10 Tips For Directing Comedy

1. Welcome collaboration, but make sure the ideas resonate with your vision.

2. Do takes that are faster. It's always slower when you watch it back. Faster is funnier.

3. Make sure the actors are comfortable doing less.

4. Do as much as you can in single shots. Cutting to different angles makes it less funny.

5. Have really old people in the background and out of focus. Don't know why, but it's funny.

6. Use funny names.

7. Keep to the page.

8. Ignore the page.

9. In drama, your characters sit and talk. In comedy your characters can't talk because one is deaf and the other is trapped under the sofa.

10. Don't be too topical. Good humour lasts forever, but a joke about George Bush is an embarrassment, much like his foreign policy.

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Diana Ross Syndrome

I was on the train, and listening to Diana Ross & Lionel Richie sing "Endless Love". And then as we stopped at a station, a trendy guy boarded the train and sat down on my right, and a pretty girl sat to my left, and I turned my music down a little. Some part of me didn't want the strangers to hear what I was listening to.

What the hell is that? I'm turning down part of who I am. And for what?

In school you're meant to conform and fit in. A lot of us rebel against it, but we still conform sometimes. It's easier to rebel using Marilyn Manson and Slipknot, because it has attitude, you can conform to something else.

But people shut out the fact they like Lionel Richie and Phil Collins. What the fuck?

I know that these two strangers on the train don't care about me and can't hear my music. But I turned it down. Am I turning down the part of me that likes that music? Or am I turning down the part of me that has endless love in it?

Let's take it to a crazy level.

Let's say the girl sitting next to me finds me attractive, and has no idea what I'm listening to. We get talking, and an hour later we're in Starbucks talking about our mutual love of Tupac and Oasis. Would I keep quiet about the fact I like some Diana Ross songs?

Actually I wouldn't. Everyone who gets to know me knows my music tastes are all over the place. But yet, something in me, some reaction, made me turn the music down. Who in me was that?

I know what you're thinking, you're thinking 'Kid, stop reading into pointless bullshit', or 'Kid, review the new X-Men film', but you can read that on all the other blogs.

Some parts of us we share, some parts we oppress. When did it start? We do it unconsciously all the time, we don't even realize, we shut things out, shut 'em down. And I just caught that little moment on the train, and it made me curious. How often have I done that?

People hide passions that way. You can know someone for six years before they tell you they like drawing. People die before you find their poetry.

Is this nature or is it society? Maybe I should just get some speakers and make the whole train listen to Lionel Richie and Diana Ross.

Maybe what you hide the most is what is really needed. The poet dies without sharing her poetry, when in life all you got were status updates about her cat.

Us humans are strange.

And some part of me wants to shut this down. "Why are you blogging about this shit on a film blog!", says the inner-voice. This is what happens when you begin exploring yourself, you think you're insane. You think you won't fit in.

You care about that stuff after all.

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You're Gonna Get Screwed Over

It's unavoidable. You're going to give a script away to an enthusiastic producer who promises the world and then takes it all from you. Or you're going to be a camera operator for four months on the promise of a deferred payment that never comes because it wasn't on paper. Or you'll pay some charlatan from Craigslist a year's wages because of some scheme he's running that you think will make you successful.

You think you're wise, but you're not. Because everyone has this story. We're so hungry for success, that we dive in and trust people. But this industry always has and always will attract people who betray that trust. And when we begin we begin naively, and we do things because we think we'll get the credits, and we think there are shortcuts.

But you'll accidentally sign a bad script deal that you should've got a lawyer to look at. And you'll spend your money on some bullshit course that you should've got your parent's wisdom-like advice on first.

Your instincts as an individual are the key to being an artist. But artists are also dumb and naive. We sign bullshit deals. We give our rights over, we work too hard, and we let someone else pick up the rewards.

First time it happens you wanna vomit. The second time it happens you wanna quit. Eventually you just become wise, and you know how to handle yourself, and your art, and your value. You stop making the bad deal.

Everyone has this story.

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I Dream Of New York City

And it's some time since I've been.

I need to come see you, to look up at lights on Broadway, and finally feel at home again.

New York, I want to drink coffee with you on the Lower East Side, want to walk with you through the West sixties.

Memories of the past, and dreams of the future, they all lead back to you, New York, New York.

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Rained Out

I thought a t-shirt would be fine. But this is England, and it rained.

Then again, of course it did. If you're ever in London and there's non-stop rain, you can be sure the Kid In The Front Row is shooting exteriors.

Not that anything got shot today. Money went down the drain as hours rolled by and we all stood around in tiny pockets of shelter from the London rain.

If you're shooting in London and want to go for a summer look, film in Spain. Edit out the beaches using CGI. That's how you can spot my films: set in gritty London but with bikini-clad Spanish women strolling by.

The rain just wouldn't stop today. It's that rain that soaks through every part of your body, and you don't get dry for days. But you're extremely hungry, so you eat your snacks even though the rain is soaking through your packet of salt & vinegar, and your coffee keeps filling up because the downpour is so heavy.

It was cold. I dressed for June. Mistake.

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