WEBVTT

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>> Ben Rosenfeld: Hi.

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My name is Ben Rosenfeld.

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I'm a comedian.

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And mostly I do standup comedy, but
it's -- I'm sure as we get more into it,

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and I'll discuss it, but like to do standup
comedy you also have to do lots of other things

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in order -- especially while you're coming up
in order to like take care of bills and stuff.

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So in addition to standup comedy, I do
improv, I write, I film my own sketches.

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I film videos for other people.

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That's an extra source of income.

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I build websites for other
comedians to get some extra income.

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But primarily standup comedian is the
bread and butter of where my focus is.

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Well, I'm onstage pretty much
every night like 2, 3 times a day.

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So I do most of my shows in New York City,

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so you can just kind of run
around from show to show.

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So it's not -- you're probably thinking
like, "Oh, you drive like 5 hours,

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and then you prepare for that show."

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Here you just kind of run from place to place.

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My daytime is separated from my nighttime,
where I kind of view it as like 2 separate jobs,

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like 1 job is writing jokes, getting the
jokes in your head, doing the marketing,

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responding to emails, doing the bookings,

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all the stuff you can do at
a computer during the day.

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That's one job.

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And then the second job is going out to the
comedy clubs or those shows, wherever they are,

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performing and talking to other comedians,

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talking to the audience so
you can build your fan base.

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And it really feels like it's
2 separate 8-hour-a-day jobs.

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There's different parts of the creative process.

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One thing I try to force myself to sit
down every day for at least a half hour

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and either stare into a blank piece
of paper until something comes,

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rewrite something that already
exists, or just like popup news items,

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and like just try to write jokes.

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But you can't control inspiration,
but you can control perspiration.

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So like sometimes 3 ideas will
pop into my head while I'm out.

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I'll just jot into my iPhone;
sometimes nothing for a week.

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That part you can't control it, just
when you get an idea, you put it in.

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But you can control expanding
the idea and working on it.

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Then it goes to my computer.

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And I have 3 main files.

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This is probably completely boring
to anyone who's not a comedian.

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[Laughs] I have Ben's Act,
which is the jokes that work.

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Then I have jokes to sort, which is ideas
that are currently forming in different stages

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that I think are potentially funny, but aren't
-- I'm not ready to bring to the stage yet.

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And then the third one I call it
"jokes that are still forming."

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That's just the polite way of saying
"the junk pile, the bone yard."

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So that's one part of the process, is the direct
writing and like figuring out where what goes.

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A different part is I record either video
or audio pretty much all of my performances.

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I know generally how a show went, but I don't
know the specific punch line to punch line.

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So watching it and like listening to
it, you can't dispute the evidence.

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Like if the third punch line of a joke
isn't working for 5 shows in a row,

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you should drop or change that punch line.

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So like some of the rewrites will just be
like I know this line doesn't work as it is,

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so I'll just try to brainstorm like a whole page
of alternative punch lines; where, you know,

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and I mean, I've read a lot of books,
but like if you just start writing,

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even if they're like bad at the start, just
the process of forcing yourself to keep going,

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a lot of the times you'll get something
that's more usable than what you have.

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[Silence]