Blocking and Cutting for Comedy in I AM NOT OKAY WITH THIS
While I Am Not Okay With This has special effects sequences and stunts, it also uses simple techniques anyone with a camera can recreate regardless of budget. These techniques are particularly helpful in scenes working with children, where you have less time and ability to do things like, err, face-punching.
The following scene in a mere 30 seconds delivers both comedy and the idea of someone getting hit in the face just through creative use of blocking and cuts.
0:00-0:05 The scene starts with a school bell ringing and a medium shot of Veronica leaning towards a water fountain; it’s crucial we don’t quite see her starting position, though we don’t that yet.
Then it switches to a medium of Liam - again, this is a ‘typical’ shot, so we the audience don’t feel anything amiss, but delaying Veronica and Liam sharing a frame helps sell the coming sight gag.
0:05-0:10 Switch to a two-shot of Veronica still leant over the water fountain Camera Left, Liam standing Camera Right.
This shot would often be the ‘establisher,’ but 1. It comes closer to telling us about the height discrepancy, so instead it’s placed here right before the joke 2. if it were the establishing shot it would have to start with Veronica already in place, but motion — whether of camera or character — is often more interesting to open a scene, thus the choice of Veronica leaning into the water fountain.
0:11-0:13 Cut back to the same shot as the opener, as Veronica stands up; the camera starts tilting with her. She could have stood in the wide, but instead this allows a cut to:
0:14-0:16 The same medium shot of Liam; as his eyes move up (and widen!), a shadow rises over his face. This lighting is suggestive of a character seeing a large creature — whether terrifying monster or gorgeous Galadriel — and wouldn’t play as well in the wide.
This sight gag helps land Liam’s aspirational line “and, talk about this major growth spurt I’m about to have.”
0:17-0:18 Veronica’s single has now turned into an upward-angle; she doesn’t actually say anything, just smiles, before her eyes dart camera-left, prompting the cut.
0:18-0:24 Back to the shot of Liam, which pans right (consistent with Veronica’s eye movement) to become a 2-shot as Rynard walks in.
Now that this has become a 2-shot of Liam and Rynard, when it cuts to the reverse, it’s also a 2-shot encompassing Veronica and Liam.
Note: the reverse shots don’t do the ‘usual’ thing of keeping Liam on the same side of frame, instead putting him far-left in the two-shot with Rynard, and in the middle of frame with Veronica; it works because it doesn’t jump the line, and because Liam looks like he is trying to put himself between his bully and the girl he is crushing on.
0:24-0:26 Both 2-shots get closer to Rynard and Liam respectively, as music ramps up and then on a cut to Veronica’s single there’s the sound of a dull THWOCK! and she gasps, before a smash cut away. We get the idea that Rynard has punched Liam, without having to see it.
It’s possible the scene could have gotten more impact out of that THWOCK by slowing the exchange leading up, or at least drawing out the staredown between Liam and Rynard, but the bang-bang-bang of Liam realising how much taller than him Veronica is underlines the humour, so it’s all a balancing act.
Bonus!
Framing techniques for scene transitions.
0:27-0:30 The scene transition us into Sydney’s storyline with a smash cut to an establishing of the school, then cuts into the lunchroom. All three shots:
Veronica gasping
students filing into the school’s facade (away from camera)
an extra walking the lunchroom (towards camera)
frame the action in the same space, keeping our eyes there during the quick cuts (though wind flapping the flag in the upper left of shot #2 could distract)