A Fistful Of Fingers

Spaced director Edgar Wright's directorial debut, A Fistful of Fingers, demonstrates an early example of what has become his trademark style. Wright, just 19 at the time, had a minute budget, school friends instead of actors, and Wookey Hole to contend with when trying to create the 'greatest Western ever made'. However, despite these restrictions, A Fistful of Fingers reveals why Wright has become one of Britain's finest directors. Although the implications of a young, naïve crew are apparent, the film also displays an excited and a fearless exploration of filmmaking rarely seen from an established name.

As could only be expected, with all experimentations, some techniques do not work within the film. This is demonstrated through the use of metatheatrical references; whilst a Native American woman asking if she gets any lines succeeds by allowing the audience to reminisce over certain genre conventions, an 'Edge of Frame' sign placed next to an 'Edge of Cliff' sign creates a certain discomfort in the relationship between the creator and the viewer. However, it is these mistakes which have served to give Wright the critical eye and analytical judgement which forms a large part of his work today.

A Fistful of Fingers gave Wright his break into television and the subsequent progression back to the big screen; it is within this time that Edgar Wright forged a successful creative partnership with Simon Pegg. Wright's trademark crash zooms and fast style contributed to the cult success of Spaced and the more universally acknowledged success of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.

It is evident that A Fistful of Fingers has given Wright the education and confidence required for this development and there are certain elements in this film which become a standard within his later work; the combination of a true love of film and a daring attitude to parody is already being explored here. Even from the titles of A Fistful of Fingers or Shaun of the Dead, the viewer can begin to build certain assumptions about how the film will progress. This exploration of parody and reference to previous films, which later extends to Pegg and Wright referencing their own work, is something which has grown rapidly in the past decade and is becoming a genre in itself.

Where Wright's work differs from films such as Scary Movie, Meet the Spartans and Epic Movie however is that he puts the parody secondary to plot and exposition; whilst he finds pleasure in creating signifiers for the avid consumer, the film itself, would stand up to the rigours of the genre it is emulating.

Wright and his young crew were not intimidated by their £10,000 budget; in fact, they worked incredibly hard to stretch this on such an ambitious project. Instead of compromising on the content of the film, Wright used hobby horses, rubber snakes and an abundance of Milky Bar wrappers to enable his story to go as far as possible. Whilst this primarily serves to remind the viewer of the inexperience of the filmmakers, it also has comic intent of its own; through the use of hobby horses, Wright was able to create an extremely graphic death and the scene of a man crying over, and subsequently burying, his hobby horse becomes witty, instead of touching or sad.

Throughout his career so far, Wright has constantly been challenged with his own creative ideas and energy which far superseded the budget he is given. In the past he has said: even as the budgets get higher, if the ambition of each project increases, you don't always feel the benefit.