Lessons from Talking Funny

TALKING FUNNY (HBO) Comedy's biggest names — Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Ricky Gervais, and Louis CK — sit down for a revealing (and hilarious) chat on this HBO special. The four stand-up legends get serious about comedy, discussing how they first got into the business, the merits of on-stage profanity, and the science behind getting a laugh.

1

http://youtu.be/_V4q-zb2iI4

2

http://youtu.be/W_L5mYlxlXE

3

http://youtu.be/Xc6WbrOoe8I

4

http://youtu.be/LfwZSFsnm9c

I first read about this show HBO show TALKING FUNNY from this article: Seven Things Designers Can Learn from Stand Up Comics by Michael Bierut.


You can go directly and read the article by clicking the link above or you can watch the show first and then come back to read the article.


As Bierut said in his article, he didn't really intend to find any designer-related-lessons from watching the show, but he ended up finding these seven:


1. It's all about the basics.
2. Once you've mastered the basics, make your work your own.
3. Respect your audience.
4. Know your tools.
5. Honor your craft.
6. Don't be afraid of failure.
7. Finally, never forget you have a special gift.


Looking at these seven lessons, I thought that they also applied to making comics and advertising.


Echoing some of Bierut's points, if you want to become good at what you're doing, you really need to love what you're doing, love to learn the basics, love to fail what you're doing so you can learn from it and try something new.


On his seventh point Bierut wrote:

7. Finally, never forget you have a special gift.
Ricky Gervais, in a revealing moment, asks, "Don't you ever think, when we make people have this feeling of laughter, and they pay us money: what if they discover they can do it themselves?"


The other comics are rather stunned at this.


Seinfeld shouts, "But they can do it themselves!"


Gervais, almost glumly asks, "Then why are they paying us?"


Louis C.K. answers, "We're a high octane version of it. We're pros. They can play touch football, too."


And Seinfeld adds: "But that doesn't hurt the NFL."


We live at a time when the tools of design are more available than ever before. What client doesn't have a nephew who knows InDesign, or, better still, a spouse with a newly discovered enthusiasm for Powerpoint? Graphic design: anyone can do it, right? Well, yes. But the professionals still understand what it means to do something well. And that confidence makes its own statement.

I couldn't help but laugh when I read the line: What client doesn't have a nephew who knows InDesign, or, better still, a spouse with a newly discovered enthusiasm for Powerpoint? How true. In this day and age of DIY software, most people think they've become "experts" at design because they happen to manage a blog or make a Powerpoint slide pretty or learned how to make a soundtrack with Garage Band and edit a film with iMovie. And so, they make comments on agency's work based on their "expert" experiences. They forget that they're working with people who've done this sort of thing everyday for the past how many years. They forget that they're working with people who've probably clocked in their 10,000 hours of doing good ads and bad ads, so they know, more often that not, what will work and what won't work.


Although I'm sure, since the dawn of advertising and maybe a thousand years from now, we'll still have clients who will ask, "Why is there too much white space? And can't you make the logo bigger?"


Going back to the stories of Ricky Gervais, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock and Louis C.K., you just really have to expect that there will be some meetings where you will bomb and some meetings where you'll get applause. Whatever the outcome, you bow, you say thank you, you move on to your next bit, your next gig, and just keep on lovin' what you're doing.