The Art of Comedy

Of course, as an editor, it always helps when the guy on screen is the kind that makes you laugh so hard, you cry. When I was editing some videos for Rolling Stone recently, live at the Bonnaroo Music Festival, that guy was Aziz Ansari. If you haven’t discovered Aziz yet, give yourself a treat and watch a few episodes of Parks and Recreation—or watch Aziz doing his thing for Rolling Stone right here:

(Aziz Ansari pretends to be Bruce Springsteen’s road manager.)

Funny, right? The premise—a fast-talking, South Asian dude pretending to be Bruce Springsteen’s road manager so he can bilk a few festival vendors—is definitely fertile ground for comedy. But, believe it or not, the raw footage, while it certainly had its moments thanks to Aziz’s comedic talent, was not a barrel of laughs.

When my buddy Alexis Boling (director of photography) returned from the shoot, he seemed disappointed with the footage. He confessed that the skit hadn’t gone as expected and informed me with some regret that the material he had wasn’t as funny as he’d hoped it would be. When I watched everything myself, I could see why Alexis thought I had my work cut out for me. Aziz was so well known at Bonnaroo that just about everyone he was trying to fool for a laugh was on to him the moment he started in with his “I’m Bruce Springsteen’s road manager” bit. Hardly anyone bought the gag. At one point, a random passer-by even gave him a friendly, “love your work, man” pat on the back. I’m sure it didn’t help that he was carrying a microphone emblazoned with a Rolling Stone logo and had a cameraman in tow, but the problem was that everybody recognized him and knew damn well he wasn’t Bruce Springsteen’s road manager. A comedic hoax just isn’t as funny when the people being “punked” aren’t fooled.

The unfortunate part for me, with everyone being “in the know,” was that I had no hysterical reaction shots to amplify whatever humor was there. The people who played along, being non-actors, tried unsuccessfully to act shocked or outraged. Others just posed around or showed off in one way of another, trying to look cool in front of the camera—which was more lame than humorous. Clearly, I would have to find some way to cleverly draw out the humor, eliminate the posers, show offs and fanboys and create the illusion of authentic looking reactions. Artificial reactions from amateurs usually aren’t funny; what you need for laughs are either real reactions caught on “candid camera” or other professional comedians in on the act.

Fortunately, Aziz, who is a great improviser, came through with some genuinely funny material despite it all. Using my own reactions as a gauge—if I laughed at something, I figured someone else probably would too—I began assembling a collection of funny moments. Then I trimmed portions off those moments, tightening up the timing and creating a rhythm that made the jokes work better. I found that the more I cut out, going directly from one line or one action to another, the funnier it became. By eliminating extraneous material that wasn’t funny and piecing together two moments that didn’t happen sequentially, by some happy accident, when I connected what remained, the moment I “constructed” ended up being much funnier than what was shot in real time. It took some work and creativity to craft the comedy, building up moments that did not actually happen in the manner and order in which they appear in the video, and figure out how to seamlessly join things together that had been taken completely out of sequence.

Working on this video got me thinking about comedic editing—and comedy in general. Why do we find something funny? How do we make something that wasn’t meant to be funny, funny? How do we make something mildly amusing, hilarious?

Working on this video got me thinking about comedic editing—and comedy in general. Why do we find something funny? How do we make something that wasn’t meant to be funny, funny? How do we make something mildly amusing, hilarious? As I thought about this more I really began to appreciate comedy as a true art form. However crude or juvenile that “art” may be at times, anyone who’s studied it or performed it can verify that it’s an art that is practiced, and can be refined and guided by certain underlying principles.

Four Principles of Comedy Editing

When I’m editing, I always feel my way through the material, trusting my instincts for when and where to cut, how long or short to hold on something, and choosing images to juxtapose together for maximum effect. Here, I’m going to attempt to articulate this process for comedy editing, highlighting four important principles. Of course, none of these principles are solely the province of comedy, as they can be applied to every genre and to the process of editing in general. But I like to keep them foremost in mind when working with comedy.

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.

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.

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?

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 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.

By shortening sequences, and eliminating stuff that isn’t quite working or very funny, you can go from mark to mark to build up the impact of the comedy and get bigger and better laughs. Less is literally more.

Two versions of the season finale are available for viewing on Hulu, the regular 22 minute episode and a producer’s cut that’s four minutes longer. Initially, I thought that the longer one might be funnier but after watching both versions I found the opposite to be true. While no whole jokes or sequences were excised, what was eliminated from the producer’s cut made the remaining material much tighter and funnier. Much as I’d discovered with the Rolling Stone video, the editors of Parks and Recreation cut out superfluous material between two funny moments, often going from joke to joke or from a humorous incident or line to a reaction shot. By shortening sequences, and eliminating stuff that isn’t quite working or very funny, you can go from mark to mark to build up the impact of the comedy and get bigger and better laughs. Less is literally more.

The Illusion of Spontaneity

Most of the time, when we’re watching comedy, we’re enjoying ourselves so much that we’re not tuned in to the details that reveal how the comedic effect was created—worse still, we may not even want to know, as, for some, that might spoil the magic of the moment. Comedy appears spontaneous, as if it were accidental or conjured up on the spot. Sometimes that is the case, but, frequently, it’s not. Like any performance art, comedy is planned, practiced, rehearsed and executed with skill. This is obvious if you watch any great stand-up comic. The more carefully you study comedy, the more you see that it is not only a finely tuned art, but something of a science as well. While the success of live comedy is overwhelmingly dependent on the performers, in film comedy, the resulting laughs are only partially dependent on the performers. Editing and sound are factors that, when done right, take whatever is there—whether it was working in real time or not—to a whole new level of humor through various manipulations and enhancements. As always in film, actors provide editors with the raw material, sometimes rough, sometimes a potential gem, but it’s the editor who shapes the scenes, builds the anticipation and polishes that material into cinematic gold.

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*Cited by both Ralph Rosenblum in When the Shooting Stops, the Cutting Begins (p. 77-78), and Karel Reisz in The Technique of Film Editing (p. 103-4).

**If you liked the Consumer Reports video, you can see more of Brandon and his antics here.

Ostensibly about “[a]n uncompromising, visionary architect [who] struggles to maintain his integrity and individualism despite personal, professional and economic pressures to conform to popular standards” according to a logline, the 1949 film of The Fountainhead is, in fact, a stiff, wooden enterprise with characters so caricatured that you can practically see Ayn Rand speaking through their lips. Since she wrote the screenplay, I have no one else to blame for the melodramatic writing, which comes off more comical (unintentionally) than serious, and more cumbersome than fluid. As I’m sure is the case in the novel, characters are representative of “types” thrown together in the same universe to illustrate her philosophy of Objectivism, which, in her own words, is “the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.”

The “heroic being” in the movie, architect Howard Roark, is played by a horribly miscast Gary Cooper. A Hollywood screen legend known for his rugged, cowboy looks and understated style of acting, Cooper’s stoic performance seems completely at odds with the passion required by the character. Roark, who literally fights the entire architecture establishment, turns down job after job, despite dire financial circumstances, because clients want him to design public pleasing buildings in an art-deco style devoid of individualism. Believing fervently that his architectural designs are an individual expression that must be accepted and built as intended, or else rejected outright (which they are in the early part of the film), Roark would rather perform back breaking manual labor excavating concrete from a quarry (which he does) than compromise his artistic vision.

While a person like Roark, in real life, would require a tremendous amount of passion (as well as a pretty large pair of cojones) to fight an entire profession, Gary Cooper’s delivery of even the most incendiary line is so restrained that if it weren’t for his powerful screen presence, one might easily find it laughable. Add to that the fact that we are supposed to believe that middle-aged Cooper is a college age architecture student at the beginning of the film and then subsequently an architect in his early to mid 20s, and the film borders on the incredulous, not to mention comedic.

But, perhaps, looking at it from another angle, the problem is not Gary Cooper’s acting, since he’s delivered a number of fine performances, most notably as Marshall Will Kane in High Noon and as Peter Ibbetson in the lesser known, eponymous 1935 film. The problem, I suspect, is Rand’s overly melodramatic writing. When dialogue is contrived, the acting suffers because actors have a difficult time connecting with the words and delivering their lines. As the old theater adage goes, if it’s not on the page, it’s not on the stage. Yet, given his experience and in light of what I’ve seen of his better performances, I’m inclined to speculate that Gary Cooper may have recognized the danger in playing the character like he’s written, with passion and fire, because taking the melodrama literally could have pushed the film over the top into a full-blown farce. Perhaps, then, he wisely chose to play against character, to underplay it rather than embody Roark with gusto. Either way, his character comes off bland and humorless, and Rand’s faulty writing is pretty evident.

If Cooper’s acting is at one end of the spectrum, then Patricia Neal’s is at the other. Playing his love interest, the mysterious, angst-ridden Dominique Francon, she gives a performance that, though outrightly laughable at times (due again to melodramatic writing helped along by a melodramatic score), has the color of alienation and the haughty air of a spoiled girl, or an ennui-soaked princess. A pessimist and a paradox, Dominique destroys what she loves because she does not want the object of her love “to be part of a world in which beauty, greatness and genius have no chance.” Sexually repressed but radiating a magnetic sexuality, she is the kind of woman no man can possess, yet when she herself can’t possess the man she wants, Roark, she takes it as a grave offense. In a famous scene that some liken to rape, she comes onto Roark by running away, causing him to pursue and take her by force, which was no doubt her intention. In parts of Neal’s portrayal, I see a precursor to Monica Viitti’s erratic and compelling performances in several great Micaelangelo Antonioni films, namely The Eclipse but especially Red Desert. And yet Neal’s performance suffers too from a lack of connection to the words; her facial expressions are sometimes blank and make you wonder if it’s vacuousness she wants to convey, or if she’s simply uncertain about what to emote.

“While the film comes close to making an admirable statement about resisting conformity and expressing your individuality through art, and of never giving up in your struggle to do so, in the end Rand’s heavy moralizing comes down like a sledgehammer.”

Perhaps my biggest problem with The Fountainhead is that Rand constructs a black and white universe to prove her point, a place where extremes are the only choices, where there’s never a middle way and no possibility of compromise. It’s either the client’s way or Roark’s, it’s either architecture or drilling granite, it’s either Roark give up architecture for his love of Dominique (which, as a bona fide Randian “heroic being,” I can assure you he does not) or he give her up instead. Virtually every scenario in the film is set up as a false dilemma so that the character has no choice but to be driven toward his own happiness, or face an alternative that is the very antithesis of his raison d’etre. While the film comes close to making an admirable statement about resisting conformity and expressing your individuality through art, and of never giving up in your struggle to do so, in the end Rand’s heavy moralizing comes down like a sledgehammer. When Roark, in what would today be called an act of “terrorism,” blows up a public housing project he designed because it was altered against his will and he was powerless to stop construction, he is brought before a court of law. In the climax of the film, Roark defends himself in a long, expository speech that sums up Rand’s philosophy and, of course, leads to his acquittal while simultaneously turning around public opinion that was rabidly against him.

Lest I beat up the film a little too much, I will say that King Vidor’s direction, Robert Burks’ cinematography, and David Weisbart’s editing make for visually pleasurable and easy viewing, as they should considering that all three were seasoned studio professionals. (Robert Burks photographed a number of Hitchcock films, including Rear Window and Vertigo, and David Weisbart cut Mildred Pierce and Dark Passage.) Raymond Massey and Robert Douglas, as billionaire newspaper mogul Gail Wynand and the delectably scheming, architecture critic Ellsworth M. Toohey respectively, are excellent. And Ayn Rand’s screenplay, despite its egregious faults, is well-plotted and has a clear three-act structure that any average moviegoer could follow.

In the end, though I obviously do not enthusiastically recommend this film, I’m glad I watched it. 114 minutes saved me the trouble of reading 752 pages I’d never get through, and I instantly got the jist of Ayn Rand’s philosophy: Never compromise, never give up, and always pursue your own rational self-interest and happiness as your own moral obligation–even if it might cause the unintentional suffering of others, be it one’s lover, the public good or the planet.