Hi, I’m Michael.
This is Lessons from the Screenplay.
When Edgar Wright directs a film, we can expect—
among other things—no shortage of style.
“K. O.!”
But what tends to make his films so compelling is his equal focus on substance.
When creating Shaun of the Dead, Edgar Wright and co-writer Simon Pegg
made a point of keeping one foot in reality.
“Even though it’s a zombie film, and it’s kind of like a fantasy, it’s almost plausible.
If a zombie epidemic really did happen in this neighborhood,
this might be quite a likely response.”
But how do you keep any realism in a movie full of jokes…
“Ed, just get her off me!”
…stylized shots…
…and zombies?
In the case of an Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg film,
it’s all about prioritizing character
and the world of the story,
and making sure everything else only serves to enhance those elements.
So today, I want to explore how to make story elements grow from the main character…
To examine why building a world based on character is so important...
And how the best comedy is often a direct product of these two elements.
Let’s take a look at Shaun of the Dead.
In his book The Anatomy of Story, John Truby writes:
“In good stories, the characters come first,
and the writer designs the world to be an infinitely detailed manifestation
of those characters.”
So if character comes first, that means that everything in Shaun of the Dead
must begin with Shaun,
and to understand Shaun, we need to look at the three basic elements of character:
weakness, need, and desire.
Shaun is designed to be a kind of an everyman character.
He goes to the same shop every morning,
works an unfulfilling job during the day,
and goes to the same pub every night.
While it’s a fairly comfortable life,
Shaun claims that he wants to get more out of it…
“I got things I want to do with my life.”
“When?”
...but his character’s weakness is his unwillingness to make the effort to change,
and his need is to take responsibility, grow up, and choose to truly live his life.
So if this is the main struggle of his character, how does it influence the design of the world?
Returning to Truby:
“To create great characters,
think of all your characters as part of a web in which each helps define the others.
To put it another way, a character is often defined by who he is not.”
Shaun’s roommates are designed to directly reflect his own struggles.
Pete represents an extreme version of Sean’s need.
He’s ambitious, responsible, and financially successful.
And Ed, Shaun’s best friend,
represents an extreme version of his weakness,
expressing no ambition or responsibility whatsoever.
Pete and Ed embody the opposing ways of life that Shaun is struggling with.
And Sean would probably never change if everything stayed the same,
so there has to be some element of the world that will force him to grow.
“You promised you’d stop smoking when I did!
You promised you’d go back to the gym!
You promised you’d try drinking red wine instead of beer!”
“Well--“
“You promised things would change!”
Shaun’s girlfriend, Liz, feels held back by Shaun’s complacency,
and eventually breaks up with him as a result.
Liz’s relationship with Shaun serves to give him a clear, external desire.
In this way, all the important people in his life are designed to help express his character.
But it’s not just the supporting cast that should grow from the main character,
in Shaun of the Dead, the story world is an expression of the protagonist.
Returning once more to The Anatomy of Story, Truby defines the story world as:
“A complex and detailed web in which each element has story meaning
and is in some way a physical expression of the character web and especially of the hero.”
In Shaun of the Dead, a key element of the story world is, of course, zombies.
One of the most interesting aspects of the film
is how they are slowly revealed to the audience,
and even more slowly to the main character.
At first, we can’t tell who’s been affected by the virus and who’s just a bored commuter.
“Shaun is sat on a bus crowded with blank passengers;
a pasty guy listens to his walkman, an old man slowly nods off.
On the street, he sees a young woman faint.”
It’s not until the zombie outbreak has found its way into his back yard
that Shaun notices that something is happening.
“Excuse me.”
While this slow reveal is done largely for comedic effect,
the zombies are not just a random, fun backdrop for the story…
They’re also a physical expression of Shaun’s weakness—
a personification of the part of himself he needs to defeat.
“You can read so much into zombies of like,
oh they’re us being an automaton in the city, and being a commuter,
or being a lazy boyfriend, or sitting there playing the Playstation everyday,
Or just being on autopilot in your life.”
In the screenplay, Shaun is even introduced as being zombie-like.
“Bare feet shuffle into shot. Slowly we pan up to see-
Shaun. Dead to the world. His face tired. He yawns.”
Not only does the zombie epidemic literally bring Shaun face to face with his weakness,
it’s also the perfect catalyst to force characters into making powerful choices
that they may not have made in any other situation.
When Shaun’s stepfather, Philip, has been bitten and is about to turn,
he finally confesses why he was so hard on Shaun.
“I just wanted you to be strong, and I always loved you, Shaun.
There’s a good boy.”
And later, when Shaun’s mom is also bitten and will become a zombie at any moment,
Shaun must do something he never would have done in any other context—
take responsibility and make an impossibly hard decision.
“Shaun takes the rifle from David and points it at her.
His hands shake, his eyes fill with tears. His finger tenses.”
“I’m sorry, Mum.”
“Zombie Barbara hisses and lunges forward.”
A zombie outbreak is exactly what Shaun needs to grow,
it’s there to serve the character first and foremost.
But, of course, the movie isn’t all drama and traumatic choices.
In fact, it’s a comedy, and even here, screenwriters Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright
have made sure that the comedy enhances character.
Comedy is largely subjective, but as with most elements of a story,
it’s usually best if it is used to reveal character.
While Shaun of the Dead has some funny, isolated moments that teach us about the characters,
the main source the humor comes from how the characters react to the story world.
- “Purple Rain.” - “No.”
- “Sign of the Times.” - “Definitely not.”
- “The Batman soundtrack.” - “Throw it.”
“Oh!”
One of the ways Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg master this is with callback humor.
A character will say or experience something early in the film which helps define them,
like when Shaun rounds out an already-embarrassing work meeting
with his pen leaking ink in his pocket…
“You’ve got red on you.”
…which then is referenced and re-contextualized by the events of the story world later on.
“You’ve got red on you.”
Another example is when Shaun gives Ed advice while he’s playing a video game
early in the film…
“Um, oh…top left…
I was just going to say...reload.”
“I’m on it.”
“…since...ooh nice shot.”
“Thanks.”
…which Ed then repeats to Shaun at the end of the movie
when he’s killing zombies.
“Top left!”
- “Reload!” - “I’m on it!”
“Nice shot.”
But perhaps the most effect example of callback in Shaun of the Dead
comes about as a result of this joke:
“I’m sorry Shaun.”
“It’s alright.”
“No no, I’m sorry Shaun.”
“Shaun puzzles, before his expression turns to disgust.”
“Oh my god that’s rotten!”
“ I’ll stop doing them when you stop laughing.”
“I am not laughing, I’m going.”
It’s a brief interaction early in the film that serves to illustrate their relationship,
but it’s brought back at the end of the film in an entirely different context.
Ed has been bitten,
and offers to stay behind in the basement of the pub
in order to help Shaun and Liz escape.
As Shaun is hit with the gravity of losing his best friend,
he apologizes to Ed for having shouted at him, to which Ed replies:
“I’m sorry too.”
“It’s okay.”
“No no, I’m sorry Shaun.”
“Shaun puzzles, before his expression turns to disgust.”
“Oh god. That’s not funny.”
“I’ll stop doing them when you stop laughing.”
“I’m not laughing.”
This is the culmination of everything Shaun of the Dead does so well.
A bit of humor that expresses character,
reframed by the context of the story world in a way that affects us emotionally.
If you strip away the outer layers of the movie,
it has the foundation of a simple drama
about a man who needs to change his life in order to save his relationship.
Add in zombies, and you have a drama-slash-horror film
where the protagonist will die unless he finds the courage to transform the way he lives his life.
And finally, add comedy into the mix and you have a “zomromcom,”
where the humor, characters, and story world all emerge organically
from the hero of Shaun of the Dead.
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