DIRECTIONS UNIT: SHAUN OF THE DEAD

Shaun of the Dead. My chosen film to recreate from Edgar Wright and in my opinion, Edgar Wright's most famous film. Scoring 8.0/10 on IMDb and an audience rating of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes. Shaun of the Dead grossed over $13,000,000 with it's release and gave Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost their door way into the film industry.

But focusing on the directing. This film is were we see Edgar's classic Directional Style come to life. With his style having 3 main things:
- Close up montage
- References
- The beginning of a Trilogy

Edgar's Directing

What makes Edgar's directing different in this film compared to his TV directing is the choice of how the characters act. In Asylum and Spaced, Edgar chose to have certain characters acting very over the top and very classic 90's comical. Such as Daisy in Spaced how would always be over excited or the patients in Asylum who would always act VERY over the top with being 'insane' to bring the comedy forward. But, Edgar goes with a different approach with Shaun of the Dead and makes all the characters as realistic as possible and goes with the socially known type of characters in Britain which really made the film a hit in Britain. Ed, a classic lazy bum how doesn't work and simply can't be arsed. How he acts is very sarcastic and rude to his friends but this is how some people are in Britain and it worked for the comedy. Same with the character Dianne (Liz's friend who is a want-to-be actress), she acts very happy and talks as though she has been to theatre too much, all the time making little things a big drama which I can say from personal experience that this does happen with drama students and young actors first getting into the big world of acting.
As well, the situation of all of Shaun of the Dead is very much BRITAIN. The film is set to be how Britain's would be during a zombie apocalypse, although this comes from the script. Edgar takes it further, being both the Co-Writer and Director of the film he really pushes this to get the comedy out onto screen. For example, the scene of Shaun walking to the shop after the zombies have come about:

Shop Scene

In the original script, that seen was written as this:

There is never any mention of Shaun not noticing any of the destruction around him and nothing about how long that scene needs to last. This is a perfect example of how Edgar's creativity really grew with this film. How can you explain in 2 minutes that the majority of London has been killed by zombies and show that Shaun has no idea of this? He walks to the shop and walks past blood, smashed cars, dead bodies and simply doesn't notice anything because he's tired and hungover and people in Britain loved this because they said this is how it would actually happen in real life. The comedy worked and it explained the situation perfectly as well and showed more of what Shaun is like as we'd already seen that he never listened to Liz and is always in his own world.

Not only this but we also have Edgar's love of referencing seen in this film but with a small change. Rather than referencing classic films like he had done before. Edgar's references his own work inside this world. Whereas most Director's would cameo in their films. Edgar decides to almost connect all his works together by bringing in some characters from Spaced. The main reference we get from Spaced is the character 'Yvonne' who is an old friend of Shaun's. They meet and chat about how things have been and act like they are best friends. This is a reference to Tim and Daisy in Spaced who lived together and were the main focus on the series. As well we also see a zombie in the crowd wearing biker gear and a yellow hat (see below):

This is the same actor and character (but as a zombie) Tyre's from Spaced who was a huge success for the series and loved by fans for his comical music obsession.



Camera and Editing
This film is where we really start to see Edgar's Directional Style with close-ups. Below is a mixture of Close-up montages from Shaun of the Dead:

Close ups 1

This is one of the many close up montages we get right through the films. All with very boring or simple tasks like making a cup of tea, ringing a door bell, locking a door and turning a TV off for a lock in at a pub, calling a restaurant, etc. All these are almost mocking the classic way of loading a gun which is what a close up montage is classically used for. However, in Shaun of the Dead Edgar uses it to bring comedy out and has so many of these sequences until we finally get to the actual sequence where Shaun loads up the gun and the action really begins.

As well as close ups, Edgar begins to change around montage sequences, specifically with 'The Plan' of how Shaun and Ed are going to survive. Edgar begins to use more whip pans which he developed from Spaced. Moving the camera around from shot to shot and having it all edit together nicely and work with all the action of what's going on. As well it's very funny to watch and always adds to the element of comedy that Shaun of the Dead has.

The Plan