Exercising Creativity Through Comedy
20 years ago Larry Wilde asked the famous Comedian Jerry Seinfeld “what is meant by the setup of a joke?”. Jerry answered: “The set-up kind of defines the end of the cliff that you’re gonna get the audience to jump from. The punchline is the cliff on the other side that they have to reach. Now, the distance between those two determines if they laugh. If it’s too far they don’t make the other side, they fall into the ravine. If it’s too close there was no thrill, there’s no titillation, there’s no laugh. So the set up has to be the proper distance from the punchline to make that mechanism that causes the laugh work.”
(you can find the full interview on spotify here https://spoti.fi/2D4IPrV)
COMEDY
Comedy is a great exercise in creativity, logic, timing and perspective. Think about everyday life: in order to be funny during a conversation you need to understand the context, flip the perspective, play with logic and deliver the joke at the very right moment. If you get any of those things wrong, you run the risk of losing impact or saying something which is very far from funny. And yet, “the distance between the premise and the punchline determines if the audience will laugh”. It’s not an easy task at all. It’s precise like science and divergent like art…and a great gym to keep your creativity trained.
CREATIVITY
Everyone has their own vision about creativity, but the bottom line is that creativity is a matter of perspective.
For instance, let’s take (again) a comedian: Mitch Hedberg.
Hedberg was one of the best comedians of his generation, a guy who delivered staggering and surreal one line jokes which few others have been able to replicate since he passed away in 2005. His jokes were short and perfectly crafted exercises in perspective. Here’s a perfect example:
“Dogs are forever in the pushup position”
That’s it. A perfect joke in just seven words: a masterful exercise in perspective and a great demonstration that creativity is nothing but the distance between common sense and a peculiar point of view.
PUSH UPS FOR YOUR BRAIN
After many years I came to the conclusion that creativity is not just a talent, it requires hard work to hone and refine. For this reason developing and using your creativity is a nothing but a choice. So, if you want to be a creative thinker, the very first thing you should do is take a deep breath, jump away from common sense, and enjoy the fresh air of a new perspective.
Everyone should try to articulate creativity in fields they are passionate about and in my case it’s jokes, so that’s where I find my fresh air.
Comedy helps keep my brain creative. And as I cannot dedicate time to developing my creativity, I exercise it throughout each day: I do it in the subway, while stuck in traffic or when trying to fall asleep. I am constantly turning things upside down in order to shape new ideas. It’s great, try it. And even better: you shouldn’t keep this wonderful act of imagination as a solitary journey. Rely on other people’s creativity and try to build ideas together with them. No man is an island…or…no island is a man, said the man with the wrong-way mind.
THE EXERCISE
I recently designed a workshop exercise on Collaborative Creativity.
It’s simple, quick, fun and it was a success. On top of that, if you had the patience to read to this point, it should be clear that it implements many of the things I mentioned above.
All you need is two people, two sharpies and some paper. Plus, be prepared to have fun because, believe me, it will be fun. Here’s the how it works:
The goal
Collaboratively draw six short comic strips in 15 minutes. This means you’ll have a very limited amount of time to throw ideas and to sketch them, but please keep in mind that no one expects you to draw something “beautiful”. Focus on concepts and sketch ideas quickly.
Phase #1 — Pick the Topics
Duration: 1 minute
Pick three topics each. No restrictions, any topic is allowed. Once done, make a list and place it right in the middle of the table where both of you can see it.
Examples: astronauts, rain, turtles, taxi, submarines, moon.
Phase #2 — The Set-Up
Duration: 7 minutes.
Each one of you must draw three set-ups for three different a comic strips. The other participant has to do the same. You can pick one topic from the list or combine two or more. Each set up can be made of one, two or three frames. No boundaries: feel free to be surreal if you want (i.e.: a taxi at the bottom of the ocean meets an astronaut), linear (a taxi driver listening to some music), conceptual (just a line and two dots) or…well whatever, it’s up to you to push it in one direction or in another. Set a timer and…do not cheat, when it’s over raise your hands :-)
Phase #3 — The Switch
When the timer rings, switch the drawings. Now you have in your hands three set-ups from the other participant while they have yours. Be prepared to receive three set ups you would have never thought about :-)
Don’t worry, it’s part of the game: you’re exploring someone else’s imaginary perspective and are probably out of your comfort zone. Once the switch is complete, start the timer again for the next 7 minutes.
Phase #4 — It’s Punchline Time
Duration: 7 minutes
Draw the Punchlines and complete the 3 comic strips. Again, you can draw one, two or three frames to complete each strip. Your only goal here is to go for something funny, something that will make you smile or even better, laugh. Relax and enjoy the freedom you have, you’re a punchline away from some shareable fun.
Phase #5 — The Sharing
It’s time to share the comic strips. The both of you have just realized 6 short comic strips in just 15 minutes. You did it! From what I saw during the workshops, it’s a really nice moment. Some of the comic strips will make you laugh because of their humour, some will not be funny at all, others will be unexpectedly weird.
Note
You can switch up the exercise by doing it with more than two people. This usually results in some serious creativity and chaos.
COMIC STRIPS
And now please five comic strips that I picked from two sessions of the exercise. I have outlined the Set-up / Punchline pattern to explicitly show how the participants collaborated.
THE 6 TOPICS
#1 STRIP
Set Up: one cloud says “I have always loved you!” to another cloud
Punchline: and love they made :-)
#2 STRIP
Set Up: an astronaut in space
Punchline: a banana peel was added…this drew to consequences :-)
#3 STRIP
Set Up: a guy who couldn’t sell his umbrellas due to a really strange weather
Punchline: well…problem solving at his best :-)
#4 STRIP
Set Up: it’s Christmas morning!
Punchline: this has happened to almost all of us when we were kids :-)
#5 STRIP
Set Up: Aliens!
Punchline: don’t worry, NASA has the solution…and it’s called Plan B!
RESULTS
The feedback we got from the people who joined the exercise was very good with a 92.3% of increase in their short term happiness. On top of that, 92 participants out of 112 laughed 12% louder during the next three and a half days. And this, combined with my innate ability to make up statistics, is a matter of fact.
So now it’s up to you. Make your choice to stay creative, exercise and have fun.
Thanks for reading, that’s all folks!
CREDITS
Being born in a family with zero sense of humor, I was always fascinated by comedy.
I guess my grandfather played a role in this. He was a quiet and lovely man in love with mathematics who also acted as an undercover comedy agent within the family. He taught me the importance of forgetting things in order to free up some space in my brain for creativity and improvisation. This article is dedicated to him.
