STORYTELLING UNIT: SIMON PEGG

A screenwriter I choose to look into is the British Actor, Screenwriter and Producer, Simon Pegg.

Simon Pegg was one of the main reasons I wanted to get into the Media Industry. After watching his first feature film 'Shaun of the Dead' back in High School, I was then fixed on his work but also saw that it was possible for an ordinary, British boy, to go to High School, University and then go on to be a stand-up comedian, later write a comedy series for Channel 4 and finally end up making what was thought to be a low budget and simple feature film and ends up being a smash hit at the box office and sends his carrier off from TV writer to Film maker.


Simon Pegg studied into TV and Film by attending the University of Bristol and studying a degree in Theatre, Film and Television and then graduated in 1991. Simon talks in his auto biography 'Nerd do Well' about how Film and Television has always been such big parts in his life, having been a huge fan of films such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Night of the Living Dead and also a fan of Science Fiction TV shows such as Doctor Who and Star Trek, Simon also says he became obsessed with the comedy spoof news show 'The Day Today' after he and Nick Frost discovered it by accident one Wednesday evening back in 1994. Simon's favourite sitcom at this time was the classic comedy sitcom 'Father Ted'. Simon was a stand up comedian who was starting to get a name for himself and already knew and worked with Jessica Hynes, who would go on to be the co-writer with Simon for 'Spaced' and was good friends with Edgar Wright, who would become the Director of 'Spaced'. In his auto biography he says

"After the critical of Asylum, Crispin Laser, a producer at the Paramount Comedy Channel, approached Jessica and me with an idea about creating a vehicle for us to star in together. Naive and confident we were, we accepted the offer on the proviso that we write it ourselves"

With the project taken on, this was Simon Pegg's first go at a TV series, he worked for the next 12 months with Jessica, writing the 7 episode sitcom series.

What inspired me with Simon Pegg is how he's worked so hard to get to were he is now. Simon started as a lover of Film and Television just like me and used that to create his work. From 'Spaced' he went on to make his first feature film 'Shaun of the Dead' which he poured all his love of horror and comedy into and his biggest love, Zombies. His love for these undead creatures was brought back during the writing of 'Spaced'. In his auto biography he says that it was the release of the videos game 'Resident Evil' that re-sparked the love he had for zombies which had been lost briefly due to his work in comedy. What I liked about Simon Pegg is he wrote his characters very specifically. His character 'Tim' was actually written as a shadow version of himself. He found this sitcom the perfect opportunity to posit himself with one of his most beloved fantasies. What really inspired me about Simon's writing for 'Spaced' is how he based and wrote the characters off real life people. Simon's character Tim was written and based off himself and worked well as a character for the plot and style of the sitcom. He also wrote Nick Frosts character specifically for Nick. He saw the comical side of Nick and knew this would make a good character and from that wrote the character 'Mike' and as he says in his auto biography:

"I regarded this new-found autonomy as the perfect opportunity to drag Nick kicking and screaming into the world in which he undoubtedly belonged by writing a character in the show specifically for him"

Simon saw Nick's personality and humour were so inspiring that he made a characters purely for him. After the success of 'Spaced', Simon was inspired to continue his love for Zombie films by Writing, Producing and Staring in his first feature film 'Shaun of the Dead'.
What I've taken from Simon Pegg as a writer is that everything he writes about is a passion for him. Everything has a connection with his life and that he always takes inspiration from films, programmes and events that have been big parts of his life and uses them to creatively make these comical and brilliant series and films. His writing of characters based off real people or his own life adds a personal touch to his work which makes him stand out as a writer to me. His work with comedy and comedy-horror as well as Science Fiction, although not the genre I'm working on, still show the relationship between characters and this is always the key point of his work. In Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Paul and The World's End, it's the relationship of the characters thats the focus on the story and this is what I want from my script.

"Both me and Edgar are firm believers in never underestimating or talking down to an audience, and giving an audience something to do, to give them something which is entirely up to them to enter into the film and find these hidden things and whatever."

(References: Simon Pegg (2010) Nerd Do Well - Simon Pegg, United Kingdom: Arrow Books)

(All photos taken from google.co.uk)