After wrapping up our production portfolio, we began thinking about how our film's serious tone and thriller elements wouldn't be believable to an audience if two teens were in the main roles. We decided to make our film more light-hearted. This made me think that my previous analysis of thrillers like Drive and Nightcrawler might only be somewhat useful and not entirely helpful as it wouldn't fit the feel of the film.
In order to have a better grasp of what a comedic detective film looks like, I decided to look at Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
These scenes seem like prime examples of those normally found in Detective and Crime films. Big reveals on who's behind everything or intense confrontations. The editing is actually somewhat similar to what I looked at before. During the big conflicts, cuts are very quick to keep the scenes tense. This is seen in the death of R. K. Maroon where the shots from the pistol and the events after occur right after each other. Just like in thrillers, intense events are made up of quick cuts. Something similar occurs when Jessica Rabbit comes and saves Eddie but it's framed as if she is going to kill him. The moments before are more drawn out to create suspense while the accrual events of action come quickly with lots of cuts like the chase. Both scenes also have very loud gunshot sounds when a pistol is fired to draw attention but it also sticks out from the more quiet dialogue.
After watching some clips of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, I learned that the editing that happens between genres doesn't necessarily change, but it's the elements of your story and how you use editing to enhance that which forms your film's genre. Watching the murder of Maroon, I was reminded of the opening to Zodiac. The actual events were somewhat similar but Who Framed Roger Rabbit plays up everything through slapstick behavior further emphasized by the editing. The actual events happening are comedic such as driving a cartoon car or spraying water in the attacker's face and by holding onto these shots, you feel the ridiculousness of the situations. The way the thrillers I analyzed used editing was to mess with the audience's emotions and expectations which I now understand can be applicable in more scenarios. It's not about changing the style of editing, as the focus is still on a detective film with the basic plot points an audience expects, but more so using what's actually in the film and the editing around that to make it more comedy-orientated.
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