Record Everything

Cleveland Comedian, Jay Hunter, recording his set at Helltown - A Comedy Showcase at the Comet

🎤 ‘Just Sign Up’ is a series of blogs helping new stand up comedians in Cincinnati and across the country with the encouragement to get up on stage and tell jokes. Join us each week as we give tips to starting stand-up comedy and doing comedy for the first time.

This week is one of our most important lessons. Any veteran comedian will tell younger comedians to record their sets. And more importantly listen to/watch those recordings. Anytime you are on stage at a comedy show or at a comedy club, anything can happen. You may come up with a new line on the spot, or you may have a new line in a joke, or a tag, that you want to see how the audience reacts. The best way to remember those lines is to have a recording of you performing them.

🤔 How do you record your set?

1️⃣ Use the voice recorder on your phone, set it on the stool next to you. Label the recording with the date snd if it was an open-mic or a showcase.

2️⃣ Purchase a tripod. We have purchased this tripod multiple times. It is compact, inexpensive, and holds a phone in landscape or portrait mode with ease. Set your phone in the back of the room

• Record in landscape (horizontal) for Youtube

• Record in portrait (vertical) for IG and TikTok

Most phones are as good as any camera you can reasonably purchase. The only downside to using your phone is you cannot use it as your setlist on stage.

3️⃣ be diligent about listening to/watching your sets from all comedy shows and open mics. Take notes, re-write your jokes. Next week we will talk about specifics to look for when recording your set.

Thanks for reading! Remember, go out to comedy shows near you and watch other comedians, talk to them, and keep writing.