In "Entertaining Angels", I'm delving right back into the comedy genre. The comedy is pretty broad: a loser interacts with an invisible character. The physical comedy comes from the mischief said invisible character creates, and the verbal humor comes from a mixture of assorted smaller characters. The pacing is light-speed and the humor leaves little room for sentimentality. Sound familiar? Probably because about a bazillion of these kind of movies are made each year. 'Entertaining Angels' follows an old story telling formula using an idea that has been used in such movies as "It's a Wonderful Life", "Harvey" (gee, am I a Jimmy Stewart fan?), "Drop Dead Fred (which I haven't seen), "All of Me", "I Dream of Jeannie", "Me, Myself & Irene" and "Liar, Liar" among others. So how on earth do I do anything new with this? Or am I content just rehashing old sitcom tales?
No, I am not content rehashing old sitcom tales. There has to be a spin, and the spin is in the characters. I believe most good comedy isn't primarily in situations, but characters. Take "Bowfinger", a movie where Hollywood outcasts shoot an alien action movie around a big star who doesn't know he's being filmed. The situations are funny, but what makes them hysterical is that the big star struggles mightily with conspiracy theories about aliens and other wierdness. So in EA, the idea is that the characters themselves are funny, so the situations they are in are funnier.
The movie centers around two characters: Jack (protagonist) and Kitsy (guardian angel). They work sort of like Abbott and Costello, my favorite comedy duo. The rule of the comedy team is: straight man is nuanced, fast talking and suave, and the comic is childish, outlandish and mischievious. In EA, I'm trying to spin this around a little bit. According to the rule, Jack is the straight man and Kitsy is the comic, because Jack is the one trying to be normal and Kitsy is the one causing the havok. However, out of the two of them, Jack is by far the more childish and outlandish, while Kitsy is more mischevious. So they both share qualities of the straight man and comic, and I think the chemistry will be funny.
Jack is set back about 10 years on the maturity level. He's in a 20 year olds body, but he doesn't know what to do. Ron Rhinehart nailed it when he described Jack as being "caught." He really likes Kate, and is attracted to her, but what does he do? He's still at the maturity level where girls have cooties. What does he do with responsibility? He doesn't have a clue of whats going on around him, so he's in a constant state of confusion. I LOVE this character and I think audiences will be able to relate to a protagonist who just has grown up faster than he should have. Many adults wish they were still a kid, or still feel like a kid. I think the character of Jack is one of the best calculations I've ever made when writing a character.
Kitsy is a different beast altogether. While audiences may find traces of Jack in movies like "The Jerk", they will be hard pressed to find a character like Kitsy anywhere in literature. He's a true angel as the Bible describes, with some creative liberties. He's odd and disconnected, does not relate to humans on an emotional level, but is very mischevious and loves to be entertained. At his core he's a fierce warrior. His character has several parameters: can't be human, has to be innocent, has to snap to and fro different moods and personas. But outside those, Kitsy allows a lot of creative interpretation. Sami is a skilled enough actor to be able to conquer Kitsy, and he's already doing it. Ya know, if everybody laughs at me, fine. If they love the story, great. But the most satisfying thing would probably be to see the audience really know, love and respond to Kitsy. He's the most original character I've ever written.
END OF PART 1
Part 2: The tennis ball theory of comedy and how we spin it for a loop
Part 3: Pacing: the catalyst