Screenwriter Research

Simon Pegg is mainly known for his acting in multiple genres from comedy to sci-fi but he is also known for scripting in genres from, you guessed it, comedy to sci-fi. Simon started screenwriting very early on in his career as he co-wrote Spaced alongside Edgar Wright; Spaced is a screwball comedy sitcom which Pegg also starred in. It's a common occurrence for Pegg to star in films he's wrote as this carries through to films including Paul, Hot Fuzz, The World's End and Shaun of the Dead. Pegg does have a clear writing style which is very dry humour, but this also doesn't stop him from adding in pop culture references. Pegg stated in an interview with Total Film "Be meticulous when you right, don't underestimate you're audience’s ability to get stuff." This applies to Paul; the film pays homage to E.T by Steven Spielberg, Pegg said in an interview with Digital Spy "His films were enormously important to us growing up" and the references to E.T in Paul show this. An example of this is when Jason Batemen's character is asked if the alien Paul has "phoned home".

One of the ways that this will influence me in the future is by adding my favourite references to pop culture in my work, this would especially come into effect if I was writing a comedy, I'd be able to references Pegg's work as I really enjoy watching his films. You can apply references to most scripts but due to my script being a drama and referencing real situations like violence and crime I didn't feel it would suit this specific script but it will definitely be involved in future work.

Simon most successful work was the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy that he co-wrote with director Edgar Wright, these films include Hot Fuzz, The World's End and Shaun of the Dead. A video posted to youtube shows an insight into Wright and Pegg's writing style when it came to Hot Fuzz. The video shows every detail of the film in mind maps, quote bubbles and chronological order of where they plan the film to go. It's not often that you see how much detail goes into writing a film and the thought processes behind them both. One thing I believe that definitely helped them was that Wright was directing and Pegg was starring so you can only assume they both had a lot of say in what went into the film. When it come to writing my script I wanted to know the whole story from start to finish before I even started writing and following this technique that Pegg used really helped me to map out my story and it gave me a clear insight into my script as I could go into depth with the character and break down the story scene by scene.

I'm a big fan of Pegg's dry and witty humour which also incorporates and references culture but not only this the way he breaks down the story to the tiny details will certainly help me become a better writer.

References:

Simon Reynolds. 2011. 'Paul' Simon Pegg and Nick Frost interview. Online. Digital Spy.

[Accessed on 15/12/2021]

Total Film. 2013. Scriptwriting Tips from Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Simon Pegg. Online Video. 

[Accessed on 15/12/2021]