Editing

Hot Fuzz

In the intro of Hot Fuzz, the director Edgar Wright uses interesting and unique scene transitions to create a simple yet effective montage which helps to establish the main protagonist of the story to the audience. The scene begins with a wide shot from the point of view of someone sitting at the reception of the police station. We see the protagonist arriving and walking up to the reception desk with a strong and determined stride. Furthermore, there is a subtle use of back lighting to create the effect that he is walking towards us from a sunset, which strongly reinforces the audience's idea of a stereotypical hero and protagonist. 

The protagonist then walks up to the camera and the camera zooms into a close up to show us his identification card. This is a a very interesting and unconventional way of introducing the protagonist to the audience, what's more is that Wright uses this small introduction and turns it into visual comedy as the protagonist has the same serious face that he uses in his identification photo. 

The director then uses a number of various profile tracking shots with a mix of transitions to zoom into the protagonist's face. The profile photo is unique, as the frame makes it look as if it is from the point of view of the people in the office who are looking at the protagonist walking in. The way he uses transition is very unique, for example, when there is the tracking shot of the protagonist walking down the offices, we will occasionally see people walking in front of the camera, which is something that Wright utilises and uses each person that walks past as a wipe transition to a tighter frame. These tighter close ups are much more focused on the small details of the character, such as his lapels which are a stereotypical connotation of a police officer. Another form of transition that Wright is most commonly known for is that the camera will move away from the object in the frame and that transition will seamlessly flow with another shot where the camera moves from something blurry to the object in question, in this case, the protagonist.

He uses this technique again as he utilises the situation of the protagonist to visually make the scene less bland but much more unique, for example, when they show the protagonist running through the bags hanging, he uses the bags flailing around as a wipe transition when they cover the entire frame, because no one really wants to see a few empty frames of nothing so instead he uses this opportunity to transition to another scene with more detail and story. These short and repetitive cuts increase the pace of the scene in general. He also uses shaky camera when it is appropriate to the situation, for example when the protagonist is put into the riot control situation, there are a lot of flashes and shaking of the camera which help to signify the violent and aggressive tone presented in the scenario.

Wright also uses matching scene transitions in his intro, such as when the camera is zooming into the protagonist at the desk which then cuts to the protagonist receiving his award and the camera zooms away. In between these two shots, there is a flash which is coming from the cameras taking his photograph, the director subtly uses these flashes as a very quick straight cut which gives us the sense of how it is a montage and generally helps to set the pace of the scene. The pace is rapid and fast, which easily helps to condense the background of the protagonist but is also simple enough that the audience is easily able to understand and comprehend everything that is being said about him.

The scene where is walking up the stairs is unconventional because of the fact that the camera is placed behind the stairs which visually impairs the audience's sight, but the camera still tracks the protagonist as he walks up by tilting the camera up, what's even more unique is that it tilts back down and away from the protagonist to transition to another scene.

We then see the protagonist talking to two people in a medium shot where he is in between both of them, and the scene transitions to another scene where he is talking to another two but different people and is standing in a different location but in the same way. The fact that these two scenes match again shows the idea of a flowing narrative and instead of juxtaposition, it creates a complimenting idea between them both. This technique of matching scenes and continuity edits is used again but in a different way when we see the protagonist taking part in different sports, the protagonist is presented in the middle of the frame of the same location but the scene is rapidly changing to show to the audience the variety of the protagonist's personality and consistent success.

Overall, Wright uses a consistent and various amount of different medium and close up shots, when he does use the close up shots its mostly to show the details of the things going on, for example when the protagonist is arresting someone, we see a close up of hands in handcuffs. This is effective as we don't see a full story but flashes of small images that we as the audience can make connections between ideas for example, we specifically visualise and represent handcuffs to police work. Wright also uses many transitions where the camera moves away from the object or zooms out and zooms in, which easily help to set the rapid pace of the scenes being presented and easily helps to condense the narrative down into a montage.