This film has been doing the rounds of late, and while there’s plenty of discussion out there about whether it paints too narrow a depiction of ‘comedy’, I, for one, think it’s a good point well made. Of course there are counter-arguments – comedy wouldn’t be interesting if it could be done in 8 minutes.
The lesson for scicomms is, I think, that detail matters. We obsess about our explanations, but we’re rarely as careful with our transitions (which to my mind are both more difficult and more dangerous), let alone the visual aspects of our performances. Since I cut my teeth in children’s TV this has always baffled me, and Wright’s visual flourishes feel like an extended version of what we too-often failed to do in CITV.
Whatever your medium, the performance your audience perceives is the total of what you say, how you say it, and what happens. Comedy is merely one form of emotional prompt you can deliver: to me, none of this is really about humour or film-making, it’s about the rôle of visual cues in conveying information.
It also magnificently demonstrates the importance of reveal. Done visually (and well) it allows the audience room to feel clever rather than patronised. These moments can be wonderfully pleasing.
> detail matters.
You can’t say this loudly or often enough in scicomms. Deliberation and detail are what separates a creative and interesting presentation from a hackneyed and boring one.
Deliberation and detail don’t come easily. But audiences feel the difference without knowing why.
(Aside – I wish that, *as an industry*, we actual did obsess about our explanations, or anything that matters in fact.)