The Inbetweeners

The Inbetweeners

The Inbetweeners tells the story of four teenage boys who are very unpopular and misguided within their social ladder. Our four main characters; Will (Simon Bird), Simon (Joe Thomas), Jay (James Buckley) and Neil (Blake Harrison) are a bunch of six form students currently living in suburban London, their antics and situations are reflected upon growing up and the issues that young people face with the transition of being students to becoming adults, this mainly leads to awkward and hilarious comedic moments. This series uses a wide variation of shots, sounds and writing to make unique comedic moments which have never been seen in British comedy before.

• Performances: The performances of the actors in this series, brings the comedic value into the series the most in my opinion, even though many of these actors went on to do other projects and endeavours, the Inbetweeners was the high point of all their careers. All four of the main actors in this series play their characters down to a tee, the way in which they deliver their lines and bounce off each other gives a large sense of cohesion between the actors giving us as the audience the impression that these actors know each other very well in the sense of the way they respond to each other and the situations they are all put in together. For example; In episode 4 of series 2, the boys take a trip to London to go clubbing in a desperate attempt to court with some girls. In this scene we see the boys on the way to London, they are having a discussion about who is more attractive 'Neil's Sister' or 'will's mother' the performances of the actors makes this scene because the way in which they bounce off each other and the comedic timing of their lines gives more humour because it sounds like a cohesive conversation which people of that age during that time would have and the way the would respond to that conversation makes it all the more funny.

• Camera Work: there is a good sense of direction when looking at the camera work in this series. When conversations take place the camera seems to have a formula of the way the jokes and situations take place. This formula tends to start with a establishing shot of the area around the characters, a mid shot/shot reverse shot of the characters conversation and then close ups of individual characters either giving exposition or reacting to moments in the show. For example; In episode 1 of series 2 The boys find themselves in distress after dropping Simon into the harbour, during this a fish decides to flop onto the boat, so in response Neil decides to punch it to death. The use of camera work in this scene intensifies the humour because the shots capture the randomness of the scene. at the 0:52 mark we get a low angle shot of Neil, this is typically to show power, which he demonstrates but it mainly there to show how reluctant he is to doing what he is about to do,  we switch between close ups to mid shots  simultaneously and then cuts to some close ups of the characters reacting to what just happened. This makes this scene even more comical because the camera angles demonstrate the awkwardness of the situation.

• Sound: This series uses sound in a very creative way in the sense that it uses awkward pauses in the sound and uses of sound effects to create comedic effect. For example; In this scene Jay and Neil are attempting to sort some weed off a drug dealer in a venue they are at. When jay attempts to ask for some, he is accused of being a racist by the dealer and the use of sound in this scene sets up the feeling and tension of the situation these characters are in. The use of background noise give the audience the impression that we are in crowded venue, within each pause that takes place within the speech the sound is used in a way that makes the conversations much more strange and awkward which adds the comedic effects that the series is so famous for.

After looking into the Inbetweeners I feel that I have understood British comedy from a different type of perspective that most are typically created for. The Inbetweeners was different to most British comedies when it first arrived as a series it inspired a generation of youth comedy culture because it used these elements to create scenens which involved situations and actions that had never been really translated onto screen in such a clever and effective way. Looking into this series has help taught me the fundamentals of filming and capturing the sound of  comedy and how the performances of actors in comedy is key when trying to create comedic moments.