When you see a funny show on television or the Internet, all that the creators of the show want is for you to laugh, have a good time, and perhaps even share with a friend. The goal of the comedian is always to make people laugh—but if you want to use a major media platform to do it, there’s more to it than just writing some jokes.
The past two months I’ve been working hard to find a way to get a new type of comedy onto Chinese television and/or Internet. My goal is to mix western comedy styles—comedy music, sketch, and standup—with Chinese tastes for content. If I can make jokes about what affects people’s everyday lives, but fashion them in a new way, I think I can bring people that moment of happiness they get from getting a good laugh in a way they’ve never experienced before. Multiplied by the hundreds of millions who watch TV and Internet videos everyday, that could have a huge impact on people’s lives.
But nobody gives you your own show before you’re famous, and nobody gets famous without a show. The solution to this chicken and the egg problem? Find out how Internet and TV media in China work.
The last few months have been a steep learning curve. I’ve spent my afternoon in negotiation rooms and my evenings performing at theatres. The daytime meetings have taught me that someone like me has a real chance of making something good in China. There are so many Internet platforms fighting for content and so few people with original ideas that funding is possible to find for people with a plan and the willingness to sit through endless, vague, and frustrating meetings. A true intercultural comedy show, while it isn’t an easy sell, is not a pipe dream.
This widening horizon of possibility has forced me to confront many of my own weaknesses as a comedian. Every day, I must ask myself questions that I could ignore before I realized the possibility of my own show was better than I thought. What styles can I truly perform well enough that the show will be good, not just by look-how-funny-it-is-for-an-American-to-be-speaking-Chinese standards, but by the actual standards for which Chinese-language entertainment is judged? How many episodes can I write by myself? With one writing partner? With two? With ten? How much funding should go to the creative team, and how much to props and locations? There are no easy answers, and my liberal arts education has equipped me brilliantly on how to think about these issues, but not how to solve them.
The question of how to make professional-looking videos on a developing country Internet content budget is something that many of my local comedian friends have been grappling with. Quality is a constant concern. “We can’t make things look as nice as they do in America,” a cameraman friend of mine bemoaned. “In Hollywood, they have people that have worked crane cameras for 40 years. That’s all they’ve done, and they get brought in to do the crane shots on movies and make their living off of one skill. If a cameraman in China refused to do any shots but crane shots, he and his family would starve.”
Recreating the look of a Hollywood movie is certainly off the table, but skilled team members with vision and ability can get you farther than you’d think. In trying to wrangle a creative and production team together, I’ve realized more than ever that every person who works in arts and performance is an individual who has slowly honed their skills over previous projects, and not just a cookie-cutter piece of the puzzle.
This depth of understanding has led, however, to exponentially more issues to be considered. Previously, I wanted “experts” to “help me shoot” the pieces. This internal dialogue has evolved into consideration of situations such as this:
All other things being even, who could help me shoot a better comedy show?
1) A National Geographic documentary film team whose videos look visually amazing but have never had to edit with the precision of comedic timing, or
2) A company that has produced comedy videos in the past that are mediocre at best?
What if one of the companies is run by a friend of your writing buddy, and therefore less likely to desert the project in the midst of shooting? Can trust outweigh experience? Can equipment trump inspiration? When you can’t have everything you want—or even most of it—what do you choose? And can I, with my own experiences and skills, keep the project going?
Although the last month has seen many plans come together and fall apart, I take comfort in the fact that I am learning a unique part of the Chinese comedic scene. While I regret every hour I spend in meetings rather than writing jokes, I’ve come to realize the best comedy is that which exists—and without working together with many people of many skills. Perhaps I can birth a few of my own future comedic children – one at a time.