This is England Case Study

Certification: 18 http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2007/apr/23/an18forthisisenglandthis

There was much uproar about the BBFC’s decision to make the film and 18 for its “realistic violence and racist language”. The makers believed that the ones who would benefit the film the most would not permitted to see the film due to this. Bristol City Council decided to give the film a 15 certificate but whether or not it will be changed remains to be seen.

Locations:
The ending credits were filmed in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, England, UK.
Most of it was filmed in Nottingham except the abandoned houses which were filmed in RAF Newton, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England, UK.
This was a place where This Is England was filmed

Funding: National Lottery

Production Companies
· Big Arty Productions
· EM Media
· Film4
· Optimum Releasing
· Screen Yorkshire
· UK Film Council
· Warp Films
Distributors
· IFC Films (2007) (USA) (theatrical)
· IFC First Take (2007) (USA) (theatrical)
· Madman Entertainment (2007) (Australia) (all media)
· NetFlix (2007) (USA) (DVD)
· NonStop Entertainment (2007) (Sweden) (theatrical)
· Optimum Releasing (2006) (UK) (theatrical)
· Red Envelope Entertainment (2007) (USA) (DVD)
· Sandrew Metronome Distribution (2008) (Finland) (DVD)
Special Effects
· MotionFX (digital intermediate)
Other Companies
· Abadia Catering catering
· Anglo American Filming Vehicles tracking vehicles (as Anglo American)
· Arn Lighting lighting equipment
· Barclays Bank PLC banking services
· Chitwell Van Hire vehicle hire
· Clearing House, The clearances
· DeLuxe Laboratories prints by
· EM Foundation publicity: UK
· EM Media developed by
· Film Finance completion guarantor (as Film Finances Inc.)
· Film Lab North rushes processing
· FilmFour developed by
· Ice Films camera and grip equipment (as ICE Films)
· Ice House accommodation
· Kodak film stock
· Kodak filmed on
· Media Insurance Brokers insurance (as Media Insurances Brokers)
· Movie Makers facilities vehicles
· Premiere Travel Inn hotel
· Saco World accommodation
· Sapex Scripts post-production script
· Spool Post Production audio & offline post facility
· Trans Sport rigging equipment (as Trans-Sport)
· Urban Short Stay accommodation
· Videosonics Cinema Sound sound re-recording
· Wavendcommunications communications equipment (as Wavend Communications)
· Whitehouse & Co legal and business affairs
· Works, The international sales
Review from Peter Bradshaw (British):
“Shane Meadows continues his fast and fluent film-making career with this quasi-autobiographical picture about skinheads: a movie with hints of Alan Clarke's Made in Britain and, in its final image, the haunted disenchantment of Truffaut's The 400 Blows. It is a sad, painful and sometimes funny story from the white working classes of 1980s Britain, the cannon-fodder caste alienated from Falklands rejoicing on the home front and not invited to participate in the nation's promised service-economy prosperity.
Meadows boldly attempts to reclaim the skinhead from the traditional neo-Nazi image, explicitly distinguishing his characters from a separate racist influence, and presenting them as an anarchic youth tribe that idolised West Indian music. He sees their susceptibility to the extremist right as a poignant and even tragic part of their fatherless culture, literally and figuratively orphaned by the times.
There's a winning lead performance from 13-year-old newcomer Thomas Turgoose playing a put-upon lad called Shaun in the run-down Grimsby of 1983. His dad was a serviceman killed in the Falklands and he's perennially getting picked on for this, and for his horrible flared jeans which make him look, as one bully cruelly puts it, like Keith Chegwin's son. Sloping and moping his way home after a standard-issue school day of humiliation, Shaun gets waylaid by some skins in a dodgy underpass, but instead of yet more battering, the gang give him sympathy and understanding; they become Shaun's only friends, and with a new Ben Sherman shirt and number one cut, Shaun has new pride and a new identity.
The gang's leader is Woody - a cheerful, sparky performance from Joe Gilgun - and they have an African-Caribbean member facetiously nicknamed Milky, played by Meadows regular Andrew Shim; Shaun even finds romance with one of the group's girl-punk fellow travellers: a languid and rather elegant older woman called Smell (Rosamund Hanson) who earnestly explains to Shaun's mum that she is called that simply because it rhymes with Michelle. The idyll is soon destroyed with the highly unwelcome appearance of Combo, a ferocious and sinister skin warrior just out of prison, played by Stephen Graham. He demands the group join his National Front cell, and turn out for an NF meeting in a tatty pub, addressed by one of the movement's suit-wearing officer class, played in cameo by Frank Harper.
Turgoose is the picture's heart and soul, and it's a terrifically natural, easy and commanding performance. Turgoose's open face radiates charm, and then, when he goes over to the dark side of racism, a creepy, anti-cherubic scorn: almost like one of the little blond kids in Village of the Damned. But Meadows is always concerned to preserve a sympathetic core to Shaun, and in fact to all the skins. Even the deeply objectionable Combo is shown to be suffering from emotional pain.
Like Meadows' earlier pictures, Dead Man's Shoes and A Room for Romeo Brass, This Is England is about younger, vulnerable figures being taken under the wing of older, flawed men, and this personal theme here finds its richest and maturest expression yet. As to whether we should buy its implied leniency about skinhead culture: that is another question. The West Indian influence is advanced as proof that skins were not necessarily racist: yet it can't cancel out Combo's hate campaign against South Asians, the "Pakis" who "smell of curry", a campaign which goes quite unchallenged or even unremarked upon by any of the skins, good or bad.
The skinhead identity is, after all, obviously supposed to be more aggressive than that of other tribes: I remember as a 10-year-old cowering on the terraces of Watford football club in the early 70s, as the Luton boot boys got stuck in, and my father grimly telling me that the reason they shaved their heads that way was so the coppers couldn't grab them by the hair. Whether or not that is true, it certainly made the wearer's head look like a big, third clenched fist. And it's still difficult to get a handle on them.
Meadows appears to want to find emotional truths behind the bravado, to find reasons for the male rage. It's a valid quest, and there are telling and touching moments, particularly between Turgoose and Rosamund Hanson. I found myself wishing that their love story could occupy more of the film, maybe for the same reason that the Shane Meadows film I have enjoyed most is the one his real fans loathe: the comedy Once Upon a Time in the Midlands. But from the get-go of this drama, it is obvious that things are heading only one way: towards a climactic flourish of violence, and it's a glum business wondering to whom and from whom this is going to happen. This is a violent subject, and these are violent people, and yet I couldn't help feeling that Meadows is, as so often, more comfortable with machismo than with the humour and gentleness which play a smaller, yet intensely welcome part of his movies. However agnostic I confess to still feeling about his work, there's no doubt that Meadows is a real film-maker with a growing and evolving career, and with his own natural cinematic language. When I think of his films, I think, for good or ill: this is English cinema.”

Script for Thriller Opening First Shot

Boyfriend: [Annoyed] What d'ya want me down 'ere for then?

Alice: [Desperate] I can't do it.

Boyfriend: [Confused, angry] Do what?

Alice: [Begginning to cry] You, the drugs, everything.

Boyfriend: [laughs nervously] Don't be so stupid-

Alice: [Stubborn but still sad] No! It was only meant to be one time and now look at us, look at me. It's got to end...

Film distribution in Norwich

Odeon
Total number of films being exhibited: 19
Total number of screenings: 74
This is on average 4 showings per film, each day, obviously this varies on how long the film has been released.
Hollywood films: 63%
British films: 31%
Foreign: 6%
Australasian or Canadian: 0%

Vue
Total number of films being exhibited: 10
Total number of screenings: 31
This is on average 3 showings per film, again varying on age of the film.
Hollywood films: 70%
British films: 20%
Foreign films: 10%
Australasian or Canadian: 0%

Hollywood
Total number of films exhibited: 8
Total number of screenings: 30
This is on average 4 showings per film which is the same as Odeon cinema, the largest of all the multiplexes in Norwich.
Hollywood films: 87%
British films: 13%

I found out that the majority of films shown in multiplexes are American this is largely down to Hollywood’s amount of resources and money. Also, the most famous actors/tress are American. This means that most films shown in the UK do not always relate to the audiences watching them and are often unintelligent and made quickly.
Nevertheless British films are still shown in all cinemas but there are not enough opportunities for British film makers, actors, directors and technicians, which is why there are fewer released than Hollywood.
Bette Midler on Hollywood Films: "Look at the movies that they put out... It's so junky. So much junk, it's like the food. No content. Nothing."

Continuity Preliminary task: Shot list

Shot 1 Shot behind when Jonny is walking (low angle shot)

Shot 2 Jonny walking, shot from the front (medium shot, eye level)

Shot 3 Door knob being turned (extreme close up)

Shot 4 Cuts to behind katie, shot of hands tied up from behind the chair. The camera then pans around right towards the door.

Shot 5 Mid shot of Jonny (the abductor)

Shot 6 Over the shoulder shot of the abductor over the shoulder of the prisoner.

Shot 7 Shot-reverse shots of Jonny and Katie speaking (Jonny Left/ Katie Right) Dialogue takes place here.

Shot 8 Jonny leaves the room. (Long shot)

Continuity preliminary task: Script

To set the scene: Jonny is a capturer and Katie is the one being captured.

Jonny:[Shouting] Remember me!
(pause)
[quieter, persuasive] Now then, are you ready to talk? Or will I have to bring in Big Bob to make you!

Katie:[angry] I will never talk, not to you scum.

Jonny:[annoyed but trying to stay calm] Well, there is a price on your head but this may just magically disappear all forgotten if! You give me or my friends some information.

Katie:[definant] I will not utter a word even if it’s my last breath.

Jonny: [Irritated] So be it. I see a more vigilant technique is needed! I think I will bring in big bob to make your acquaintance. Then you might change your mind my dear.

Film making techniques

180 Degree Rule
This technique is crucial in film making and without it you will break the flow of the scene and disorientate the viewer.
The basic idea is that each character must stay on the same sides of the frame at all times. For example: if in a dialogue situation a man and woman were sitting at opposite sides of a table and the camera was position so that the woman was on the right and the man was on the left, if the camera cut to the opposite end of the table the actors would have to swap seats so as not to confuse the audience. If you break the 180 degree rule you are 'crossing the line'. In only one case are you allowed to 'cross the line' and that is if the camera is moving and you physically see the camera 'cross the line'.

Shot-reverse shot
shot-reverse shot is a technique where you have an over shoulder shot of one person looking at another and then it cuts to and over shoulder shot of the first person. It can be used in the same way if a character is looking at a newspaper, for example, and then cuts to the newspaper from their point of view.

Match-On-Action

Match on Action is a technique used in film editing when a cut connects two different views of the same action at the same moment in the movement. You have to carefully match the movement across the two shots to make it seem as though the motion continues uninterrupted.

Thriller Opening Treatment

Our first shot is of a 17 year old girl from behind. She is wondering down a beach (holkam beach on the north-norfolk coast, shown right) along the waters edge, the day is bleak, windy and cold. We chose this setting as, especially at this time of year, it is very isloated and the beach we chose is especially vast. The shot is in black and white and is in slow motion to emphasise the bleak atmosphere. The medium shot is moving along behind her and after 3 seconds begins to pan down and left around her body so that you can see her walking as well as the sea next to her. The camera is eventually situated at her feet from the front. It then pans slowly up her body revealing her distressed appearance, she wears black tights, but no shoes, they are ripped and dirty. She also is wearing shorts, because of the cold weather the audience will feel uncomfortable and already suspect something is not right. A black strap top underneath an oversized white shirt is all she wears on her top half and her make-up has run down her face as if she has been crying, her hair is down but unkempt. When the camera has reached her face it zooms in to a close-up as she is still walking, the frame is then disrupted by intermittent flickers of real-time shots in colour. As this is happening the girls face changes from emotionless to as if she is in pain, then the flickering shots cut over the image of her face and we are in the past. This, although is not the usual thriller way of doing flashbacks in black and white and real time in colour, connotes the girls emotion; when she is on the beach she is an empty shell, colourless and dispondent but in the flashbacks she is a fairly normal teenager living her life.

The flashbacks continue with breaks of the girl walking along the beach in between. The story is then revealed that the girl is a drug addict, born into the world by her boyfriend. Drowning in a world of debt the girl separates from her boyfriend hoping for the debt and drugs to dissappear. Unfortunately, without her boyfriend to keep the dealers off her they start to send threats which she ignores. When the girl is walking home one day, the audience see's a tall man dressed in black walking infront of her. He then turns left into the front garden of a house and the girl stops at the same house, it is then realised that the man is going to her house. The man walks up to the door and kicks it open, the girl's mother is in the kitchen with her younger sibling. The man starts screaming at the mother and pressing a gun on her neck, asking her where her daughter is. When the mother says she doesnt know and that she hasn't seen her for days the man gets angry and kills her. Meanwhile the sibling has run upstairs and hidden in its room, the man decided to go upstairs and look for it. The camera follows the man up the stairs, he has the gun down at his side, finger on the trigger. It then cuts to inside a cupboard slightly ajar, the shot is from the siblings point of view, the man walks into the room and is looking around (similar to the scene in Leon when the 4 year old boy is hiding under the bed). It then cuts to the girl still standing at the front garden and she looks up at the top window, it zooms in on the window (shot reverse shot) and there is flash and a bang that echoes as it zooms in on her face, her eyes are scrunched shut it fades into black and white and we are in back at the beach. The girl is standing still, wind blowing, alone. Her feet are in the water, the camera is behind her as she walks into the water and goes up to her waist, the frame then fades into complete darkness.