Learn the Secrets of Perfecting Parody with 'Challengers' Spoof "Putters"

NFS Interviews "Putters" Creator Shane Barbera 

No Film School: What are some of the general challenges of writing parody?

Shane Barbera: I think a challenge of writing parody is making fun of the source material without the parody becoming completely derivative.

A good parody can stand on it’s own, either telling a new story, or retelling the story in an original way. In "Putters" I largely do this with a completely unrelated b-story about the birth of the universe through the end of civilization. It parodies the time-jumps from Challengers in an outlandish way, while telling a new story that wasn’t at all present in Challengers.

When I sent my rough cut out for notes from friends, a few suggested I lose the b-story and just make it a pure Challengers parody. For me, that b-story in the film made it uniquely my voice and not an obvious parody that anyone could make.

Another challenge of writing parody falls on the opposite end of the spectrum,—making sure that you acutely make fun of specific flagship moments in the subject of your parody. I only watched Challengers once in a theater on a date, and we were making out for probably 20 percent of the film. I think paying less attention might have actually helped because my memory captured the big moments that probably everyone remembers and not the other minutia.

When I decided I was going to write a parody of Challengers, the writing process was about six days long. The first four days I was ruminating on what jokes and scenes I wanted to hit, jotting notes down as I went about my day. The actual typing of the screenplay I did over two days. I wrote it while concurrently reading the Challengers' screenplay to make sure I was hitting all the major beats in the right order. The timeline of Challengers jumps all over the place, so it’s easy to forget the order of events.

NFS: The filmmaking is perfectly sarcastic in tone while still honoring Challengers. What was that process like?

Barbera: My take on Challengers is that the cinematography, soundtrack, and editing are amazing. As a filmmaker, Challengers was a really fun movie to parody because I could be really creative with the cinematography and editing.

The final scene of Challengers is especially creative and was the key scene I felt I needed to ace—the ball’s perspective, the time-ramps, the final jump-hug moment. I made sure to recreate all of these moments in "Putters".

In terms of the story of Challengers, it’s a little soapy and melodramatic, but it’s not a completely cookie cutter love triangle story. It’s a bisexual love triangle, and I feel like you don’t see that a lot in films. That makes it interesting. There are undertones in the film that the true romance is between the two men. I parody that in "Putters" by making the two men overtly into each other and pushing the woman away.

When it comes to parodying the characters of Challengers, I took each of their core attributes and heightened them a lot. In Challengers Art is a bit of a cuck, Patrick is a fuckboy, and Tashi is cold and aggressive. I especially heightened the Tashi character in "Putters". She’s fully a middle school bully, whipping out wedgies, copy-cat mocking people, etc.

Another key component of Challengers is that it’s sexy. Sexy tennis. Hot people, dripping sweat, grunting and moaning, all hooking up with each other. Mapping that onto mini golf is ridiculous and fun and easy laughs. A dinky family recreational activity but now it’s sexy and intense? Yes please.

NFS: Love the dino and future time jumps. Was that AI? It was integrated perfectly, so curious to hear more about the method.

Barbera: All the extreme time jumps to the past and future in the film were made with stock footage I got from Motion Array.

I searched for stock footage as I was writing the script, and wrote those parts of the script around the stock footage I was able to find. For instance, I knew I wanted a post-apocalyptic future scene, and while I was looking for stock footage of that I found a bunch of dancing skeleton videos.

Once I saw that there was no going back.

NFS: How many times did you watch Challengers to get the perfect cadence and shot refs to replicate?

Barbera: I only watched Challengers once, in a theater on a date, and was paying more attention to the date than the film a good chunk of the time. But when I buckled down to create this parody, I rewatched a lot of clips from the film on YouTube, specifically the opening (I do a shot for shot match of the opening in "Putters"). I also watched back the hotel scene, the ending, and the trailer.

The cinematography and editing of the Challengers ending is so unique and creative, it was one of the main things that made me want to parody this film and take a stab at replicating that magic.

NFS: What are some of your common rules and instincts for writing, directing, and editing comedy?

Barbera: If it makes me laugh and smile a lot then I feel like I’m onto something. I keep a running notes file on my phone. Whenever something really funny happens that I think could be a comedy video, I write it down. I also generate a lot of comedic ideas from doing live improv comedy.

There’s probably endless different ways to make something funny, but some of the main ways I do it are (with examples from "Putters"):

Heightening to Absurdity:

• Tashi was cold and aggressive, now she’s a middle school bully.
• Challengers time jumps a lot, "Putters" time jumps to the Jurrasic period.

Juxtaposition:

• Mini golf is usually tame, now it’s intense and sexy.
• A mini golf romantic rivalry micro story juxtaposed with a macro story of the birth and death of the universe.

Silliness:

• Wiggling your putter against your golf ball before every putt.
• A future of dancing skeletons.

When it comes to directing comedy, I like the characters to feel real amidst absurd circumstances. I think the more serious and committed the characters are to their own personal truth, the more the audience will be invested in them, and the comedy can shine through. You need a status quo that can be disturbed by the comedic moments. If it’s all crazy all the time it’s just confusing, and confusion is a killer of comedy.

Editing comedy can be tricky. You spend so much time with the project that what was once funny to you now evokes no emotion whatsoever. I think you just need to have faith that if it was funny to you when you wrote it, filmed it, and first saw the footage, then it’s probably still funny to a new viewer. Then once you have a cut, share it with some friends to get a fresh pair of eyes on it for notes and feedback.

NFS: Any advice for aspiring alt comics making short films for the bones of the future?

Barbera: My advice would be to just keep making stuff. Consistency is key. If you can, find or create a community with fellow filmmakers to give yourself a deadline.

Here in LA, I use Sethward’s Show & Tell Screening Spectacular as a deadline to make new videos for. It’s a monthly backyard comedy screening that just had its 10 year anniversary. If you’re in LA, I’d highly recommend checking it out, if you’re not, I’d try to find or form something similar to it! Screening your films regularly is also a great way to get feedback and encouragement. I spent two months really burning myself out making "Putters" (I need to work on balance in my life and not always hyper-focusing on a project until it’s done), but screening it in front of a huge crowd that had a huge reaction to it, and getting lots of complements after the show, really made it feel like all the hard work was worth it. It gave me motivation to go do it again on the next project.

When you just throw your video up online you don’t really get to experience people’s reactions to it and it can be disheartening if it doesn’t get a lot of attention.

Anyway, moral of the story, keep making stuff. It’s the only way to improve as a filmmaker. From my experience, working as an assistant in the film industry will get you nowhere creatively and will eat up all your time and energy. I’d much rather not work in the film industry and be making my own projects than working in the industry but not making anything creative. And if you focus on making your own work, eventually someone in the industry will recognize your talent and give you a job. That’s what happened to me at least.

I’ve been working as a video editor for the past seven years, but I never sought out to become an editor. After working three years in various production assistant roles, I left LA and got a 9 to 5 job, and spent most of my free time making short films (the biggest of which was a parody of Stranger Things, called "Weirder Stuff"). Eventually a production company saw my work and gave me a chance as an editor for a week while one of their editors was out on vacation. They liked my work and kept me around, and I’ve been working as an editor ever since.

Watch "Putters" NOW