After completing this piece of work I feel that I not only have a better understanding of where the comedy genre originates from and how it has developed over time, but also an idea on some aspects that I should include in my final piece. I have learned that the two most popular forms of comedy over the years have been slapstick and dialogue based. This is good for me to know as I can incorporate these aspects into my own short film. In the future if I am unsure on whether to base my film primarily on slapstick or dialogue I can create a focus group and show them examples of both forms of comedy. This would allow me to see which was more popular among, what would be, my target audience.
Another interesting thing that I noticed while researching the history of this genre was that there has been evidence of early comedy female stars such as 'Doris Day' and 'I love Lucy'. This was interesting because it is a well known fact that the comedy genre has consisted of mostly male directors, producers, actors, writers and so forth. Knowing that not only has there been female's working within this genre, but working to the same standard, if not higher than the men, is a reassurance to me. This is because originally I thought I needed a story plot that revolved around a males perspective of the world in order to get more laughs. This feelings stems from the realisation that comedies based from a females perspective can be criticized harshly even before people have seen it. A good example of this occurred when there was a remake of the classic comedy 'Ghost busters' with a female team of ghost busters instead of male. However, learning that having female characters doesn't necessarily mean it won't be hated has inspired me to expand my thinking and ponder what my film could be about.
