Supercuts bring attention to the phrases and devices that jaded picture and Television set viewers already see over and over–the tics of picture show and television–and repeat them to comic upshot. The video compilations add context to these clichés, nowadays them in a new light, or inspire a moratorium on them. What makes the all-time ones stand out, however, isn't rote repetition, but style. It's the adjacent-level premise or the perfect song cue–or any number of other details that the novice video editor might not consider.

The supercut as nosotros know it arrived the year after YouTube itself did. In 2006, an audience that eventually grew to more six million watched CSI: Miami's David Caruso don a pair of sunglasses subsequently making a glib remark near a victim. He kept doing it for seven minutes, in basically a möbius strip of shades and awful 1-liners. This prune was perchance the most prominent supercut earlier the term was even coined, and it was not by accident. It was considering of the manner its creator cutting away to the screaming finale of the opening credits in between each iteration, establishing a jokey rhythm and a perennial callback. Details like these are key.

Some supercuts end upwardly garnering YouTube views in the hundreds of thousands, and sometimes even the millions. One of the people responsible for a big portion of those views is Nick Douglas, editor of the comedic website Slacktory, which satirizes pretty much everything nigh the Internet. Although his site puts out original comedy videos that don't remix copyrighted content, and sometimes makes fun of Siri ads too, Slacktory also happens to be leading the charge in supercuts of late.

Nick Douglas & Rachel Fershleiser

Along with Douglas, Slacktory has three main video editors who practise most of the idea generation and cutting: Debbie Saslaw, Bryan Menegus, and Alex Moschina. Together, they're pushing the boundaries of what a supercut can practise, beyond only call out clichés and become some quick laughs. This squad also advises anyone else to leap in and do and so as well. Douglas spoke to Co.Create recently to explain how it's all washed.

Where Ideas Come From

Supercuts are more than a gimmick, they're a genre. Some of our ideas come up from an editor, and sometimes from me. Some are inspired by blogs, and sometimes they're requests from people on Twitter or YouTube, or my girlfriend. Lately I've tried to emphasize unmarried-evidence cuts. They look nicer, because there'southward but i aspect ratio and information technology's easier to get high-quality footage. They have a specific target audience that gathers in groups on Tumblr and Reddit. And they're more well-nigh jubilant something than mocking it. Information technology'south harder to observe something no one's noticed about a single evidence–we didn't realize that Dot Com is a persecuted intellectual until Alex's cutting revealed how every fourth dimension he says something smart, a main graphic symbol punishes him for it. Tracy calls him a showoff, Liz calls him slow, and Jack calls him "off-putting."

That said, I honey when an editor notices that a lot of rappers reference the TR-808 pulsate machine or that no one in a movie ever finishes a telephone call. We frequently tweak an idea a few times before it goes upwardly.

Discover The Scenes You Desire With An Online Database.

My friend Andy Baio, who coined the term and runs supercut.org, told me that nigh editors utilise TV Tropes (my favorite site on the whole Internet). When New Yorker Television critic Emily Nussbaum tweeted that she wanted a supercut of TV characters saying "this isn't a TV show, this is reality," Bryan started with the TV Tropes page for that very phenomenon. ("Walking and Talking" is also mostly sourced from TV Tropes, where we realized we had enough walk-and-talks to only do the ones that mention walk-and-talks.) Debbie showed me Subzin, which lets you search pic subtitles for specific words or phrases.

The research is the hardest office, but almost every popular television testify has a wiki. There are tons of script databases where you can search for a specific phrase. Sometimes they even include the timecode where the phrase appears within the movie or television receiver testify. Downloading forty or l films is the most time-consuming part. From start to finish, the process unremarkably takes nigh a week.

Be Prepared to Crawl Through a Lot of Footage.

People don't often know how much work goes into these. Nosotros've gotten emails from a few of our subjects–actors or writers of shows we featured–thanking us and acknowledging that a good supercut takes real artistic talent. At the very least, an editor needs to crawl through a lot of footage and exercise a lot of grunt work; that's why the "tricks" aren't precious, because the existent hurdles are time and effort. Identifying and recognizing visual cues while skimming through a video is the "big underground" backside supercuts. From in that location, information technology's just about compiling plenty selections before editing.

Experiment With the Format.

I'm frequently blown away past the inventiveness these editors can fit into the genre. Alex experiments with "megamixes" like our compilation of Community's "Shut Upward Leonard" lines. Bryan timed the incredibly fast-paced Mad Men drinking supercut to some classic Horace Silver. Debbie made matching cuts called "I Tin can Explain" and "No Fourth dimension to Explain," and she started our serial of single-actor "career" supercuts with Claire Danes Cry Face up. When Bryan Menegus was picking segues from Sexual practice and the City, he realized he could string them into one long kind-of-coherent sentence. Also, we knew Wes Anderson loves to make people walk in deadening mo, but it took the states a while to set all those scenes to Ja Rule.

Then far, my personal favorite supercut is "Louis C.1000. Is Lamentable For Everything." I'g often wary of conceptual cuts, as you can hands lose track and a supercut devolves into a mere "all-time-of" reel. But with this one, Bryan caught an essential part of the Louie experience and preserved the show's tone. Information technology'southward like he got to the core of Louie: A guy steeped in disappointment.

Use Shorter Clips to Become Around Copyright Laws

Two terrible things can happen to a supercut. Ane, nosotros can become a takedown notice considering a clip runs also long. Supercuts are legal because of the off-white utilize doctrine, which has mostly been legally defined on a case-past-case footing (which is a skillful motivator to exist so transformative that no ane could error our intention for mere piracy). And on YouTube, you lot don't simply have to follow the law, you lot take to not go flagged by bots that detect copyrighted footage. Thankfully, YouTube by and large only takes downward actually not-transformative content. I've fabricated a couple of mistakes using long clips and have learned to be more careful.

The second terrible thing is when someone replies to a supercut naming one fantastic clip that we missed. I tin't set up it and re-upload it, and then I'yard stuck knowing the cutting is incomplete. Of course this happens all the time.

At that place Are Too Many Potential Ideas to Run Out

I don't want to hibernate the tricks of making supercuts. I want more people making them! At that place are far as well many to always run out, and sharing techniques can only assist everyone. I actually would actually similar to piece of work with more editors, and then please, whatsoever video editors out in that location should email me with samples of their best work.

Watch some of Slacktory's best supercuts in the slide show higher up.

[Nick Douglas Headshot: Flickr user Scott Beale]