Assignment 7: (Video) Jokin' Around

Jokes are fun. But as always, delivery is key (as explicitly mentioned in Scott Meyer's cartoon). So, our small group tried the best we could to present jokes in an original, yet still humorous light. Our videos used this joke as the central plot:

A few days after Christmas, a mother was working in the kitchen listening to her young son playing with his new electric train in the living room. She heard the train stop and her son said, "All of you sons of bitches who want off, get the hell off now, cause this is the last stop! And all of you sons of bitches who are getting on, get your asses in the train, cause we're going down the tracks."

The mother went nuts and told her son, "We don't use that kind of language in this house. Now I want you to go to your room and you are to stay there for TWO HOURS. When you come out, you may play with your train, but I want you to use nice language."

Two hours later, the son comes out of the bedroom and resumes playing with his train. Soon the train stopped and the mother heard her son say, "All passengers who are disembarking from the train, please remember to take all of your belongings with you. We thank you for riding with us today and hope your trip was a pleasant one. We hope you will ride with us again soon." She hears the little boy continue, "For those of you just boarding, we ask you to stow all of your hand luggage under your seat. Remember, there is no smoking on the train. We hope you will have a pleasant and relaxing journey with us today."

As the mother began to smile, the child added, "For those of you who are pissed off about the TWO HOUR delay, please see the bitch in the kitchen."

Mommy Knows Best 

Our first video approach used my script, “Mommy Knows Best.” The fact that I’ve been craving a decent horror movie definitely affected my writing. The script took the conventional joke and put it in the horror genre. I wrote the piece keeping movement and space in the forefront of my mind. The intention was to always show the child playing with his toy with the mother connected in deep space. We purposely hid the mother’s face to dehumanize her and prevent the audience from relating to her. During the opening shots and again at the close of the short, the mother is shown in the background. And so while the audience focuses on the child playing in the foreground, tension is enforced by the mother’s slow, deliberate movements in the background. The humor displayed was very subtle, and it forced the audience to actively interpret the (rather morbid) approach on the joke.

Bitch in the Kitchen

Our second video approach took the conventional humor approach, but added a slapstick twist. The script, "Bitch in the Kitchen" written by Ryan Newell, followed a middle-aged man living at home with his elderly mother. We attempted to focus on rhythm and line. Throughout the short, the man is playing with a train set that continues in a lemniscates (infinity symbol)- like a circle, it never ends. Similarly, the mother is stirring the bowl in a circular motion. This rhythmic nod toward the circle underlines the fact that their lifestyle is a constant cycle that isn’t likely to change soon. The man has no intention of moving out and the mother has no intention on treating him like an actual man. We utilized line in the scene where the man is in “time-out” and sent to the basement. With the brick lines of the wall combining with that of the handrail on the staircase, it blends with the man’s striped shirt. And so while the man, the only moving object in the shot, creates affinity with the lines of the shot, he is still the focal point.