No thing is too serious for humor.
But not humor is good taste
Last year I directed a dark comedy about sexism. A serious issue many (mostly) women have to deal with. The acting was both frivolous and serious and that worked pretty well in this situation.
My next short will be drama and it will be delivered seriously, but that will only amplify the silliness of the drama that unfolds.
Since you can not choose: why not try both ways?
Here's a long-winded explanation on what exactly I'm doing.
Alright, here it goes...try to stay with me. I'll start by saying the idea behind this isn't mine, I'm merely tasked with the screenwriting.
The theme is culture, and how the vast majority of us are ignorant to what exactly that means. Bryan Callen (Mad TV, The Ten Minute Podcast, Fighter and The Kid Podcast), the person who crafted this whole thing, has put together a curriculum that is built around a martial arts belt system, where each belt represents a different level of "enlightenment." The goal is to, via written pieces (on a website), educate people on what culture means and how our lives are essentially built around them. Other ideas what are covered include how people have evolved yet still remain in a specific culture. Whether or not it's a good idea to let our culture shape us, or if we as a whole should do the shaping.
There is a lot of philosophizing going on here, and by someone who doesn't hold a degree in that field. So some of the ideas aren't exactly perfect, but that isn't my concern. One of those ideas is how are we defined as a people if you remove our culture? Do we belong to the "right" culture?
Still with me? This is a very "self-important" type of project, and I realized that when I started reading the long-form stuff on the site. It's fine, because they know that as well.
So, I need to come up with 9 short (for each belt, maybe 3-5) minute pieces. Each of these shorts will focus on the topic covered under it's related belt.
The through-line I've created is to have Bryan be a sort of teacher, coming off in a preachy, holier than thou fashion. I know his voice pretty well, and I've received that comment through feedback which is good. The person he's teaching is Will Sasso (Mad TV, Three Stooges Movie, Super Troopers 2, etc). I wrote him as a someone who idolizes Bryan to the point of listening to whatever he says...whatever he says. Throughout their journey Will is going to question Bryan's own knowledge on the topic, and I'm probably going to have Will grow more powerful than Bryan in the end.
I wrote an introductory piece and shared with the people involved - they dug it and said give us an outline or a beat sheet. I have some locations in mind and some dialogue, but I'm not sure if I want to move forward with just "two guys hanging out and talking" type of shorts.
Here's the piece, which has some deliberately cheesy stuff because it's their humor.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_vHHlz3zmHYZndyWnNuY2MzZm8