4 cassettes on writing movie comedy; Comedy Writing by John Truby is a high-level seminar on four audio cassettes, just under four hours, that will teach you:
•How Comedy Works
•The Comedy Premise
•The 11 Key Story Beats
•The 9 Best Character Types
•Boor, Trickster and Traveling Angel
•How to Create the Comic Nightmare
•Setting Up the 4-Point Opposition
•Scams, Disguises and Mistaken Identity
•The 4 Big Comic Themes
•Action Comedy Beats
•Buddy Picture Beats
•Traveling Angel Beats
•Romantic Comedy Beats
•Farce Beats
•Black Comedy Beats
•Satire Beats
•Comic Lines and Openings
•Predicament and Nightmare Sequence
•Comic Battle and Communion
Within the last three topics, John analyzes Ghostbusters and Tootsie with (audio) clips.
What I like about Truby is the deep knowledge that's communicated in a very down-to-earth way. And he pauses to let ideas sink in; he doesn't race through too much information at once. He's like a laid-back professor and I've learned a lot from him.
