LA COMEDY SHORTS FILM FESTIVAL 2011: WRAP-UP

A scene from Elephant Larry Presents the Wow.

Ha!

By Allan Heifetz

In this age of Funny or Die and YouTube there can be only two kinds of comedy short: ones that can go viral and ones that will die alone. If your recent funny video has had the latter experience-- just like the one I recently made (more on that later), there's will always be a short film festival like the L.A. Comedy Shorts Film Festival that will show it if it's halfway decent.

I was only able to attend for one day (April 8) and had to miss the star studded events of the next two days. I started my day at the festival with two panel discussions about how to make money by producing comedy for the web. The panelists all seemed like such caring nurturers, ready to throw money and time at your silliest ideas. Execs like Lindsay Goffman, Manager of Comedy and Drama Development at FreMantle, and Walter Newman from Cartoon Network/Adult Swim, talked a lot about how they're dying for new comedic talent and constantly trolling the web for the latest thing. So, I gathered in the end that the only hard part of becoming a web comedy sensation is getting people to watch your shit. What a shocker.

I recently put up a funny video on Funny or Die, but I somehow doubt Will Ferrell or Adam McKay has caught it. My poor video just hangs there, ignored by the comedy intelligentsia, friends and family. What went wrong? Well first off, I don't have any friends or connections and I dont Twitter.

Anyway, it was a bit jarring that after so much web and "viral" talk from the panels that most of the short films screened that day were completely web unfriendly, especially the ones over two minutes long. Attending a short film festival can be an awkward experience. You have the two-minute films competing against the 25-minute ones. You must suffer through every unnecessary credit sequence in silence and then give a final courtesy clap afterwards. The Downtown Independent Theater had a sweet, big screen projection system, but this didn't do the many TV parody videos any service since they belong on a TV and not blown up huge so we can see every pixel.

I do love me some commercial parody shit and I was glad to see the anarchic and surreal parodic stylings of Tim and Eric featured in so many entries. Films like VCR to Cash, It's Elementary! Gardening with Marty Chang and especially the 20-minute entertainment show/infomercial, Elephant Larry Presents The Wow, managed to be super sharp with tons of psychotic energy to burn.

Many short comedy films are made by bored actors who are inspired to pool their talents, call in some favors and shoot pieces that provide a showcase for themselves and their pals. The actor-based short can be a mixed bag; the performances are often strong but the actual ideas behind it all are usually less than original. Films like Hip, Conversations a Bench, Genius Improv School, Withstand One Night, A Date With Diana and Try Hard all boasted funny and winning performances but the concepts all lacked spark. Only the two minute, L.A.-specific, Undocumented Worker: The Audition managed to be well acted, funny, adorable and fresh at the same time.

So at least now I know how to market my next funny video. I just have to get a handful of famous people to see it and Twitter about it to a million close friends.

Until then... a Comedy Short and my Ewok song parody.