The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

The audiovisual architecture of musical pauses, punchlines, and jablines: Paddington’s punctuation

The audiovisual architecture of musical pauses, punchlines, and jablines: Paddington’s punctuation
The audiovisual architecture of musical pauses, punchlines, and jablines: Paddington’s punctuation
This chapter highlights aspects of audiovisual synchronisation that move beyond a basic understanding of what has traditionally been called mickey-mousing in order to draw attention to the ways in which the audiovisual ecosystem of rhythm, gesture, punctuation, phrasing and flow impact comedic effectiveness. Building on linguistic humour theories, including the semantic-script theory and the structural identification of jablines and punchlines, audiovisual punctuation is analysed through a direct comparison between the official trailer for Paddington and a corresponding scene from the film itself (2014, dir. Paul King). This shows how audiovisual rhythm and, especially, musically phrased punctuation are articulated in different ways to support, respectively, the promotional discourse structure of the trailer and the cinematic narrative structure of the film sequence. This chapter ultimately shows how interactions between different synchronous states and their role in a kinetic audiovisual architecture are especially important in the creation of audiovisual humour.
mickeymousing, punchlines, jablines, Paddington, Humour, Comedy, Music, punctuation, audiovisual
85-101
Palgrave Macmillan Cham
Mera, Miguel
35e8e446-9092-4516-b12c-c1fbcf67bc9f
Audissino, Emilio
Wennekes, Emile
Mera, Miguel
35e8e446-9092-4516-b12c-c1fbcf67bc9f
Audissino, Emilio
Wennekes, Emile

Mera, Miguel (2023) The audiovisual architecture of musical pauses, punchlines, and jablines: Paddington’s punctuation. In, Audissino, Emilio and Wennekes, Emile (eds.) The Palgrave Handbook of Music in Comedy Cinema. 1 ed. Palgrave Macmillan Cham, pp. 85-101. (doi:10.1007/978-3-031-33422-1_5).

Record type: Book Section

Abstract

This chapter highlights aspects of audiovisual synchronisation that move beyond a basic understanding of what has traditionally been called mickey-mousing in order to draw attention to the ways in which the audiovisual ecosystem of rhythm, gesture, punctuation, phrasing and flow impact comedic effectiveness. Building on linguistic humour theories, including the semantic-script theory and the structural identification of jablines and punchlines, audiovisual punctuation is analysed through a direct comparison between the official trailer for Paddington and a corresponding scene from the film itself (2014, dir. Paul King). This shows how audiovisual rhythm and, especially, musically phrased punctuation are articulated in different ways to support, respectively, the promotional discourse structure of the trailer and the cinematic narrative structure of the film sequence. This chapter ultimately shows how interactions between different synchronous states and their role in a kinetic audiovisual architecture are especially important in the creation of audiovisual humour.

Text
Audiovisual Architecture - Author's Original
Restricted to Repository staff only until 25 October 2025.
Request a copy

More information

e-pub ahead of print date: 24 October 2023
Published date: 25 October 2023
Keywords: mickeymousing, punchlines, jablines, Paddington, Humour, Comedy, Music, punctuation, audiovisual

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 485563
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/485563
PURE UUID: bd2dd1fd-c1eb-4047-8cc8-c239251e72be
ORCID for Miguel Mera: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-0031-0629

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 11 Dec 2023 17:34
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 04:16

Export record

Altmetrics

Contributors

Author: Miguel Mera ORCID iD
Editor: Emilio Audissino
Editor: Emile Wennekes

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×