The thing that stood out straight away was the rather slow start of Sergeant Nicholas Angel walking briskly accross the floor in silence, his footsteps echoing loudly around the large room. This slow start is quite long and monotonous but creates tension and makes the viewer curious as to who this person is, what they are doing etc. This scene also shows a great contrast to the next scene which is fast with lots of short, speedy shots.
At the very beginning as the film studios' logos are being shown, you can hear the sound of the loud police sirens which tell you immediately that this is a film involving police. Sgt Angel is also introduced almost immediately and his whole career as a police-man-officer is shown all in the first couple of minutes. Martin Freeman's voice over plays a huge part in the illustration of the story here as it tells you what is going on as the images of Sgt Angel doing various duties as a P.C. are very fast-paced and would have been hard to understand without this narrative.
Louise and I would really like to make a film where the main character(s) and/or the plot/setting etc. is introduced in a similar way.
I really like Edgar Wright's "screen wipe" technique where a shot is "wiped" off the screen to reveal the next one. Sometimes it is supposed to look like a figure walking in front of the screen to then show the next shot and others it is just a sort of swipe across to move closer on an object via another, closer shot. It is hard to explain but hopefully Louise and I can try out this technique in a few days' time as a practice because if we can manage to do it properly we would love to use it in our final film.
Another of Wright's shooting techniques (also hard to explain - hopefully I can describe more fully when I have learnt the correct terms) is where a shot is about to end then the camera is moved swiftly either left, right, up or down then the next shot (sometimes a different location/scene) continues with this motion in the same direction. If you have seen the film you will hopefully know what I mean!
To continue talking about the introduction with the Martin Freeman narrative, I like the quick shots of Angel walking. There are lots of shots all together to show he is walking purposefully, proffesionally and fast...ly.
All the focus is on Angel and most of the time - mainly close up shots - the extras and minor characters are blurred/ out of focus. This shows that Angel is the hero and also perhaps that he is better than them at all the activities.
In the scene where they are running through the blue punch bag things there are cross dissolved shots and also when Angel is handcuffing someone this same cross-dissolving technique is used (this technique - along with many others - is coincidentally shown in this trailer below).
I like the way shots/scenes are changed by eg. the clicking of a pen, projector remote, camera flash etc.
I like the characters' quirky facial expressions which add to the comedy of the script. The unrealistic and sometimes verging on surreal elements of the film eg. the time scale where Steve Coogan's character enters the room just as the phone is being dialed.
Sound is a massive factor in the success of this film. All the sounds are exaggerated. There is even a swooping kind of sound in the "screen wipe" scene changes and Wright's shooting technique #2 to add more movement and set the pace.
I could go on all day about this and if I think of anything more that could be relevant I will post another blog but for now I'd better save the poor souls who have to read this and stop my rambling.
One of the many quick, short shots in the scene where Angel travels to Sandford. Each shot has a different sound (trains, cars, phone etc.)
Minor characters out of focus, all focus on Mr Skinner, the villain.
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