How To Do Visual Comedy: An ode to the directorial work of Edgar Wright

Here’s a fun visual essay by Tony Zhou, uploaded to his Vimeo on Tuesday, in which he implores comedy filmmakers today to be more like director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, The World’s End).

As he wrote:

“If you love visual comedy, you gotta love Edgar Wright, one of the few filmmakers who is consistently finding humor through framing, camera movement, editing, goofy sound effects and music. This is an analysis and an appreciation of a director so awesome that Marvel had to fire him on a holiday.

For educational purposes only. And as always, feel free to comment, like, or tell me it’s not a 747.

For further reading/viewing, I highly recommend:
David Bordwell’s essay on funny framings: davidbordwell.net/blog/2007/04/30/funny-framings/
David Chen’s video essay on Wright’s use of close-ups: vimeo.com/85311313
And Ryan Gosling Won’t Eat His Cereal: youtube.com/watch?v=ohJtvuCAsp4

Zhou lays out nine suggestions. It’s not as if Zhou thinks Wright invented visual comedy, either: He also includes work from Andrew Stanton, Tom Kuntz, Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, Joe Russo, Justin Lin, Louis C.K., Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones of people who got it right. And not just Wright.

Roll it!

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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