A brief look at the YouTube landscape makes it clear that gaming has become one of the most popular sectors of online video. Crafting content to be not just gaming, but comedic gaming can help make sure that your videos stand out in the crowd. Making jokes while you play is one thing, but to leave no comedy stone unturned, you need to look at your edits. Specifically, using edits to perfect the timing of your bits helps to polish an off-the-cuff gag into a well-crafted punchline. The popular cinematic gaming channel Neebs Gaming can be seen as the pinnacle of comedic gaming content, and a lot of their success can be credited to their hilarious editing.
Timing is everything
Without proper timing, even the funniest jokes will fall flat. If you rush a punchline, you aren’t giving your audience time to process the setup, but if you take too long of a pause, anything you say is going to feel awkward and disconnected. Timing jokes with pin-point precision is absolutely required if you want to pull off your bit. In their Ark Survival series, the guys at Neebs set up a bit with a great concept: commemorating lost dinosaurs (and sandwiches) on a town message board. In the video “5 T. Rex vs Alpha T. Rex!!! – Ark Survival Evolved”, one character calls another over to see the new addition that is essentially a callout post directed at the latter. The reveal and reaction pull great laughs, but bits like this couldn’t land successfully without the pause before his discovery.
A major benefit that comedy in video on demand holds over any sort of live content is the ability to make edits and perfect timing. The raw footage of the above bit would include a lengthy pause as the character approaches the bulletin board filled with either silence or idle vamping, during which the joke would have lost momentum and any comedic payoff would have been lost forever. By cutting out the dead space, Neebs Gaming ensured that a joke with an inherently funny concept landed with its full potential.
Editing gives you tools to tell funnier jokes
Editing for humor can include more than just adjustments to timing, though. Dramatic zooms to emphasize on-screen elements the player missed, freezeframes backed with a record scratch, ominous music stings, and more can all help boost a video to its maximum funny levels.
In any online video content, or even traditional media to an extent, there are certain editing techniques that can be used to ensure that jokes land. Edits can be used to cut a bit to the perfect length. When a comedian is running without a script, they may not be able to gauge exactly where to end a run for the best effect. If a joke is taken too far and stops being funny, it can be walked back to where it should have ended with a quick cut. If a comedian attempts a joke but can’t find a punchline and abandons it altogether, the entire bit can be scrapped rather than leaving an awkward ramble in the final product.
How to edit your gameplay footage for comedy
Video game Let’s Play content is no exception to the utility of these comedic editing techniques. When a creator is riffing off of a game and the game hits a slow point that lacks anything joke-worthy, any comedic momentum can come to a grinding halt. Cutting out the dead air ensures that only the funniest bits make it to the final product with no scraps to slow it down.
Similarly, dramatic irony can be hilarious when properly utilized. Viewers spying something the player missed on-screen can be funny enough, but a slow zoom or snarky text amps it up another notch, making it clear to audiences that the creator caught on to their mistakes while editing and are now left with many regrets.
Adding background music that directly contradicts the action is a bit with plenty of potential. Neebs Gaming, in their video “GTA 5 – NUKE LAUNCHER MOD – FUNNY MOMENTS – Grand Theft Auto Gameplay Video”, strolls through picturesque hills, wielding a nuclear rocket launcher, blowing fire engines right into the heavens. All the while, some lovely jaunty tunes are playing in the background, adding to the intensely chaotic energy in an absolutely hilarious way.
Proper editing leads to better content
Editing can amplify the humor of video game content to a major degree, and the channel Neebs Gaming is the perfect place to look for examples. They are able to take what is clearly already funny raw content and edit it in such a way that their jokes are perfectly polished. Their mastery of timing and other powerful techniques yield amazing results with stellar bit-landing ratios. Whether it’s cuts, visuals, audio cues, or any number of other editing magic tricks, you can always find ways to take your funny video game content to hilarious new levels.