Looking for a sitcom writer Page 2

I'm sure we could be equally confused if he posted in the wrong forum.

I am looking to produce a sitcom for the Chinese living in China. The show will be made here and pitched to a Chinese web provider. Scripts written in English
will be translated in to mandarin.

So surely if there are any puns they will be "lost in translation."

It can only really be a funny turn up and visual gags.

Quote: Paul Wimsett @ 8th March 2015, 7:28 PM GMT

I'm sure we could be equally confused if he posted in the wrong forum.

View original

Well I am confused now. Is this not the writers discussion forum?

Chinese humour tends to focus on situational and physical comedy with plenty of puns and word play. Sarcasm is rarely used. Yes a pun may be lost in translation. But no matter where we are from we laugh at much the same though in a different language.

I think the language gap is too great between English and Chinese for this project to work as you describe it.

I've written scripts about laowai living in China, but it's for an English-speaking audience, not Chinese.

When Chinese consume English-language comedy they want Friends or the Big Bang Theory. It's not written for them in mind so, counter-intuitively, they enjoy it all the more.

Now, a bilingual sitcom is something that would be interesting. I have interviewed a guy who shot a bilingual sitcom pilot set in Beijing.

Generally speaking, people are interested in globalisation. So a bilingual sitcom about English-speakers interacting with Mandarin speakers has great possibility.

Fifty percent of the show you enjoy in your native language, the remaining fifty percent you read using subtitles and learn about another culture.

Here's your piece, a man goes into Golden Ming takeaway and asks the rather attractive young lady on the till for a 69 who duly gives it to him. The manager Won Hung Lo and his chef come out and stand there gawping at them. The man then gets up in a huff and says I'm sorry I'm not paying for that, I asked for a 69, not a 71.

I'm not sure that only puns would not work here.
Hollywood films these days concentrate on super heroes and the likes in their blockbusters because in places like China many allusions in western storytelling are simply not understood.

You would be surprised just how often we make some sort of cross reference which requires an understanding of joint culture or history.
This wasn't a problem when the main audience consisted of America and Europe.

If etymology teaches us anything it is that all language is really founded in history.
A language like Chinese which refers to the British as 'hero country people' therefore does represent a significant barrier.

Add to this that humour also is a product of what has gone before and you can see how two nations which have existed separately in different parts of the world for aeons will have little joint humourous heritage to draw upon.

What Chinese humour I have been able to see so far in films like 'Kung Fu Hussle' and 'Shaolin Football' suggest very broad humour, which is quite far removed from the contemporary humour of the UK and the US.
So I'm not sure how easily you can meld the two into one.

There is however one device which might hold out some hope at least:
'allo 'allo.
In this sitcom they trialled the concept of everyone speaking the same lingo, but with different accents to signify they were speaking separate languages.
The writers themselves were not sure whether this would work. It did.
It was the biggest export hit of all UK sitcoms, I believe.

It might therefore offer Mr Wu a solution, how to run his Chinese sitcom in two or more 'languages', by adding foreign accents to Mandarin.
That however presupposes that Chinese people recognise foreign accents of Mandarin.
I have no idea if they do. So this idea may be perfectly useless.

What is clear is that western societies in general recognise each others' foreign accents, which enabled 'allo 'allo to work internationally. Again it shows how powerful a factor shared history is.