Funny Scenes

Annie Wengenroth · December 31, 2004

Okay, here's a question. What is the funniest scene or single shot you have ever filmed and how did you keep a straight face? (Or did you?!)

I'm just thinking about all the hilarious moments in film I have ever seen, and how hard it must have been to keep from laughing in the middle of a take. Usually I try to either focus on something that's not as funny, or I just count in my head or something. Actually, I was on a shoot once as the boom operator and something made one of the actors laugh, and then *I* laughed, the mic dipped in the shot, and then everyone just totally lost it. Fortunately we were on video... and we had some memorable outtakes.

Chris Keth · December 31, 2004

Okay, here's a question. What is the funniest scene or single shot you have ever filmed and how did you keep a straight face? (Or did you?!)

I'm just thinking about all the hilarious moments in film I have ever seen, and how hard it must have been to keep from laughing in the middle of a take. Usually I try to either focus on something that's not as funny, or I just count in my head or something. Actually, I was on a shoot once as the boom operator and something made one of the actors laugh, and then *I* laughed, the mic dipped in the shot, and then everyone just totally lost it. Fortunately we were on video... and we had some memorable outtakes.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, I'm really awful at that, I tend to laugh a lot. It's usually a good thing but on a comedy film it's not so good. It depends on what I'm doing. I try, at all odds, to ignore the performance as much as I can and concentrate on what I am doing. If I'm camera OP, for example, I'll plug my ears sometimes and keep my crazy intent glare and watch my framing, for the mic, etc.

Boom OP's a tough one. You're right on set and you should know the script so you can anticipate lines, so you can't ignore them. I was boom op one time and to keep from laughing I'd recite the script in my mind and keep going, trying not to pause to think about it. I guess it was the least funny thing I could think of at the time. It worked pretty well though. I was able to do that and accurately mic everyone.

I heard an actor say on some show that when she didn't want to laugh during a take, she clenched a toothpick in her hand (if it was off camera) so it poked into her palm really hard. That might work, but it's give you pretty sore palms to do that for a whole feature schedule of shoots. :D

Kevin Zanit · December 31, 2004

I was on a movie called "Kids in America". There was a scene in it with Julie Bowen that she would just improve something different every take. This combined with the jokes she cracked between takes made it very hard to not laugh. This also made for one of the best sets I have been on. She was awesomely funny.

Kevin Zanit

jasarsenault · December 31, 2004

I was directing a documentary in which I was interviewing an older man. I was also recording sound. During one of his pauses he farted. No one else heard. i dont even think he noticed. But I had a shotgun mic pointed at him and a headset on. It cam through loud and clear. I tried hard not to laugh. I thought it was funny anyway.

Phil Rhodes · December 31, 2004

Hi,

Worse than working on comedies is the awful moment when someone finds a line - not usually a funny line, usually a line such as "I'm afraid you'll never walk again, Mrs. Smith" - incredibly funny, and it turns out to be infectious. This can often be seeded by something - on one take of a short I did years ago, someone had to pick up a phone. On the first take he forgot his line, and instead said "I've got the crystal and I'm coming out!" This was, of course, during the height of popularity of "The Crystal Maze", a puzzle-game-based gameshow, and it got a huge laugh.

The problem was that every time he picked up the phone in the following many, many takes, everyone fell about laughing, including me, him, his co-star in the scene, and everyone else. Eventually I think we broke for lunch...

Phil

DavidSloan · January 1, 2005

OMG, you mean this is a common problem!? Sometimes I get into these giggle modes that are next to impossible to control :lol:

Edited January 1, 2005 by DavidSloan

Michael Nash · January 1, 2005

There have been plenty of times when I've accidentally shook the camera because I'm laughing so hard, even though I'm trying to be quiet.

I think the funniest thing that I ever witnessed was an electrician "upstaging" the actress during a really sensitive moment. As she spoke her lines, he silently mimicked her with exaggerated expressions, directly in the eyeline of a grip who was Hollywooding a flag -- directly in the eyeline of the actress. The grip was completely wincing trying not to laugh and upset the scene, and the electric just kept at it. You had to be there...

Fortunately the actress was a good sport, once she heard what all the laughter was about.

Annie Wengenroth · January 1, 2005

That is absolutely great, I wish I could have seen it... I was the DP on this one shoot where the leading actor had a very heavy theater background, and one of those faces where even when he has a neutral expression, it still seems like he's looking at you funny. So he was really extravagant and flamboyant in all of his gestures, and it totally cracked me up. Then to top it all off, he farted. Deadpan, looks right at the camera: "Oh sorry. It must have been the coffee."

And as much as I pretend (like the rest of the world) that I outgrew the Farts Are Hysterically Funny stage in 3rd grade, the sound guy cracked up laughing and so of course I was next! We have many shaky, hilarious outtakes. I actually ended up having to hold my breath to keep from snickering.

Then again, I am notorious for my fits of laughter and once laughed so hard while watching "The Producers" that I apparently turned purple. In fact, I used to get in trouble at school for laughing. I have carried this quality forth into my professional life and hope to spread uncontrollable laughter throughout the world.

By the way, don't follow the "Just Picture Everyone In Front of You Wearing Their Underwear" school of thought, it just makes it worse! :lol:

Phil Rhodes · January 1, 2005

Hi,

> Hollywooding a flag

Don't tell me...

Hollywood, verb: to artfully manipulate grip or lighting equipment so as to salve the talent's neuroses while having no material affect on the shot.

I believe there may be more (possibly a great deal more) cases in which Hollywood becomes a verb, ("to offer insincere flattery", "to own an SUV that has never been used for either sports or utility", "If female, to stand in the back of an F-5000 with chrome roll bars wearing a bikini and showing off one's big hair, or if male, to be driving said F-5000 past the "do not pass this sign twice in an hour" sign more than twice in an hour") but I'm pretty sure this is the one that pertains here.

Phil

John Sprung · January 4, 2005

The best advice I can give you for comedy is to give every member of the crew a copy of the script well in advance. Read it through at least three times or more -- maybe even a dozen times if it's really good -- until you are absolutely effing bored to death with it. Then read each day's work again day by day, the day before you shoot it. If you still crack up after all that, it's OK. It means you have a hit.

--J.S.

Michael Nash · January 4, 2005

> Hollywooding a flag

Don't tell me...

Hollywood, verb: to artfully manipulate grip or lighting equipment so as to salve the talent's neuroses while having no material affect on the shot.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Clever interpretations, but not exactly right. I have no idea about the genesis of the term, but for the record:

To "Hollywood" a flag is too physically hand-hold it, usually with some movement, to do something that a static or "set" flag couldn't do. You often "hollywood" a lenser with dolly shots, for instance.

Brad Grimmett · January 4, 2005

I try, at all odds, to ignore the performance as much as I can and concentrate on what I am doing. If I'm camera OP, for example, I'll plug my ears sometimes and keep my crazy intent glare and watch my framing, for the mic, etc.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No offense, but this is a bad idea. When you're operating you have to know what's going on in the scene. There are often lines that cue a camera move, or cue another actor to move, which changes your shot. How could you not listen and manage to properly do the shot?

I've certainly laughed many times at things actors have done and said. Sometimes it's an improv'd line and you don't expect it, or sometimes you just crack. These things happen and everyone will understand if it happens now and then. The only problem would be if you continue to laugh during subsequent takes. You have to grin and bear it....pun intended. ;) I must admit though that comedies are fun to work on because of this. I did a movie last year that was heavily improv'd and the actors had us all in stitches quite a bit of the time. The savior is, most of the time if the crew cracks the other actor (if there is one) has already pretty much blown the take. They're normally the first ones to go, so it saves the rest of us from ruining a good take.

I remember hearing an actor say once, "If you're doing a comedy and the crew isn't laughing, you have a problem."

January 4, 2005

I remember hearing an actor say once, "If you're doing a comedy and the crew isn't laughing, you have a problem."

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's interesting you would mention that! I was just watching a behind-the-scenes on Corner Gas, a Canadian TV show. One of the producers said that he always thought it was a bad thing to have the crew laughing during the shoot, his school of thought being that they would most likely be laughing for the wrong reasons, and the joke wouldn't work when the show aired. An odd method of thinking, I must say!

Jon Allen · January 4, 2005

I guess it's time for my turn. I was on the set of a student film and we were in a motel room for a shoot. There was a guy and a girl and the girl had just taken her shower, so she was in a towel.

I was the mic guy, so I had to head into the bathroom with her while she said her lines. Not much of a story, but again, unusual circumstances... oh yeah, the door to the bathroom wouldn't open if you had the toilet seat down- found that out the hard way.

Gordon Highland · January 5, 2005

I was shooting a desk interview with a CEO once, and he started cracking up. He pointed at the producer, my then boss, who was asking the questions behind and to the left of camera. He was asleep. I whip-panned around and got it all on tape. It happened again shortly thereafter. Not so funny the second time.

Another time, I was doing a two-shot with some actors in a store (customer and salesperson), and spatially they had to be blocked uncomfortably close together (doesn't look that way on camera). They made a couple wisecracks about it, and carried on. Later, I had a scene where I had to act against the same gal in the same setup, and I realized how awkward it really was. After a few takes of me sweating nervously, when I called action the next time, she dropped her line, grabbed me and kissed me instead. I think I got it right on the very next take. Ice was definitely broken. Yep, that's my advice. . .

John Sprung · January 5, 2005

I had one on an industrial once where the CEO walks up to the end of the production line and picks up a bottle of the product. Of course he grabs the only one out of hundreds that came thru without a label.

-- J.S.

J. Lamar King IMPOSTOR · January 8, 2005

Watch the end credits of "Being There" Peter Sellers is just cracking everybody up.

Chris Keth · January 8, 2005

No offense, but this is a bad idea. When you're operating you have to know what's going on in the scene. There are often lines that cue a camera move, or cue another actor to move, which changes your shot. How could you not listen and manage to properly do the shot?
I've certainly laughed many times at things actors have done and said. Sometimes it's an improv'd line and you don't expect it, or sometimes you just crack. These things happen and everyone will understand if it happens now and then. The only problem would be if you continue to laugh during subsequent takes. You have to grin and bear it....pun intended. ;) I must admit though that comedies are fun to work on because of this. I did a movie last year that was heavily improv'd and the actors had us all in stitches quite a bit of the time. The savior is, most of the time if the crew cracks the other actor (if there is one) has already pretty much blown the take. They're normally the first ones to go, so it saves the rest of us from ruining a good take.

I remember hearing an actor say once, "If you're doing a comedy and the crew isn't laughing, you have a problem."

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I know it sounds like a bad idea, but I can still hear. I'm not doing anything where I'd miss a cue or anything. It's just something about hearing it all muffled that it's not as funny to me. I can ignore what's funny about the line or something. I have no clue why, don't ask me.:D

Jon Allen · January 11, 2005

I heard once that on the set of Caddy Shack, Rodney Dangerfield was worried his jokes were bad.

He'd say his line, the people in the scene reacted, but no one laughed and he remarked to the effect of, "I'm dying out here!" to the director. The director asked what he meant and Rodney said "No one's laughing at my jokes! Look at all those guys behind the camera!" The director had to explain to him that the crew couldn't laugh or else they'd be picked up by the microphone.

If I remember right, this was Rod's first movie, he'd only done TV and stage previously.

But what can we do if something really is hilarious and we're not as self-controlled as the guys working on Caddy Shack?

Jayson Crothers · January 11, 2005

I worked on "Barbershop", and the improvisations that were thrown out by the actors every 15 minutes were sometimes so funny that it was practically crippling - what was even better is that someone like Cedric the Entertainer would just keep going and going and going with a gag while other cast members would try to keep up and save a scene that was clearly already lost- there are literally thousands upon thousands of feet of unuseable film because everyone on the set is giggling and trying not to laugh (including other actors in the shot). Often we had to do multiple takes just to get through it.

My first feature as a focus puller was a musical with a large cast of kids - in the end scene, an errant father finally returns home, picks up his son, and all he's supposed to say was "Oh" in response to something one of his daughters say; since this is one of his few scenes in the film, on the first take he does it really dramatically and over the top and it sounded akin to something one does when making love - the little boy playing his son, in the middle of the take, said "Why are you saying that so weird mister?"

If I recall, it took us over an hour to finally get a take where nobody was laughing.