Throwing records at approaching zombies
Ed: Purple Rain.
Shaun: No.
Ed: Sign o’ the Times.
Shaun: Definitely not.
Ed: The Batman soundtrack?
Shaun: Throw it.
Ed: Dire Straits.
Shaun: Throw it.
Ed: Stone Roses?
Shaun: No.
Ed (Nick Frost)/Shaun (Simon Pegg)
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Chick 1 says:
Welcome back to Troperiffic Tuesday! This week we’re looking at one of the basic tenets of storytelling, Chekhov’s Gun. The trope is based on a principle espoused by Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. Chekhov said it a variety of ways but it comes down to this, “If you have a gun on stage, it better go off before the end of the play.”
Chekhov’s Gun falls under the Law of Conservation of Detail which teaches writers to make every word, every bit of dialogue count. If it doesn’t drive the story, don’t waste your precious time with it. In movies you only have 90-120 minutes to tell a story, on TV only 22-43 minutes so every detail has to count. Don’t introduce any element that distracts from the story. Read more
Chick 1 says:
Welcome to a new series of posts, Beat Sheets. A beat sheet is a story structure tool used by many screenwriters, listing out certain events or moments called beats that usually occur in every story. These beats drive the plot. The particular beat sheet we’ll be using here was developed by Blake Snyder in his screenwriting book, Save The Cat. It is very popular among writers in Hollywood today.
In this series, I’ll follow the plot of different movies and list each point where I think an important beat occurs. Snyder’s theory is that every great or even good movie, every story has all of these beats in some form. For the first few posts I’ll list Snyder’s explanation of each beat. Tell me if you think I’m right. Or if you think a certain beat doesn’t exist in the movie at all.
For this first one, let’s take a look at Hot Fuzz, the second collaboration by Simon Pegg/Nick Frost/Edgar Wright following Shaun of the Dead. Like Shaun of the Dead, it’s a funny, sharp story. The writing and editing are tight, tight, tight. No line or prop is thrown away from Aaron A. Aaronson to “Swan!”. Almost everything comes back into the plot. So let’s dive in. Obviously SPOILERS FOLLOW. Read more
Chick 1 says:
It’s taken me a month to get the theater to check out the first of two movies Mr. Spielberg has out right now. Despite the credits reading like a who’s who of my favorite storytellers (Peter Jackson, Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright), I was only somewhat interested in the story but very interested in the animation.
The Basics: Based on a Belgian comic book series popular during the 1930′s, the story follows the many adventures of its title character, Tintin (that’s pretty much what it says) an intrepid young reporter. Read more
Chick 1 says:
A slew of interesting trailers came out last week. It looks like the fall will be exciting!
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: Based on the 1974 novel, this film is packed with British acting heavyweights. The movie looks tense and tightly put together but I’ll be going mostly because of the amazing cast. Opens November 18th.
Chick 1 says:
Star Trek, it’s not just for geeks anymore. Well, actually, that’s a little difficult for me to say since I am a geek. But, Oh My Gosh!
What I Liked: Pretty much everything! I was initially drawn to this movie by the cast and they did not disappoint. Read more
Chick 1 says
:
I wanted to post this a week ago so I could kick off the summer. I know summer is supposed to start Memorial Day weekend or, if you’re a stickler, June 21st, but I’m talking about the summer according to Hollywood. This may not be quite as big a movie summer as last year but there’s still some great stuff on the way. For this post, let’s just take a look at May. Read more
