If you are seated at your writing desk it may seem that the first task to attend to is bringing the words of your characters to life on the page. Often the story unfolds by what the characters say, much less attention is given to how a character moves, what they are wearing, even the facial characteristics remain a good distance down the list of things you’ll be thinking through from the inception.
Building a story with attention to the characters physical movements is the road less traveled. Perhaps they struggle to unbolt a door, step with their foot into a puddle of water, attempt to put on a coat but the task becomes too complicated, and they give up.
One essential skill to good acting is to do with their ability to move without the audience being drawn to something that doesn’t look right. It is a lot more difficult to move naturally, and there is nothing more eye-catching than unnatural body movement.
Some characters are naturally clumsy, sometimes their posture is the tell, if the intent is to get a laugh the pace or timing of the bit will depend on the skill of the editor to maintain a proper pace in support of the sense of humor being built into the story.
Slipping, freezing in place, slow turns, squinting eyes, sudden sneezes, fingers getting caught in doors being closed are all important pieces of a well told story. When the mishaps come character driven the screenplay goes into full synchronization with what the screenwriter is thinking and what the audience is seeing.
Trying to get yourself into clothes that do not fit, hiding someone or something because an unexpected person turns up, locking yourself out, getting a zipper unstuck, spilling something on the floor and slipping and falling into the thing you spilled. You only have to create a situation and imagine the mishaps possible.
It takes no special humorous talent if you understand physical comedy well enough to deploy when creating a scene.
I would prefer the camera to remain still and the movement to come from the actors. They’ll stand at a door, grabbed the doorknob, try to turn it, fail, try again, fail again, pull with great intensity, continue to fail, when a smaller character walks up and twists the knob, opens the door, walks through doorway, closes door behind them, and then the character stuck there tries to do the same thing and the door won’t open for them. That can be funny if filmed in a way that doesn’t screw up the physical rhythm gathering pace by the player in the scene.
I know I’ve got a bulldozer in this script, steep cliffs, rockslides, avalanches, tents, hospitality cabins, and a poorly maintained tour bus. I’ll look over some YouTube footage with a lookout for possible ways my characters can physically interact with the objects in each scene.
The question then becomes how much is too much, and how little could be insufficient to the task. The key question to ask and answer is what is the status of your character and if they do have a problem does it lower their status or raise it? For example the common person opening a closing a door without difficulty compared to a higher status person that cannot seem to do the same thing.
Eventually this plot will be written out as line-items, I count about 40 scenes in total, most are short and a few key scenes will run slightly longer— maybe 3 minutes. To be my most diabolic, the most intentional, will be my making some assessment of when and to what degree a physically inspired comic moment might be built into the script. Then, looking at the outline is this the right time, is it too brief, too offbeat and irrelevant or can it cement the purpose of the moment.
Eventually the dialogue will rule supreme, eventually a producer considering the script will begin to read, and like anyone reading will want to be pulled along by the story interested in the characters and what happens next. A speculative script isn’t a shooting script, that comes later, while reading you get just enough information to imagine the rough outline of how the scene might look without knowing the point of view of a lens and the positions and angles a director might choose.
Physical comedy written into a script, when it can be described in words that can be followed by an actor, may take a paragraph to explain, maybe a simple photograph will do, the key is knowing the length of time it takes. Slipping on a banana peel is one beat, how a character gets back up on their feet is the second beat and perhaps several beats, once on their feet again there is the characters next step, is it normal or is it tentative, do they carry on without injury or do they limp, are they rubbing their bottom or forehead?
Other elements I am giving extra time and attention to in the planning stages include costuming for samba dancers, what road repair crew types hair, beard and uniforms might look like, the roadside restaurant/saloon/motel where most of the story takes place, how does this all look, what about the nearby ocean, how about a mooring ball offshore where a visiting boat can be tied up while the characters come to visit.
In this screenplay I’m focusing on a story that is character driven, a story built on the choices the characters make, how they overcome the obstacles put in their way and if and how they will prevail or fall victim to forces larger than whatever plans and expectations they had before their world began crumbling around them.
A climate change comedy about a rockslide that closes a key highway, another breaking off of key shoreline, then the threat of the cliffs near the restaurant/saloon/motel ultimately showing signs of failure, then finally the collapse— a documentary would play this straight, it would be a sad day, but in this instance we’ll try to give our characters something to laugh about and to soldier their loss with courage and grace. Comedy is a lot of things, one of its most appealing qualities is its redemptive nature. We look into the abyss, we turn look at the other characters waiting to learn what unknown horror is ahead, and the character that has seen into the abyss smiles and laughs— the laughter that’s the reward of a comedy. Against all odds and manner of calamity the human spirit possesses the potential to prevail.
