Slapstick Comedy: it's a knee slapper!

1. Slapstick Comedy: it's a knee slapper! Joey Kim and Nicole Pulley COMM-105 Visual Literacy Professor Williams March, 2010

2. What is slapstick? • The term slapstickwas taken from the wooden sticks that clowns slapped together to promote audience applause • A genre of film that involves harmless or painless cruelty and violence, horseplay, etc. • Pie in the face, tripping down a flight of stairs,  • Requires perfect timing • Broad, aggressive, physical, and visual action  • Slapstick evolved and was reborn in the screwball comedies (crazy eccentric behavior) of the 1930s and 1940s.

3. History of Slapstick • Predominant in the earliest silent films, they didn't need audio to be effective • Popular with non-English speaking audiences (age of immigration) • Slapstick evolved and was reborn in the screwball comedies (crazy eccentric behavior) of the 1930s and 1940s. • Pave the way for contemporary comedy The Three Stooges Ace Ventura

4. Classic Example (1930s-1970s) • The Three Stooges: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FRsBa4KRkc • Angle: the viewer views the scene of the film from an eye-level angle. This allows the audience to observe the slapstick comedy from a realistic view. • Color values: Since the films were recorded in black and white, the color is up for interpretation. However, this makes lighitng important. Most of the scenes have a medium key; not too high, not too low.   • Density: a lot of  visual information in each of the scenes. Since the major characteristic of slapstick is the visual comedy, the screen writer  packs a large amount of visual details into the scenes.   • Framing: mostly tight, as the action occures between two or three  stooges. The characters do have some room to move around, but the actors are stationary when the "slapstick" happens.

5. Contemporary (1970s-Present) • http://www.jackassworld.com/videos/1579081/196006 • Dominant: the dominant image in this clip is obviously the man in the hotdog costume. The scene starts with him in the frame. • Color Values: since the video was shot outside, there is a lot of foliage and buildings, but the big contrasting colors come from the bright hotdog suit. • Density: the setting is a large field/lawn and in the backdrop a highway. There is a lot going on in the back, but the subject still stands out for the audience to stay focused on him. • Form: the video had consisted of a single male frolicking in a hotdog suit, but at the conclusion he is tackled by another person adding a bit of balance to the scene so that it's not only him. • Framing: the set (field), which is dangerously close to a highway for such shenanigans, is open and loose, which gives the person copious amounts of free space to move around.

6. Sources • http://umphreak218.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/willferrell.jpg • http://www.filmsite.org/filmgenres.html • http://thesituationist.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/3stooges.jpg • http://blogs.eveningsun.com/sportingword/jim%20carrey%20pet%20detective.jpg • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FRsBa4KRkc • http://www.jackassworld.com/videos/1579081/196006