Four Principles of Comedy Editing
I found this information
online when looking for inspirations and ideas behind comedy editing, the full
text can be found here:
1. Timing is key.
Timing refers to the choice, control or judgment about
when something should be shown, cut to, or cut away from. Here I’m not only
referring to a single cut or image, but to the internal pacing of a whole
sequence. When you listen to a person who tells a joke well, or watch a comic
who’s perfected his or her routine, you can see this principle at work. There’s
set-up, rhythm, build-up, delivery—all executed with precision, suggesting that
the act has been engineered and timed for a certain effect. Great comedians
have mastered this principle, even going so far as to build in pauses for
audience laughter and reaction.
When working with comedic material, an editor must
simultaneously be both comedian and audience. If the performers themselves are
funny and have great comedic timing, the job is easy. If the comedian or actor
blunders a bit or the timing is off the mark, the editor then has to find
opportunities to enhance the humor or create humor where no humor really
exists. In that case, using his or her best judgment, the editor must select
moments with the potential for humor and construct a sequence that an audience
will hopefully find amusing, figuring out when and where to cut, and crafting a
rhythmic, temporal dynamic of shots that will succeed in getting the biggest
laugh. Achieving this is harder than it seems. While everyone has an individual
sense of timing, you know great timing when you see it—when the joke hits the
mark, coming not a split-second too soon or too late.
2. Use the right reaction shot.
The shot-reverse-shot sequence (for example, a person
is shown observing something, then a reverse angle shot reveals the object
being looked at, and finally a return to the person observing) is one of the
most powerful and frequently used building blocks of film storytelling. When a
character in a comedy says or does something funny, the film cuts to a reaction
from another character, and then returns to the first character.
While the art of comedy lies in the juxtaposition (and
timing) of these elements, I find that the right reaction shot is essential. Right
doesn’t mean “correct”, but rather the most appropriate. An actor can
give you ten different reactions, all of them “correct,” but what’s the most
appropriate reaction shot to use in order to elicit the response you desire
from the audience? Are you going for subtlety? Looking for affirmation of the
joke or situation in the reaction shot, or playing against the joke and the
expectations of the audience? Are you going for a giggle, a snicker, or an
outright guffaw? How will you craft this joke or moment in relation to what
came before and what comes after? All of these questions help to determine the
right reaction shot to use. I frequently find that while there are technically
many “correct” choices, there’s usually only one right one.
This viral video I edited shows these two principles
in action. Promoting a new mouthwash, but also spoofing the hit show 24
in a mockumentary style similar to The Office, the timing quickens the
pace and brings out the humor, while priceless reaction shots amplify the
impact of the jokes. As in The Office, showing one character’s
ridiculous over-the-top antics, followed by a cut to another character’s
deadpan reaction almost always succeeds in making the humorous antics even
funnier.
(The Office meets 24 in this
spoof for SmartMouth.)
3. Let the audience in on the
joke beforehand.
Sometimes it pays to let the audience know a key piece
of information first. Hitchcock mastered this principle for suspenseful effect:
By showing viewers important information (for example, a ticking time bomb)
before his characters found out, he created a feeling of tension in the
audience. Action and horror films today rely on this time-tested technique;
when the killer is in the house and you find yourself screaming at the screen
because the character is clueless, you’ll know this principle is at play.
But the same strategy can be used superbly in comedy.
In an oft-cited hypothetical example from a Laurel and Hardy film,* the
great editor-turned director David Lean advises using the old comedy maxim: “Tell
them what you’re going to do. Do it. Tell them you’ve done it” to get the
biggest laugh out of the sequence. This means suggesting to the audience what
is about to happen in advance of the gag.
In Lean’s example, Laurel and Hardy are running down
the street and Hardy slips on a banana peel and falls. Rather than cutting the
sequence simply for smooth editing values (for example, Laurel and Hardy
running in a full shot, cut to a close-up of the banana peel as his foot enters
the frame and steps on the peel slipping, then cutting back to Hardy crashing
down on the ground) which would no doubt elicit audience laughter, prime the
joke by showing the banana peel well in advance. So Lean’s version of the scene
would look like this:
1. Medium-shot of Laurel and Hardy running along
the street.
2. Close-up of banana skin lying on the pavement.
(You have told your audience what you are going to do and they will start to
laugh.)
3. Medium shot of Laurel and Hardy still running.
(The audience will laugh still more.) Hold the shot on for several seconds
of running before Hardy finally crashes to the pavement. (The odds are that
the audience will reward you with a belly laugh. Having told them what you are
going to do, and having done it, how do you tell them you’ve done it?)
4. A close-up of Laurel making an inane gesture of
despair. (The audience will laugh again.)
As Lean shows, by giving the audience a heads up to
the visual comedy, you set the joke up to be even funnier, eliciting multiple
laughs and prolonging the audience’s amusement. We have an idea of what’s going
to happen, and when it does and is performed well and edited for the right effect
(notice shot 4 is a reaction shot from Laurel), the comedic impact is more
powerful than if Laurel and Hardy were running and Hardy surprisingly slipped
on an unseen banana peel. Why settle for just one comedic incident eliciting a
single collective chuckle when you can build up to the big joke with a rich
set-up, foreshadowing close-ups, and funny reaction shots that will have the
audience chuckling all the way through and roaring by the time the gag is
pulled off?
A less obvious but still illustrative example of this
principle can be seen in part one of a viral video
series I edited for Consumer Reports, in which a wiry goof, Brandon,
challenges a low-key Consumer Reports test driver, Jake, to a car race. Jake’s
mild-mannered personality is a great foil for Brandon, who comes across as a
classic smartass. Timing and reaction shots are integral to the humor as usual,
but the principle of letting the audience in on the joke beforehand is at work
as well. Like the Laurel and Hardy example, where the audience gets a hint of
the joke in advance by seeing a shot of the banana peel well before Hardy slips
on it, we flash a quick shot of the Dodge Viper peeling out not long after Brandon
announces he’s going to race Jake. When we see that Brandon will be driving a
tiny, super fuel-efficient capsule called the Smart Car and Jake, by stark
contrast, gets the muscled Viper, we already know what’s going to happen. Take
a look at the video to see how the “let ‘em in on the joke beforehand”
principle is used to dramatize the race and ramp up the humor:
(Consumer Reports Video 1: Dodge
Viper vs. the Smart Car.**)
4. Less is More
As I discovered when editing the Rolling Stone video
featuring Aziz Ansari, sometimes cutting things out and showing less amplifies
the humor. This made me curious about how other comedic material is edited to
see if the editors on a TV show, for example, would employ the same principles.
Because I was amused by Aziz, but hadn’t seen him in anything prior to editing
the video for Rolling Stone, I decided to check out the first season of Parks and Recreation.
Set in the world of local politics (the Parks and Recreation
Department of Pawnee, Indiana), the show is the brainchild of Greg Daniels and
Michael Schur, the duo behind the American version of The Office. Amy
Poehler, from Saturday Night Live plays the lead character, Leslie
Knope, an ambitious but bumbling mid-level bureaucrat at whose expense everyone
gets a laugh. Aziz plays office slacker, Tom Haverford, Leslie’s self-serving
(and irrepressibly horny) colleague. Poking fun at the absurd complexities of
small town bureaucracy, the show abounds with all the ignorance, idiocy,
stupidity, hypocrisy and general buffoonery that we’ve come to expect from both
versions of The Office. Executed in the same, frequently understated
mockumentary style, Parks and Recreation throws jabs at citizens and
bureaucrats alike, revealing how petty and unnecessarily complicated local
politics can be—especially when every player has his or her own personal
agenda.
I thought this page was really helpful for me
to find what styles of shots I need to work with to make it work as a comedy. I
like the idea of shot-reverse-shot reactions being needed and shown cleverly
between a conversations. I will definitely use these ideas within my work.
No comments:
Post a Comment