hot fuzz

Troperiffic Tuesday!: Stuff Blowing Up

Chick 1 says:

In continuing to explore my friend’s own personal genre of Men of Honor Blowing Stuff Up, this week we look at … Stuff Blowing Up.  Explosions are such a staple of movies that they are basically a subgenre of tropes.  And the reason for their rampant use isn’t nearly so deep or complicated; explosions are cool and people, especially men, like them.  They’re an awesome way to anchor an action set piece and they look great visually.  Should you put explosions in your movie?  Unless you’re working on a Jane Austen adaptation the answer is yes!  And even then you should at least consider it.  (I think I just invented my own genre.) Read more

Posted on August 28, 2012 by Chick 1 in Tropes 191 Comments

Troperiffic Tuesday!: Chekhov’s Gun

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

Posted on July 3, 2012 by Chick 1 in Tropes 312 Comments

Beat Sheets: Hot Fuzz

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

Posted on April 21, 2012 by Chick 1 in Beat Sheets 48,222 Comments