually more the hat I want to focus on anyway?” And the clothes can be whatever.

And secondly, I think it helps leave room for directing. If you’re directing it, maybe that’s a different story and it doesn’t matter as much. But I think it’s actually helpful to get that second perspective because, like, Ryan Martin and Michael Schaubach, two of our standby directors at CollegeHumor, absolutely added visual shit I never would’ve thought of, simply because I had a simple direction and they’re like, “Oh, did you mean this?” I’m like, “No, but that’s awesome.”

“I love that idea. Let’s do that.”

“That’s way better than my idea!”

And sometimes too, when you block it a certain way in your head, I think that can also trip you up in stage directions. You’re like, “Mike is on the left. Grant is in front of Mike.” And it’s like… that doesn’t matter.

I think that this is a very common problem…

Mmmhmm!

So if you’re like, “Is this just me?” I don’t think you need to be worried about that. What I started to do, and what I recommend, is to think of it more like poetry and less like prose. You are trying to get as many meanings as possible through as few words as possible.

One hundred percent.

So to give an example from something that I did. It’s a beautiful beach scene in some some place kind of like Florida. And, yeah, I could go through and describe like, “Oh, here’s all the different things you’re seeing at the beach.”

But I think like the description I chose was something like, “This is like a goddamn Jimmy Buffett album cover.” Something like that describes a scene you’re seeing in your head, but also just by making the association with Jimmy Buffet, that puts the reader in a certain frame of mind of like, “This is a little dumb.” All the associations you get from that one thing can now get laid on top of the scenery.

You’re talking about black outfits, Rekha: you could describe, like she’s wearing black gloves and black hat and black blah blah…

Yeah.

But you could also say like, “She looks like a goth princess” and then implies one thing, or you could say, “She’s in like a sleek black, New York dress.” And that implies a slightly different look, but it’s --

And those are honestly more helpful than the actual individual parts. It’s like...

Yes.

A black outfit could mean anything.

Right.

But yeah. Oh, noir-ish is different than... yeah, exactly.

So it’s like, what is the meaning? What’s the underlying meaning behind these things? You’re describing a vibe, you know what I mean?

Totally!

Like you’re not doing technical descriptions here. You just want to create a mood and a sense. And if it’s enough to paint the picture in the reader’s mind, that’s really what you’re looking for.

Totally. And to go back to the topic of this episode, too. If you’re entering a character and you have an extensive amount of visual description almost, is there a visual action they could do that could almost convey what you’re trying to convey? Like, is it like, “Oh, Mark walks in. Schlub, tattered shirt, whatever, big pants.” Could it just be like “Mark walks in, and slips immediately, and falls into a trashcan?”

Yeah.

Do we get the same thing across without the sort of rote description, but with a joke?

And it’s again, letting the audience fill in those blanks too, you know? Cause you could have, “Here comes Mark, the schlubby guy” and you spend all these lines describing how messy his wardrobe is and blah, blah, blah. But you could also have like, “Mark walks in, an unshaved man in a stained t-shirt. He pours a bunch of cereal into a gallon of milk and chugs the whole thing.”

[confessional] Okay, Mark is Grant! Sorry!

Just by picturing that action... it’s like, “Okay, who’s the kind of person who does this?” And you fill in the blanks.

Exactly! Think, “Who’s the kind of person?…”

So, to rephrase it a little bit, how nitty gritty do you get with your stage directions?

I think when I first started, I got nitty gritty, but then — and I promise you, this is true — you think it all makes sense when you’re writing that nitty gritty direction and when you film it, it works better a different way. It will almost never work the best way the way you wrote it, without living human beings. You will find that someone did a funnier thing than what you wrote, and that is okay.

Put those important indicators in there, but if it’s like, “He’s twiddling a pencil between his fingers, but in an ungraceful way.” I don’t know; that might just clunk it up. It might just be like, “He’s playing with a pencil and drops it.” Or something. Very similar to say directions I wouldn’t get too granular.

What I would say is I agree with everything you’ve said, Rekha. When it comes to those very specific acting choices and things like that, I will do it if it serves a joke.

Totally.

That doesn’t mean that it’s always a visual joke that is happening in the description. But if having a little bit of a description in there helps a joke land on the page, or if it momentarily distracts us for a moment so a joke can play later, or if it is just like, a person wearing ten hats and you’ve got that visual joke right there.

Thank you.

For all like the little stuff, like “business,” like “she’s playing with a coffee cup” or “taking a little sip,” or anything… leave that to the actors. They’re going to love doing that shit anyway.

Hams! Big ol’ hams!

Hams! They all love it! They love sitting in their fricking characters!

[laughter]

But if it’s something that’s going to help the actual joke as you wrote it, then put that in there.

Totally. And, something I was going to say too, before, that I forgot to mention: sometimes you can creatively use your formatting to indicate jokes, whether it’s— I’m a big fan of dual dialogue. I love when two people are saying different things at the same time.

Absolutely.

I think it’s really funny. For me that’s the equivalent of a dick joke. It’ll always make me laugh. Dick jokes don’t, but that does.

Ultramechatron was conceived largely out of, like, “Can I write a whole series that’s just people talking over each other constantly?”

Absolutely. It’s so funny to me. The rapid back and forth… you can kind of intimate a pace from how you space stuff out. And even in your screen directions, if it’s like “Mark goes to sit on the couch.”

Enter.

“The couch collapses under him.”

You can get a bigger laugh there than if that was all on one line, which is kind of strange, but that’s just the pace at which you’re reading.

Absolutely. This is actually something that’s come up in some of the sketch dissections that we’ve done. That notion that when you put a line return on a script, it makes a pause in your brain, so you can make a joke hit harder if you force the reader to be like, “Pause for a second…”

“Here’s the joke.”

I fucking love sound effects.

I thought I could be a sound effect editor. I think I write live action like it’s a cartoon, maybe? Because I will be annoying and I’ll be like, “this sound effect happens when you put this cup down and it makes a [fart sound] kind of noise.” ‘Cause I like that shit. I do think sound effects and music can help with certain things.

Sound effects for me, just, like, make a joke out of something that wasn’t a joke. Isn’t there a Zac sketch where, for whatever reason, he decided to make a noise whenever he blinks?

Yes, this was a sketch where— I think Kassia wrote this— but Zac is playing Mark Zuckerberg—

Okay, I was going to say, even before I knew I was like, “He’s probably playing someone gross that I don’t like.”

And I don’t think this was actually written to the script though.

I bet it wasn’t!

I think this was a director — Tim Wilkime, I think — he made this choice and every time Zac blinks, it’s the sound of fingers— Premium members will get to hear this. You’ll just have to imagine it for yourself otherwise, but it’s this sound [the sound of two fingers hitting each other]. And it just does that sound every time he blinks the whole sketch.

And that to me is subliminal messaging, which I think is gorgeous.

[Laughter]

Like you already find this guy unsettling, maybe there’s a sheen of sweat on him. He’s wearing a gross black t-shirt, or whatever. And then there’s just something else unsettling happening aurally, and you realize it’s because you can hear every time he blinks.

Yeah.

I think that’s incredible. That, to me, is an animation sensibility I love to carry into sketch. And I find it does help enhance a visual joke. Music? I don’t know almost anything about music, but similar to what Trapp was saying about Jimmy Buffet, music can set a vibe in a very fun way, especially if you’re using a video sketch. Like I’m thinking about — gross, I'm citing a sketch of mine— but the “Fun Car Shining Sketch.” Like we used Katie and my car as dead silent, and then you cut to the fun car and it’s like “Party Playlist!” Your ear is almost laughing because it goes from dead silence and then there’s sudden raucous happiness. It, like, knows the joke.

Yeah. I’ll hop that. I think where music can really come in handy for me — because like a lot of times you’re not going to get to use a specific song because it’s too expensive —

Absolutely. You’ll have to make up a song.

Yeah. But it what is valuable is, again the juxtaposition thing. You can use music as a joke by having it cut off abruptly, or music is playing in one place but it’s not somewhere else, or music is playing while the unusual part of the sketch is happening but it’s not in the other, or vice-versa. Being able to use music to cue in the audience to those shifts in mood is super helpful.

And people even do that in drama. You’ll get like a character that only comes on with like a guitar twang or whatever-the-fuck. It’s a very fun way to establish character, and to establish game.

I love what you said too about using it all on the unusual person or all not. Like on Arrested Development I think of that cold open, where they’re just switching conference rooms because one’s too hot and one’s too cold.

Yeah.

If you notice the music changes from winter wonderland music to like beachy music every time they switched from the hot room to the cold room. Just a subtle little thing, especially because the audience can’t feel the hot and the cold, to cue you in that “Ah this room’s too cold; let’s go back.” “Ahh this room’s too hot.”

This is top of mind because we’ll be dissecting it very soon, but in the Tide Pot CEO sketch…

Yes!

When he is in presentation mode and he’s just talking to you and being like, “Hey, everything’s fine. Everything’s cool. This is how things are going.” There’s happy, plunky music playing in the background. And the moment he realizes that something is amiss, it drops. And those kinds of like audio cues, they really hit it home.

Absolutely.

The last thing I’ll say on this topic is, with sound effects, is like, how you can use them to [tell a joke.] This is overdone so much that it’s hacky now, but you can easily imagine the scene where it’s like,

“Hey, did you take care of that?”
“I did take care of that thing. Uh, just one moment, please.”
The door closes that you hear [footstep retreating sounds] [sound of a car engine starting up] [sound a car pealing away].

Right? And you stay on the people who remain, but you hear the story being told through sound.

That specific example is obviously a little overdone, but you can get all kinds of jokes where, like, there’s nothing happening on screen, but it’s about the juxtaposition between the stillness of what you’re seeing and the panic of what you’re hearing in the background.

Absolutely. I will never ever be able to cite anything else from this movie because I’ve only seen it once, and it was a long time ago, so please nobody asked me anything, but in Ghostbusters I remember laughing out loud when Bill Murray is gonna remove the tablecloth from underneath all those glasses, but they cut away to something else, and you just hear, hear him say, “They’re still standing.”

Yes.

I’ve thought about that for my whole life.

[laughter]

I thought that was so funny. You wouldn’t ordinarily think it would be funnier to not see it, but it is so much funnier to not see it. Cause that’s the task! That’s the magic trick and we don’t even fucking see it!

The annoying film school example of this is if you’ve seen any Ernst Lubitsch films— there’s some apocryphal story about an actress being very frustrated with him being like, “Doors, doors! He’s a director of doors!” Because he got so many shots where it’s a closed door and you just hear stuff going on the other side. But it’s really effective! And it’s funny!

Okay, gorgeous question. I would say: be very aware of what you like. This might be stupid, but keep lists of shit you like. And maybe even note down why you like it. Because I think sometimes part of an intro sketch class is to just get you to figure out the things you find funny and put them on paper. So I think doing this exercise on your own— like I would watch a lot of like Key & Peele sketches, and when I was a high schooler I was a fucking disgusting freak for Seinfeld, and I would talk about it all the time to people who did not care.

That’s true: you’re not allowed to watch Seinfeld anymore cause you’re such a disgusting freak about it.

I was too perverted about it.

Yeah.

But I think it really helped me realize what I like, and realize the kind of humor I like. It’s really good to remind yourself of that, even though that seems really stupid.

And then you can even, if you’re cool like me, give yourself little homework assignments.

[laughter].

Yeah. Kind of a cool thing I would do where I’d be like, “Make ten jokes about this.” Or like, “Come up with ten sketch premises this morning.” Totally can be bullshit. Ten sketch premises, write down like three beat ideas. And they will all be bad at first. I’m sure they will. Mine are. Continue to be.

But then if you do that for a month, you’ll have maybe one you like, and you’ve sort of practiced and kind of realize, “Oh ‘Girl Who Talks Too Loud’ was too thin. So I’m not going to pitch another sketch like that.” Or “I’m going to figure out why that felt too thin.”

‘Cause this is kind of what sketch classes do anyway. They make you watch. They make you break it down. They give you deadlines come up with a three to four page sketch, again: something sane. And then swap with your friends, if you’ve got any friends that are in the same boat, to see if they found it funny.

And honestly, even if they’re not comedy people. One of my friends is not a comedy person, but when I wrote a spec script for Happy Endings, I sent it to her and she was brutal. But all of her notes were like, “Yes!” Because [she’s] a big Happy Endings fan, so [she] knows the characters! Her notes absolutely made my script better. A hundred percent.

Yeah, what I’ll add on top of that, Madeleine, a slight summary of what Rekha just said: the few big things you get from an official sketch writing class, right? You get deadlines, someone forcing you to do something. You’re forced to watch a bunch of sketches and think about them in a very like precise way. And you have other people looking at your stuff and helping direct your thinking.

Okay. A lot of those things you can kind of do on your own, you know? You can give yourself deadlines. You can make yourself watch stuff that you like and think about why you like it. You can’t work with other people on your own, but if you could try to find those people who are out there, then that can help you.

The other thing I’ll add is there are people who go to film school and there are people who go to UCB and do all that training. But there are so, so many people, I know whose first class, basically, or only class, is just like, “I watched a ton of stuff.”

They’re like, “I liked watching sitcoms and I just watched it so much that the DNA fell into my body” or like, “I watched so many sketches that I just picked up on these patterns.” If you’re having a bit of imposter syndrome, like, “I’m not in a big city, I can’t do this stuff.” There’s so many people who learned how to do this because they taught themselves, basically. So don’t think that you can’t teach yourself, because that’s how a ton of people do it.

Absolutely. Just like breaking down the joke you laughed the hardest at in your favorite show. Like, “Why did I laugh at that? Okay, good to know.” Also, this is very particular, if you like to perform, I found improv really helped. Improv is too expensive, BUT performing really helped me figure out what jokes I like.

So if you have a TikTok or can film stuff on your phone to just get it out— you don’t even have to put it up anywhere if you don’t want to— but just to know how to visually express an idea, so you can almost reverse engineer and be like, “Ah! I should’ve written that into the script! Now I know for next time.” I think that’s also really helpful.

Yeah, like learning anything else, being able to assess what worked, what didn’t, how can I repeat what worked? How can I stop doing what didn’t?

Absolutely.

One last question here:

Sam, I’m from the same place you are: Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Oh, is that where Sam was from? I was about to ask you where Sam is from.

Actually, now that I say that, Sam hasn’t told me where he’s from. I actually don’t know where— Is he from Cambridge?

I don’t know. I think we should ask him. Sam, if you’re listening to this, if you could just tell us where you're from. Hopefully you’re listening to this. If you’re reading this, just shoot us a message. Tell us where you're from. And I think that’ll help us answer where Rekha’s from.

And actually, Trapp, I’m going to— for actual proof for your students…

Yeah.

Can you ask me the question again? I’m going to revise my answer.

Absolutely, yeah. So, Sam Reich asked “Rekha, where are you from?”

So this sounds like deflection, Sam, because you won’t actually answer your own fucking question.

Mmm.

So, I’m not going to answer if you don’t answer.

I think that’s true. Sam, I think that the only way we can possibly answer this is in relation to what you’re already familiar with. Like it wouldn’t do any good, right, if I said like, “Oh, I’m from Novato” or something like that. You’d be like, “I don’t know where that is.” But if I knew where you were from—

Yeah.

I could say that, like, I—

“I’m to the left of there.”

Exactly. It’s situational knowledge. So, Sam, if you give us that info, we’re happy to help you out there. But I think, I think this is a little incomplete as it.

Yeah, shoot me an email, Sam.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I think it’s honestly sort of offensive. So if you could just—

[laughter]

[laughter]

Yeah. Sam, this question is a little racist actually, so…

It’s actually kind of fucked, so I’m not going to actually answer.

Great answer, Rekha.

Thank you. You can keep both those answers in so people know, “Oh, jokes can work better when you revise.”

[laughter]

[laughter]

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