Director Research

1. DIRECTOR RESEARCH
MATTHEW VAUGHN

2. • Matthew Vaughn was
born in London. He was
educated at Stowe School in
Buckingham. Then he took
gap year before university and
traveled the world eventually
landing in Los Angeles, where
he began working as an
assistant to a director. He later
returned to university in
London but left his studies
within a few weeks to pursue
his interest of directing and
producing films.

3. At Age 25, Vaughn produced the
thriller, The Innocent Sleep in 1995.
He continued as producer to Guy
Ritchie's film Lock, Stock and Two
Smoking Barrels which was a critically
acclaimed film and achieved financial
success. Vaughn made his directorial
debut in 2004 with Layer Cake.
The film was well received and offers
to direct big banner movies came his
way. He next co-wrote and directed
Stardust and a movie adaptation of
Mark Millar's Kick-Ass.

4. In May 2010, Vaughn directed and co-
write X-Men: First Class which was
released in 2011. Vaughn's next
directorial project in 2013,
was Kingsman: The Secret Service,
scripted by him and Jane Goldman,
and produced by Vaughn's Marv
Films. The film was released in 2015
and in the same year
he also produced Fantastic Four.
Vaughn is currently in talks
to direct a new version of Flash
Gordon.

5. From the start, Vaughn has a certain
liking for thrillers, and I admire this
thriller element in most of his
movies. Always with the intention of
giving the audience adventure and
roller-coaster thrills, he has achieved
that in the action-packed movie –
Kingsman: The Secret Service. In the
Kingsman, the thrills are very refined
using technology and a creative
team to give the shots its
sophisticated look. Crisply edited,
the 410 shots delivered by a team of
approximately 160 Prime Focus
World agents, in all departments and
there is an unstoppable action
movie.

6. The direction, special effects and
musical score are all great in the
movie. Using hyper-kinetic camera
movements and effective use of
slow motion, the cinematography is
excellent. Even in the action
sequences the audience can actually
see everything that is happening,
there is continuity and a high dose
of thrill. The cameras were ARRI
Alexas, used with a 45° shutter to
enhance the energy of the action,
but RED EPIC and Blackmagic
cameras were also used for POV
shots.

7. Even with all the violence there is
minimum blood as Vaughan wanted
the blood sequence to disappear fast
in order to reduce the gore of the
sequences and this approach has
been used throughout the movie.
The special effects were brilliantly
used on Gazelle, portrayed by
actress, Sofia Boutella who is not
actually disabled. But through CGI
audiences could see her with the
running "blade" legs and all the
stunts in her fight scenes, never
realizing that she actually has legs
and not blades.

8. • To top off Vaughn’s direction, each actor gave his best to the movie. Even with
seasoned performers like Collin Firth, Michael Caine, Samuel Jackson, Mark Strong,
the younger and talented Taron Egerton and Sofia Boutella give a very convincing
performance.

9. ADDITIONAL REFERENCE – MARC JOUVENEAU
“The fight in the church was originally designed to be one long continuous shot lasting over six
minutes. It was edited and cut in the end, but there are still three long chunks – each one over
1,000 frames. I supervised it on-set with the second unit, working with director of photography,
Fraser Taggart, and assistant director, Joe Geary.”
“We took a lot of measurements, scans and reference pictures of actors, stunts, special actors
and extras, as well as texture references and a laser scan of the church. During the shoot, we
focused on continuity and the rhythm of the action, and, the sequence was edited by Eddie
Hamilton as we went along.”

10. ADDITIONAL REFERENCE
Even the locations were edited from the actual to give it the exaggerated thrill