Visual Style by Jimmy May

Just a few images from some films and TV shows I felt were appropriate to reflect some of the visual style I'd like to create. Firstly, How Not To Live Your Life, Don Danburry's character is a very irritating, seemingly cool but hideously idiotic character. The shots used in the series are pretty standard, nothing overly special but there is a nice colour and warmth to the cinematography which adds a real homely feel.

Nathan Barley is one of my favorite television series of all time. The cinematography is punctuated with lots of use of colour and lighting, which reflects the content. This isn't something I'd consider for our project, however I feel that his character and the way they shoot him is quite important - He is a "Cool Kid," Overly confident, dumb, ignorant. The cameramen use sharp zooms, focus pulls and movement to reflect this, an edgy camera style for an edgy character.

Gavin and Stacey I think is a great example of a well shot sitcom. I think for our film, I would go with an almost "Sitcom" style of camera work, I feel it fits the content more than making it appear "epic." I'd also like to experiment with the camera being almost a CCTV camera, so it is positioned in places you might not expect to catch action.

Mike Baldwin from Coronation Street was one of my favourite characters of all time. I thought his storylines and acting was superb - a real villan, but a clever one. Coronation Street isn't necessarily an influence of mine, but I wanted to include his character in this research. Hopefully the actors we work with will give us an assured performance.

Shaun Of The Dead I included mainly for the interaction between the characters and because it is a great example of British comedy. I think it is interesting how they shoot the relationship between Shaun and Ed, I also like the "plan" shots, where they discuss what they are going to do to survive the zombie apocolypse.

Human Traffic is also a great British film, in this instance showing "Jip" the main character at his workplace. There is some really intricate cinematography in Human Traffic - something maybe we could explore in our film, using small spaces and making them really come to life using clever camerawork.

The Peep Show and The Office were obvious choices because of the office settings. Peep show has its own really defined style, extensive use of POV shots to tell their stories and lifestyles. The Office also has its own style, whilst watching, I noticed a lot of long shots, almost surveillance style, looking over divides, as though the camera is us, spying on the main characters. I think this is also an interesting style, something that could benefit our film.