Video Essay

Edgar Howard Wright

1.7 meters

April 18, 1974, in Poole, Dorset, England, UK

He is best known for his comedic Three Flavours Cornetto film trilogy consisting of Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007), and The World's End (2013), made with recurrent collaborators Simon Pegg, Nira Park, and Nick Frost.

Fast action style editing, usually of mundane tasks, including whip pans and crash zooms.

Repeated lines or snippets of dialogue for comedic effect

Deadpan humor in fast-paced moments

A recurring gag where a fence jump goes wrong

Pivotal scenes that take place in a bar or pub

His characters often share his love of action movies and video games

Often cast Bill Nighy, Rafe Spall, and Paddy Considine

Action synchronized to music that is playing

Frequent and effective use of foreshadowing

Fast paced and heavily stylized action scenes

He shoots most scenes in his live-action films on 35mm.

Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, Wright directed many short films, first on a Super-8 camera which was a gift from a family member and later on a Video-8 camcorder won in a competition on the television programme Going Live.

He wrote the script, co-produced, directed, as well as acted in the 2013 sci-fi comedy film ‘The World's End’

He has a brother named Oscar Wright who is an artist.

Wright was due to direct Marvel’s live-action superhero film ‘Ant-Man’. However, due to creative differences with the studio, he was not allowed to direct the film. Wright was still credited with the script. Marvel replaced him with Peyton Reed as the director of the film. Adam McKay and Paul Rudd rewrote the script which was originally written by Wright.

As a young boy, he used his Super-8 camera that he got from a relative as a gift and made many short films during the late 1980s. Some years later, he got his first Video-8 camcorder which he won in a television program ‘Going Live’ and used it to make comic short films like ‘Dead Right’.

Edgar Wright started his career with a very low budget in 1995 and made his first feature film, an independent spoof western, ‘A Fistful of Fingers’. It caught the attention of British comedians David Edward Williams and Matthew Richard Lucas. They hired Wright to direct their parodic sketch show ‘Mash and Peas’ for the Paramount Comedy channel in 1996.

He then directed the British comedy series ‘Asylum’, based on a story revolving around a mental asylum. The show ran for just one season consisting of six episodes in 1996. In 1998, Wright undertook three projects: ‘Alexei Sayle's Merry-Go-Round’, ‘Is It Bill Bailey?’, and ‘French and Saunders’. He directed six episodes each of the first two comedy shows while he directed one episode of the third one. In 1998, actor Simon Pegg and Tallulah Jessica Elina Hynes (also known as Jessica Stevenson) were making plans for their sitcom ‘Spaced’ which was due to run on Channel 4. They decided www.thefamouspeople.com Page 2 / 4 to bring in Wright as the director and Wright accepted the offer straight away. The show ‘Spaced,’ which premiered in 1999, was a major hit. Wright was nominated at the BAFTA Awards twice in the Situation Comedy Award category in 2000 and 2002. In 1999, he also directed the British television comedy series ‘Sir Bernard's Stately Homes’ which ran for six episodes. He directed the episode ‘Confessions of a Murderer’ of the British dark comedy show ‘Murder Most Horrid’ as well. Wright again collaborated with Simon Pegg and they worked on a comedy horror film ‘Shaun of the Dead’ in 2004. Wright co-wrote the script as well as directed the film while Pegg co-wrote and acted in the film. Pegg played the lead character ‘Shaun’, a Londoner who gets caught in the ‘zombie apocalypse’. The film also featured Nick Frost as ‘Ed’.