{"id":963,"date":"2012-12-03T09:00:03","date_gmt":"2012-12-03T13:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/?p=963"},"modified":"2012-12-01T23:24:15","modified_gmt":"2012-12-02T03:24:15","slug":"sarah-how-to-be-funny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/2012\/12\/03\/sarah-how-to-be-funny\/","title":{"rendered":"Sarah: How to be Funny"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Last semester, I waved a bittersweet goodbye to my required courses. This semester, I loaded up on Film & TV electives and hit the ground running. It\u2019s been a hectic semester, but in the best way possible. All my classes are practical and very hands-on (and don\u2019t have finals!). In my production class, I made films. In my creative producing class, I put together packages for talk shows and documentaries. I\u2019ve been busy doing the things I love to do and hope to make a career out of, and that\u2019s what college is all about.<\/p>\n

I thought I\u2019d dedicate this blog post to perhaps my favorite class this semester \u2013 Writing Situational Comedy Scripts. The class teaches the fundamentals of comedy storytelling and how we see it executed in the current television market. Essentially, it\u2019s a class in being funny. The coursework involves writing several drafts of TV spec scripts, or nonprofessional scripts written for existing shows. The class is taught by Michael Loman, one of COM\u2019s stellar faculty members. Professor Loman was a staff writer for The Cosby Show<\/em>, Happy Days<\/em> and All in the Family<\/em>, to name a few, and also acted as Executive Producer of Sesame Street<\/em> for 10 years. Needless to say, he is qualified to teach the class.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the semester, the class completed two major projects. The first was a group spec script for a current sitcom \u2013 ours was Modern Family<\/em>. Since almost all shows have a staff of writers who group write, this part of the class is meant to simulate the writer\u2019s room. We were all responsible for writing and pitching a story outline to the class. Then we picked one story and went to work. We all know how much of a struggle group projects can be, so imagine the plight of 16 writers \u2013 16 loud, opinionated writers \u2013 trying to create a quality script. There was a lot of fighting, a lot of laughing and a whole lot of bad jokes. But in the end, we produced something to be proud of.<\/p>\n

The second project is a personal spec script, which we completed on our own. This project is your chance to shine. I decided to write for one of my favorite new shows \u2013 New Girl. <\/em>I spent weeks creating an outline, writing drafts and meeting with my professor. Oh, and rewriting. And rewriting, and rewriting and more rewriting. Now I have a polished spec script for a new series that I can use when I start applying to jobs (which is crazy soon!).<\/p>\n

So on that fateful day when you must bid adieu to your requirements, find solace in all of the cool COM classes you have yet to take!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last semester, I waved a bittersweet goodbye to my required courses. This semester, I loaded up on Film & TV electives and hit the ground running. It\u2019s been a hectic semester, but in the best way possible. All my classes are practical and very hands-on (and don\u2019t have finals!). In my production class, I made … Continue reading Sarah: How to be Funny<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2018,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3892,257,1613,7284],"tags":[30,31309,31312,31311,2734],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2018"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=963"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":965,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963\/revisions\/965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}