Cinematically Showing a Change of Mind

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I recently came across the same situation in TV and YouTube, and found it instructive to see how it was handled. The situation is this: someone is adamant that they won’t do something. In the next scene, they are doing it.

The unexpected contrast creates a funny moment (which is of course completely lost when analysing it like this).

First, from Amazon TV show The Grand Tour.

“No I’m not,” / “Right, here we go…”

In scene 1, car enthusiast Richard Hammond is adamant that he will not drive his monster truck into a ditch. There is then a marked scene transition. Rather than a straight cut, the next clip arrives with a kind of wipe transition from left to right, and a ‘whooshing’ noise. In scene 2, he is now in the car, about to drive forward. (The wipe itself appears to be about 1/2 a second of an image of a hedge, going from left to right, before scene 2 appears. The image of scene 2 itself does not slide in from the left. There is also a nice rhythm to Hammond’s speech and driving.)

Compare this with YouTuber Ryan Trahan, in his excellent metaverse video.

“I have a mission here. I’m not going to play around and act like I’m a storm–” / [dance music]

In scene 1, with a view of Ryan’s head, there is a voiceover announcing how serious he is, and that he isn’t going to play around. He then interrupts the sentence halfway through a word to cut to scene 2 with the dancing and music.

Both these transitions are very effective, and tailored to their medium of TV/YouTube. On TV, cutting halfway through a word would be too fast and just look like a mistake. While on YouTube, the wipe transition could work, but interrupting the sentence is quicker and funnier.

Both videos drew attention to the cut between scenes. This highlights the contrast to increase the humour. It also helps the audience realise that the story isn’t continuing linearly, so that we understand the switch in direction.