I Filmed A PA Strip. There Are Probably A Million Of These Things, But Here's Mine.

MidniteHobo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6jY0CJksh8

It's an adaptation of the recent "The Land Before Time" Strip. (Which can be found at http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/3/9/) We shot it in around an hour, and it's kind of rushed, DEFINITELY poorly acted, but we had a lot of fun doing it. We'll probably do another one soon. Just thought I'd share. Oh, and it's available in 1080p, if you care to wait for it to stream in HD.

Iruka

It acually works better than I would have imagined. The acting is bad (as you said) but worse is the dead air. I know realistically it takes a minute to google something, but the comic is funny because its instantaneousness. I would play with the places you have pauses and the places you pretty much have instant response.

Also, you dont need text in the cut between the present and the internet-less past, it makes it too long and the viewer understands what you are setting up without it.

Phthano

If you edited it together with quick cuts to emulate the comedic timing of the strip, it would be much better. You can imply it is a few seconds later with editing. Think Scott Pilgrim.

Virum

Essentially what the above people have said is correct.

Remember all the movies you've ever watched... if someone has a huge flight of stairs to climb, the filmmakers aren't going to show a shot where it sits still as they go up each and every step. It's a master shot to establish local and where they are going, insert a closeup of their shoes hitting steps, maybe a frontal shot of them looking up and tired, and then a final shot of to show the arrival.

This clip is a good example of time compression in general, but specifically relating to my example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NubH5BDOaD8 (Rocky climbing the stairs for posterity's sake if the link is deleted)

1:49 - 1:54 panning shot of him running until it reveals the base of his climb.
1:54 - 59 - long distance shot showing just how far he has to go and how steep the climb is
2:00 - 2:01 - look at him go!!!
2:01 - 2:05 - damn he climbed a lot in one second!


As for the other techniques of time compression... the editors show that he has run a long way by taking fairly short shots and then cutting to another completely different place, there is no chance to confuse the next local with the previous one. Also note the size of the crowd grows with each cut. Notice the longest shot exists only to show him pulling away from the crowd in a mad sprint.

How does this apply to you?

"Let me google it." Show a quick insert of google.com typed into the browser window. Then the answer.