One, two, three four
Hi my name is Tony and this is Every Frame a Painting.
So today I’m going to talk about a director whose work I love.
but before that let me be upfront. I think comedy movies today
especially American ones have totally lost their way.
I don't hate the jokes or the actors or the dialogue
or the stories though there's plenty of issues there.
My real qualm is that the filmmaking
the use of picture and sound to deliver jokes, is just...
--What? --This is booooring.
--Delete.
Look, everyone’s taste is different.
What you find funny is what you funny. So I’m not saying these movies suck
or you suck if you like them. What I am saying is that
these movies aren’t movies. They’re lightly edited improv.
Everyone stands still and talks at each other in close-up.
Almost none of these jokes come visually They’re overwhelming sound.
And not even the full range of sound, just dialogue. And this is really sad
because that’s just a fraction of what’s possible in cinema.
Apart from animation and some commercials,
visual comedy is actually moving backwards. And that's why
if you love this kind of stuff, I cannot recommend Edgar Wright enough.
--You're a doctor, deal with it. --Yeah, motherfucker.
He's one of the only people working in the genre using the full range of what is possible
And because of that, he can find humor in places that others don’t look.
Here’s an example. Say you need to move your character
from one city to another to get the story going. How do you shoot it?
And can you get a joke out of it? ...Well, no.
Not if you send out a 2nd unit to do it, every shot pans from left to right
you include obvious landmarks and signs, you mix in generic helicopter footage
and you put upbeat music under it so the audience doesn’t get bored.
This is just lazy filmmaking and boring. We’ve seen it a million times.
What would happen if you were truly inventive with this type of scene?
There we go! And this isn’t just a series of quick cuts.
There’s a lot of good visual storytelling here.
These two taxi shots tell you exactly where we came from and where we’re going
These two shots emphasize the move away from civilization.
Our main character always faces forward or to the right
so screen direction is respected. Turning the music down
and the sound FX up is funny because each cut is jarring.
And there’s even some nice performances from Simon Pegg and Ryan Gosling.
Okay that was 1 example without context. You’re right. Totally unfair.
Well what if you had a movie where a horrible apocalyptic event happens,
and you want to foreshadow it earlier, maybe by having the characters
not notice something important on TV. How would you show it?
Would you just throw it in the edit for 2 seconds and 2 frames
and no shot shows the relationship between the characters and the TV?
--he's having a housewarming party, he just finished building his house.
Or would you do this?
--Although no one official is prepared to comment, religious groups are
calling it judgment day. There's
--panic on the streets of London
--as an increasing number of reports of --serious attacks on
--people who are literally being --eaten alive
Okay still unfair. What if you had movie where one character has stopped drinking
but the others are disappointed in him and you want to get a joke out of it.
How would you do it?
Would they just stand around and talk about his drinking?
--No I appreciate it but I told my wife I wouldn't drink tonight
--Besides I got a big day tomorrow. You guys have a great time.
--Big day? Doing what? Or would you do this? --What?!
--I don't believe this.
This is what separates a mediocre director from a great one. The ability
to take the most simple mundane scenes and find new ways to do them.
Great directors understand that you can get a laugh just through staging.
Here’s an example from David Bordwell: things popping up into frame are funny.
--Slow ahead, I can go slow ahead. Come on down and chum some of this shit!
And it’s not just things entering frame. Consider the opposite.
--I said tell Ms. Laura "Goodbye"
--Bye, Ms. Laura
You can get a laugh from a zoom.
--You wanna pop the trunk and roll the windows down, please?
You can get a laugh from a crane up. --Shirley, I'm so sorry.
--I'm going home, Britta. --I know, Shirley, I know.
--No I'm going home, can you help me up? --Oh
You can get a laugh from a pan.
As Martin Scorsese put it
cinema is a matter of what’s in the frame and what’s not in the frame.
So think about the frame. And this isn’t a matter of smart or stupid comedy.
Really if it works, it works.
So here are 8 things Edgar Wright does with picture and sound that
I want to see other comedy filmmakers try out.
#1 Things entering the frame in funny ways
#2 People leaving the frame in funny ways
#3 There and back again
#4 Matching scene transitions
#5 The perfectly-timed sound effect
#6 Action synchronized to the music
#7 Super-dramatic lighting cues
#8 Fence gags
And you know what, let's thrown in #9 Imaginary gunfights
So if you’re a filmmaker, work on this. The frame is a playground. So play.
And the next time you go to a theater and pay $15 to see a comedy
don’t be satisfied with shit that is less inventive than Vine.