Dry Comediesĭry comedies - also referred to as deadpan comedies - showcase humor that is delivered in an impassive, expressionless, matter-of-fact fashion. And then there's the Dramedy, which has equal parts hiliarity and melodrama. Movies like Ghostbusters and Beetlejuice managed to capture that humor and horror lightning in a bottle, but most other horror comedies work more like satire (see below), sending up the horror genre in funny ways.Ĭomedy can also be blended with fantasy, science fiction, and crime genres as well. Horror Comedies are perhaps the most difficult to tackle because you're asking the audience to experience two very different things - being scared and laughing. And like the Buddy Comedy, they often explore the friendship of two or more lead characters. Movies like Lethal Weapon, Rush Hour, 21 Jump Street, The Heat, and Bad Boys offer the typical formula and contain aspects of the Buddy Comedy as well (see below). Whatever the situation is, it has to be funny or otherwise, it’s just a love story.Īction Comedies offer equal parts action and comedy. Sometimes the lead character doesn’t get their desired love interest in the end. This formula has drastically changed since the rom-com boom of the 1990s. Guy/girl meets the guy/girl, guy/girl gets the guy/girl, guy/girl loses the guy/girl, guy/girl gets the guy/girl back - and every variation thereof. Romantic Comedies are equal parts romance and comedy. But that's doesn't mean you can't pull them off. And because that balance can be so difficult to maneuver, these types of comedy genre blends are often left to the masters. Genre blends are always compelling to Hollywood insiders, but only when that balance is handled well. Screenwriters looking to push the envelope a bit to get noticed can prosper in this comedy subgenre, but they should be aware of the risks involved as well. Movies like Bad Santa, American Psycho, Fargo, Heathers, Very Bad Things, and Death to Smoochy are hit or miss at the box office, but they often grow cult followings because the writers seek out the humor in dark subject matter. The difficulty with writing a black comedy is that the box office potential is more limited compared to lighter fare thus Hollywood doesn't take as many risks with these types of scripts. Black Comediesīlack Comedies are those that find the humor in otherwise disturbing subjects like death, violence, crime, and war. And you can easily enhance the truth and embellish moments, characters, and situations of hilarity to up the ante of the comedy. Hollywood loves true stories and real characters. If you have a real-life story to tell that's funny, it may be worthy of a feature screenplay or series pilot. Lady Bird was based on much of writer/director Greta Gerwig's life. The Goldbergs is an anecdotal comedy series based on the life and family experiences of the show's creator Adam Goldberg. Stand-up comics typically use this type of comedy in their routines, but there's also a place for it in screenplays and teleplays as well. This type of comedy usually refers to personal comic stories that are true or partly true but embellished. Here we share ten different styles of comedies that screenwriters can choose from. While you can undoubtedly blend those styles and types, most screenwriters fail to do so engagingly and hilariously, leading to inconsistent scripts that read as if the writer doesn't know what the script should be. When you're dealing with a genre like Comedy, there are many subgenres within that comedy-genre umbrella - each of which has their own type and style of comedy. In screenwriting, consistency is vital to the success of any screenplay. Have you already written the next great comedy? Enter the ScreenCraft Comedy Screenplay Competition here. And screenwriters writing under the comedy banner need to master the genre to stand apart from the comedians and writers-for-hire that Hollywood usually goes to for comedy. This is perhaps the broadest major genre of them all. They exaggerate the situation, language, action, relationships, and characters. What are the different styles of comedies that screenwriters can develop for their feature film scripts and series pilots?Ĭomedies have plots that are often light-hearted and are written solely to make audiences laugh.
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