Animation Options’ Kevin Geiger recently pitched new animation projects and delivered presentations at Animation Production Day & FMX in Stuttgart in his capacity as President of Magic Dumpling Entertainment, a Beijing-based development company creating original animation content for family audiences.
For more information, refer to the Magic Dumpling press page.
I’ve always used humor in my lectures and presentations. Despite the cautionary notes from many books on public speaking regarding the risks of humor, I have found the rewards (in audience goodwill and attentiveness) to be worth putting yourself out on that limb. Plus, I just can’t help myself. 
Humor is a part of who I am (a part of who we all are), and to purposefully keep it out of a presentation would be unnatural.
I do a lot of speaking overseas, and in many cases these presentations are translated while I deliver them in English. I was once asked by a colleague, “I suppose you have to remove all of your jokes, huh?” “No,” I replied, “I simply make adjustments in the type of joke I tell.” One type of humor that rarely fails to translate across cultures: jokes about human nature.
For example, I once told a Chinese audience a story about how proud I was to show my mother a giant hole that I had dug in the backyard when I was five. In describing my mother’s reaction, I told the audience that “she looked at me as though I were a cat that had just brought her a dead mouse.” There was that odd silent pause as the translator converted my joke, and then a burst of laughter from the audience.
The humor in this observation hinged upon a funny concept - one which you didn’t need to own a cat to appreciate. There was no word play, and there were no clever pop cultural references. There was just a simple observation of life. It didn’t even matter how my exact words were translated, as long as the universal concept was conveyed.
The result was that a connection was made. We all felt closer in the room at that moment. We shared an understanding. And isn’t that ultimately what it’s all about?
