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... <i>--What?
--This is booooring. <i>--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. <i>--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? <i>--he's having a housewarming party,
he just finished building his house. Or would you do this? <i>--Although no one official is prepared
to comment, religious groups are <i>calling it judgment day. There's <i>--panic on the streets of London <i>--as an increasing number of reports of
--serious attacks on <i>--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? <i>--No I appreciate it but I told my wife
I wouldn't drink tonight <i>--Besides I got a big day tomorrow.
You guys have a great time. <i>--Big day? Doing what?
</i>Or would you do this?
<i>--What?! <i>--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. <i>--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>--I said tell Ms. Laura "Goodbye" <i>--Bye, Ms. Laura You can get a laugh from a zoom. <i>--You wanna pop the trunk and roll
the windows down, please? You can get a laugh from a crane up.
<i>--Shirley, I'm so sorry. <i>--I'm going home, Britta.
--I know, Shirley, I know. <i>--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.
I loved this channel, and I was pissed when they quit. After reading the postmortem they wrote for the channel I was still bummed, but I understood. Hope Tony and Taylor are doing well.
I liked this channel too. Particularly this video on Edgar Wright and visual comedy.
Its a good breakdown on the style of a director I really enjoy.
YouTube can be so heartbreaking like this. There have been a few YouTubers who I only discovered after they stopped creating content, and I was so bummed to find out that they had stopped. Like, as a late new subscriber, you see the quality of someone's work, and you see the potential for their channel to grow, and then you see that it just died, like two years ago.
That final nod to Spaced! Yes please! I urge anyone to watch the show, it is pure gold!
This guy almost ruined gaming videos on YT though. He spawned a whole wave of amateurs trying to explain "why you knew to grab the mushroom in Mario", I shit you not that same video has been made by dozens of different creators.
You cannot turn your head without finding some smug droning game channel.
If you were a big fan of Every Frame a Painting and yearn for more content like that, then do I have the playlist for you!
4 Years of Film School in 100 Videos
I pop this on whenever I'm going to be playing a strategy game or something similar. I'm most of the way through the playlist at this point, having already seen the brunt of EFaP & LftS.
If you like this kind of content and want something even more in-depth, I highly recommend The Story of Film: an Odyssey. When I first got into film this was the documentary series that helped foster that passion and I would definitely credit it with inspiring me to pursue film school.
What is the name of this simon pegg movie? I googled it and it looks like Simon Pegg has two movies about apocalypse-type events: Shaun of the Dead and The World's End. Looks funny and he was one of my favorite actors.
https://youtu.be/c-2Tjm2M2cg dug a bit. This is voice of some of them.
That Louis CK scene didn't age too well...