A Skit & A Short Comedy Film — what’s the difference?

At BOATSFILMS, we really want to try every genre in our art of story telling to get a very clear understanding of the demand of content out there. Is it comedy? Thriller? Romance? Drama? Animation? Fiction? Documentary? What exactly is what people want?

As an establishment obsessed with data, we track as well viewers behavior and watch time. We dive into when there’s a spike and what could have caused it with every content out there. Anyways, that aside.

So, back to topic. We really need to do something in the comic space. What is it going to be? What will be needed to get it done?

Skit generally just means that it takes place in one scene and (for the most part one) location, and is a comedic piece, while a short refers roughly to any stand-alone video up to about an hour. The distinction is not all that important because when it comes to film, a skit is just a specific type of short.

It really just depends on how you want people to judge it. Taaooma does skits. Mr Macaroni does skits too. People are very forgiving when it comes to skits because they are all about the comedy. If you call it a short film people are going to be watching for the filmmaking techniques.

Is it the cast?

Slapstick comedy isn’t really a thing of interest to a most of us here. But then again, you don’t argue with results. Data has shown that people want to watch something they can relieve themselves off stress. Something they can share with friends and taunt each other with. Afterall, that’s the whole essence of the popularity of skits and their authors. One key factor that commands interest is the actor. However, by how large a margin does the story and the actor sync to provide the needed entertainment required without one canibalizing the other?

The Story?

There has never been a doubt that the story reigns supreme. But for every style, switch or delivery been thought of, the same evil crops up and asks — “is this not better as a skit?” Then it all goes back to the drawing table. It’s really tough to get started with story for comedy because before you are done, the key questions to ask would be … is it even funny?

The job of the story creator is tough enough. Writing it is another thing.

In all…

“What is the difference between a skit and a drama?” — Length. A skit is short, grabs attention, identifies characters, sets up a situation and then resolves it, all in a few minutes, say, 2–10. A drama is a scripted performance of some length, usually longer than 10 minutes, with layers of enacted story-telling involving complex characters.

Playing in the comic space can be unforgiven when not properly delivered. It quickly turns the exuberance that brought about the idea to a regrettable one if it fails from the onset and it all boils down to the production team whether to accept it as a bad child that has been called to be and move on neglecting what anybody else must have said OR accept that it was never a calling in the first instance.

The evidence of trying is making mistakes but to trim is short, what makes a good comedy short film?