Smash Cut To:

By Hari Kanth

Smash Cut To: S2 E7 - The Art of Pop-Culture References

#7・ Sep 5, 2021

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Hello! I’m Hari, and this is Smash Cut To, my weekly newsletter about my adventures in trying to become a comedy writer-director.

It’s been a busy week!

On Thursday, I had a great session with script consultant Chris Head, to discuss the latest draft of my pilot. And on Friday, I went to James Cary’s excellent (but jokingly titled) “Write A Sitcom In A Day” workshop.

I’m going to write about them in a future blog post, but long story short: they both reminded me that there’s still a sizeable gap between where my work is now and where I’d like it to be.

But that’s to be expected!

So while that realisation might have been a little disheartening at first, I know that I’ll get there eventually if I just keep going long enough… 🥳

(And I’m still going to celebrate the win of finishing that latest draft!)

✍🏾 This Week's Blog

The Art of Pop-Culture References

The cause of and solution to all of life’s problems.

Before I watched S2 E05 of Ted Lasso, I saw this tweet from a friend:

I only really had Apple+ for Ted Lasso, but I’m just really not feeling it this series… Two people just did a piece to camera, out of nowhere. Sat in the football crowd, speaking to the camera — I thought they’d reveal a person where the camera was, but no. Just an out of nowhere, uncharacteristic PTC.

I was intrigued. When I watched the episode, I realised that the scene in question was a tribute to the interviews from When Harry Met Sally (one of many rom-com references in the episode).

This is what Film Crit Hulk said about it in his recap:

Continue reading →

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🤓 Interesting Things

Video: How Brooklyn Nine-Nine Balances Comedy With Drama

In this video essay, Nerdstalgic uses S5 E14 (“The Box”) of Brooklyn Nine-Nine to illustrate how the show uses strong dramatic stakes to ground the comedy – allowing it to go to more absurd places.

(Note: the video made a lot more sense once I had actually watched the episode – which is currently available on Netflix.)

I discovered this through this week’s Comedy Crowd newsletter, which is worth subscribing to! You can find their post on it here.

www.youtube.com

Twitter: @DavidHSteinberg

Rather than a thread, I’m going to link to a whole person! Showrunner David H. Steinberg’s threads are packed with gold, including: getting to the premise quickly, the importance of B stories and preparing for general meetings.

twitter.com

Video: THE GAP by Ira Glass

“It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions.”

I linked to it above, but if you didn’t click it / haven’t watched it before, I heartily recommend this short video about that feeling of not being good enough at what you want to do. I watch it every now and then to remind myself that it’s a common feeling…

vimeo.com

🍿 Film & TV Log

The Chair (Netflix). A fun limited series about the newly-appointed chair of the waning English department at an American university. I thought it was great, and I especially liked how it intertwined Korean culture into each episode. (Plus: I loved the guest star in episode 5.)
The White Lotus (Sky Atlantic / NOW TV). Everyone seems to be talking about this! We enjoyed the first episode so far…
Also: Ghosts (BBC iPlayer) and Ted Lasso (Apple TV+).

🎬 Moment of the Week

Finally, I’m replacing the “Final Thought” section with a script fragment or clip I’ve enjoyed recently. (If nothing else, I want this newsletter and blog to be a handy collection of all the things I want to remember 😅)

The first one is from S2 E1 of Fleabag. There are so many great moments to choose from, but I loved the shared confusion about Claire’s job:

And that’s it for another week! 🥳 If you enjoyed this newsletter, maybe your comedy writer friends would too? If so, they can subscribe here.

(Blog cover photo by Sean Benesh on Unsplash)

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Hari Kanth @harihkanth

Adventures in trying to become a comedy writer-director.

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