Podcast

Sunday, January 06, 2019

New Video: Irony

Remember how shocked you were when I put out a new podcast episode, after more than a year away?  Well get ready to be flabbergasted, because here’s a new video after more than two years!  When I launched my book in late 2016, I had an ambitious plan that I would have a new video every other week from then on and a podcast episode on all the off weeks.  Ha!  Turns out that videos are a lot of work.  But I'm very happy with the four I’ve made and I’ve wanted to do a new one on irony for a while.  And I’m mostly talking about a movie we haven’t already discussed to death on the blog!  Let me know what you think, please.

(I’ve also replaced the Moment of Humanity video with a cleaner version, since kids like the videos.  No more 40 Year Old Virgin opening shot!)

7 comments:

Sam Zucca said...

Great video! I really need to watch Mulan, and a lot of classic Disney movies actually. I feel like they would be great for analysing storytelling.

Unknown said...

Looks like I gotta see Mulan! The other day I watched Hancock, and I've been thinking lot about where that movie went wrong, since I enjoyed the first half quite a bit and thought the second half stunk (ignoring entirely, of course, the head-up-the-butt scene, which is just an egregious misstep for any story, in any genre, ever). Thinking about irony brings to mind that the film starts out ironic as all heck, and then kind of torpedoes its irony as it progresses, much to its detriment.

Matt Bird said...

Yeah, I remember liking the first half and the second half being a train wreck.

McL said...

This was a really strong piece at giving examples of all the cool ways to do irony (although it misses one of my favourite ways you've talked about, the example of a title which helps sell people on the concept). It did feel like the video rushed over the value you get from all this irony, compared to what you give in your book.

Matt Bird said...

I tried to find an example that had every type of irony, but I wound up with one without an ironic title. I guess I could have lingered on the meaning more. In my other videos I started with text and found clips, whereas in this one I started with clips and found text, which I think feels more organic, but it means I may have left some text out.

Patrick said...

Great video Matt!

It got me thinking that maybe all of the ironies are used to inject life into otherwise boring stories?

It reminds me when someone becomes successful at something, is invited to give a talk at a school, and then comes up with all of these stories about how they were terrible at math as a child but, by hook and crook, became the best book maker in Vegas or something.

L.R. Shimer said...

I came looking for this video, because I am a *huge* fan of this BOOK.
I own both the audio version and the paperback.
It is an extremely useful handbook.

I have listened to the audio version twice. And when I routine the second novel in my series - this fall - I will listen to it again.

Sometimes I listen and work to figure out - do I have that as an element in this novel? Or do I need to add this idea.

Just now working on re-outining a chapter, and I was working on recalling all the types of irony Matt suggests.
This was faster than getting out the book.