Conventions of Comedy

Acting – usually characters are happy or exaggerate a certain type of role (e.g. a angry character overreacting more than usual)

Lighting – Usually all scenes are bright and light is on the actors as they are normally the ones you need to see for the comedy

Mise-en-scene – This is everything that is in the scene, including costume (could be exaggerated for character), make-up (also could be exaggerated), the props, and settings (usually relate to the plot, or the type of comedy)

Plot – usually a basic plot, designed primarily to make the audience laugh, normally with an underlying message such as friendship

 Camera angles and cinematography – close-ups to capture characters’ expressions, mid shot to capture stance and background, long shots focus on location of the characters which may be of importance to the plot, a zoom between shots can be used in humour, such as long shot to close-up showing a characters responding expression, or a close-up to long shot to reveal odd location or costume

Sound – Most of the time the music would be light-hearted in sound (e.g. camp piano in a chase scene). A deliberate wrong choice of music genre for a scene could also be used to create a comedy moment. There may also be some use of slapstick sound effects when someone is injured

Editing – Fast cuts for joke after joke based comedy and slower cuts between scenes for a build up to a punch line. Hardly any use of special effects as most comedies are set in real life situations.

Title sequences – Used to introduce the characters to the audience and in a few seconds try and define what type of character they are (e.g. a silly character), could be classed as a stereotypical view