Kicker
A short, final beat - joke, twist, or visual button - slapped on after the scene felt over. Comedy lives here.
- COINED
- 1980s
- TAXONOMY
- EDITING
- RELATED
- 4
- TEMPLATES
- 0
A kicker is the short, final beat slapped onto a scene after the scene felt over. A joke. A twist. A visual button. Cinema's punctuation.
Comedy lives on kickers. The character delivers the line, the scene seems to end, and then - one more beat - a smaller character mutters something, or someone slips, or a door slams. The kicker is what audiences remember from a comedy scene more than the main action.
The discipline is brevity. A kicker is one or two seconds. Drag it longer and it isn't a kicker anymore - it's another scene. Cut on the laugh, don't sit on it. Trust the audience to fill in their own reaction.
End of a comedy scene. Last beat of a YouTube video before the end card. After a serious moment to break tension.
On every scene - kickers stop landing when overused. In tone-strict drama.
Terms next to this one.
Final image or beat that closes a scene. Sit on it half a second longer than feels right.
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A cut between two similar-but-not-identical positions. Reads as time skipping. YouTube made it pop again.
Final still frame with credits, CTA, subscribe button. YouTube's closing handshake.