Brief recap from last week – Observation in the Real World, Things we learned from watching video of our first exercise, Things we learned from attending mics/shows.
After discussing the homework assignments and required show attendance and what was learned, we moved into the Types of Jokes most commonly used in Standup – One-Liners/Simple Truth/Stories/Self-Deprecation/Observational/Incongruent Thirds/Defeating the bad guy. As well as discussing some of the most common Tropes in Comedy that are always effective – Fish Out of Water/Odd Couple/Human Personification of Animals (Anthropomorphism)
Brief run through of the Free Writing Worksheet, where I explained the idea of building up and expanding a premise to allow the mind to go in different directions, only to shrink it back down using editing.
Went over some of the tech help that will benefit students, such as content aggregator sites (Reddit, Digg) and various non-traditional note taking methods using apps.
Homework – Attend one open mic and one show. Develop two bits to begin shaping them for class on Week 3. Become familiar with the Free Writing Worksheet and go over some of the writing prompts provided.