The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly affected many industries ranging from restaurants to professional sports, even the movie theater experience will not be the same for years to come. With so many people quarantined, the demand for entertainment content grew, and eventually – the existing shows and movies were not enough, people demanded continuation of new releases from Hollywood. In mid and late-2020, casts and crew returned to work across the entertainment industry. However, the restrictions and safeguards immediately posed various challenges and created multiple restrictions to creating content. Zeitchik (2020) describes in his article the various obstacles including productions being forced into highly restrictive ‘bubbles,’ the need to find new sets which would drastically differ from previous seasons or envisioned production, and operational nuances such as limiting how wardrobe and lighting departments can associate. While the changes may be technical, they were numerous and overwhelming, consistently requiring directors and producers to modify their vision and improvise. The professional and technical challenges faced by Hollywood trickled down to other entertainment sectors including amateur filmmaking. This paper examines the process of filming the comedy production A Misstep from Heaven in the context of the pandemic lockdown.
Overview of the Product
The final product which was filmed and completed during the pandemic is a comedy by the name of A Misstep from Heaven. It is based on a premise than an ambitious young woman who is willing to compromise her morals experiences a few ridiculous incidents due to the insufficient protection by her guardian angel. Her angel wanting her to keep silent as that the Heavenly Lord does not find about his incompetence, breaks the sacred rule of contacting mortals and connects with the woman via the video conferencing software Zoom. However, the woman realizes her position of power and asks the angel for a favor, dragging him deeply into human affairs.
Influential Work
The premise of the story was influenced strongly by television shows such as The Good Place and Good Omens, both fantasy comedy series which saw significant critical and commercial success. Good Omens places supernatural beings on earth, while The Good Place takes mortals and places them into a superficial heaven. Comedies such as this benefit strongly from situational irony, weirdness, and somewhat dark humor, while also exploring the philosophic depths of human nature since all the entities of the afterlife inevitably touch on the concept of death and ethics of life (Renfro, 2020). Meanwhile, another strong influence was the BBC production Staged, which placed David Tennant and Michael Sheen as fictionalized versions of themselves – two actors stuck in lockdown and attempting to rehearse a play via videoconferencing while their lackluster director is losing control of the production among all the restrictions. Most of the production is similarly filmed via video software, with few scene or wardrobe changes, and actors relying largely on dialogue, facial expression or hand gestures to act out the script. All the influential works for this project are taking advantage of simple sets and reliant on the comedic element of acting and the script to relay the effect of entertainment to the audience.
Conceptualizing
As the lockdown was already in place when the comedy was conceptualized, the primary interactions were written and planned around the videoconferencing software Zoom which had gained immense popularity at this time. Taking inspiration from Staged, it became evident that a good comedy did not require complex set designs or movable pieces, but rather witty dialogue based on a great premise and decent acting to make it work. Most everyone had the technology with the ability to capture video for Zoom calls, so this was done along with some supporting shots done on iPhone. In the end, with appropriate editing, the narrative came together. Using a simple dialogue-based video chat software, a comedic story was told which touched on both, the supernatural and the human drama aspects – the majority of the work created via virtual collaboration which was forced by the lockdown.
Theoretical Analysis
Examining the genre of comedy, by all indications, it demands simplicity. Ranging from the sets and effects to the punchline of the joke, simplicity is key to achieve the key aspect of comedy which to generate laughter and joy. Unlike their dramatic counterparts, comic scenes must have a clear purpose, and to generate the comedic response – it must be simple to the core. For example, the renowned comedic sitcom series Arrested Development has characters and interconnected storylines which are relatively complex, but never at one point during comedic elements are jokes or characters dense. All elements of the story or the joke are presented in a clear concise manner, which is usually why comedy TV and films are short. Even the most such as ethics seen in The Good Place or co-worker relations in Staged are reduced to effective simplistic moments of comedy in a way which transcends the complexities of daily life (Bidgoli, 2020).
The pandemic lockdown removed the various complications, and it was no longer possible to produce a piece with sets, actions, and effects which could help tell the plot or distract the viewer. It became simplistic through the technology and the irony of itself that the filmmaking has come to this point. It also became difficult because of all the morbidity of events ongoing in 2020, and humor arguably took on completely new forms, as a form of uplifting spirits, coping strategy, and even forms of resistance to injustices seen in society (Outley et al., 2020). Major comic themes and conventions which typically influenced film comedy were suddenly less relevant and appealing. For example, it can be argued that the Superiority theory which is the underlying theory of humor in the West was less well-received because of the already existing suffering and inequality seen in the real world. Other aspects, such as the Relief theory which explains humor through the release of nervous energy, or the Incongruity Theory that suggests that perception of something which breaks mental patterns and expectations are more susceptible to humor and jokes (Morreall, 2020).
There is an adage which states that ‘comedy is tragedy plus time.’ The pandemic being a continuous event rather than one single shocking event in a specific time has made it a laughing matter of many jokes and memes. It is most often a coping strategy, where the humor is used to reflect and evaluate upon the absurdity and ‘incongruity’ of the situation (Greengross, 2020), Both the influencing work Staged as well as the primary work A Misstep from Heaven take advantage of this absurdity of the status quo of the lockdown. Instead of living rich active lives, people are finally stuck at home and have much less worries, but that is the irony of the matter itself as it gets boring. In producing the comedy, it was vital to capitalize on these issues but to do so in a witty manner without offense or emotional downplay of the ongoing events. It is comedy that is in-fact relatable due to the frustrations that most people likely faced using that very same Zoom software.
Role of Technology
In the examination of Hollywood productions during the lockdown, Zeitchick (2020) quotes a well-known producer, “Like a lot of other people, we’re going to have to be very creative in where and how we shoot” (par. 3). Filmmakers are commonly required to adapt, to new technologies, to rapidly changing circumstances, and a myriad of other challenges that can easily derail shoots even during non-pandemic times. In the analysis of pandemic entertainment, the Marketplace experts discuss how Zoom could be a “new language of film” and entertainment (MarketPlace, 2020). In fact, the early days of the pandemic saw many of the well-known products such as late-night talk shows utilizing zoom to film, both their hosts and guests on the show.
Eventually the technology is expected to show up in movies, not just because of the lockdown restrictions as the creative adaptation of A Misstep from Heaven and Staged, but because of the sheer cultural value that video conferencing has attained as a part of daily lives. Filmmakers are one of the first to respond to technological innovation, as was once the case with the release of film-capable smartphones and the number of amateur films that emerged. The innovation is seen both through formal innovation of technology used as well as the content of film (Salazkina & Fibla, 2021). In the production of A Misstep from Heaven, it seemed like an ingenious idea given the premise of the script. Adapting the premise around context of the lockdown provided potentially greater comedic effect once again because of the incongruity of both the medium in which the film is produced and the content itself which implies an angel calling his mortal being via a zoom call like it is just another day.
References
Bidgoli, M. (2020). Comedy and humour: An ethical perspective. The European Journal of Humour Research, 8(1). Web.
Greengross, G. (2020). Is it okay to laugh during a pandemic? The Conversation. Web.
MarketPlace. (2020). Zoom could the new language of film. Web.
Morreall, J. (2020). Philosophy of humor. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Web.
Outley, C., Bowen, S., & Pinckney, H. (2020). Laughing while black: Resistance, coping and the use of humor as a pandemic pastime among blacks. Leisure Sciences, 1–10. Web.
Renfro, K. (2020). ‘The Good Place’ wasn’t a perfect show, but it changed my life anyways. Insider. Web.
Salazkina, M., & Fibla, E. (2021). Global perspectives on amateur film histories and cultures. Indiana University Press.
Zeitchick, S. (2020). The pandemic will make movies and TV shows look like nothing we’ve seen before. The Washington Post. Web.