Over the past two and a half media lessons we have watched This Is England. This Is England is directed by Shane Meadows. The film is set in 1983 and was released in 2006. The film is followed by 3 series that are each set 2 years apart and show the character progression. This is England showcases the many racial difficulties at the time and realistically shows what it was like, for some people, to grow up in the 80s. The film follows the life’s of a group of ‘skin heads’ living in a town in the Midlands. The leader of the gang is called Woody, who sees a young lad called Shaun walking home from school upset and from this Woody decides to adopt him into the group. As the group adapts to having Shaun as a new member and start to like him and accept him, they are disturbed by an old friend of Woody’s called Combo, who returns from prison to surprise Woody. Combo tries to rekindle his friendship with Woody but with them having so much time apart it becomes apparent that they have both changed. However Combo has changed to become very patriotic and ‘proud’ to be British and through this he is a very racist character which upsets the only black member of the group, Milky, and along with upsetting Milky, Combo also upsets a lot of other members in the group creating a group divide. This divide eventually causes a lot of pain and upset and leads to Combo brutally attacking Milky.
I enjoyed watching This is England and feel it successfully handled the racial issues of the early 80s and provokes the realisation of how much things have changed since then. The storyline to This is England did well with playing with the audiences emotions and made you really empathise with the characters. Since watching This is England in class, I have started watching the following TV series Shane Meadows has made and hope they are just as good as the film.
At the beginning of the film, the camera slowly cranes down across a large grey building to eventually focus on the character, Heather. This helps to focus the audiences attention and it becomes clear to the audience that she is the main character. When the audience is viewing Heather the camera never looks up at her, it looks directly at her. This shows that she isn’t superior to the audience, the effect this has is that the audience find it easier to empathise with her and relate to the situation she’s in. In the call centre, there are multiple repeated close ups of the clock on the wall. This symbolises the importance of time through out the film and how time is running out for Heather to save the man and time is running out in the mans life, he is getting closer and closer to dying. As the audience are taken into the office, there’s is an establishing shot of the office and where she sits, showing the audience how she is quite lonely and isolated because she isn’t sat near anyone else and the office is where she must spend most of her time so it could also show her lack of friends and in effect show how the small relationships she makes with the elderly people on the phone are as important to her as they are to the people she is helping because it gives her someone to talk to aswell. As the man is shown as having passed away in his home, the camera looks up at the door his wife enters the house through. This is symbolic of looking up at heaven and therefore the mans wife being an angel, it also shows the importance of his wife because she is to be looked up at.
Sounds Design:
The non-diegetic sounds of Jazz music connects with and adds more emotion to the mans story, because he explains how he used to play in a Jazz band and him and his wife used to go to Jazz concerts together , showing how the music connects to the time when he was happiest in his life because his wife was still with him. The Jazz music also relates to the mans age as Jazz music was most popular a long time and it was most popular in the mans youth. When the camera is in the mans house there is a diegetic clock ticking, along side the repeated shots of the clock, this emphasises the passing of time until he dies, but the sound also emphasises how lonely the man is without his wife because when he is sat at home the sounds of the clock is what he can hear because he lives alone and there is no one for him to talk to. This diegetic clock noise is also louder in the woman’s office, showing that she cares more for him dying than he does because he feels that it is the right time to die because he can’t go on any longer without his wife. Through the phone there is the added sound effect of heavy breathing that becomes louder as the mans death is becoming more imminet. Which again shows how time is becoming more scarce and like in horror films, the heavy breathing shows the mans fear of death, even though he wants to die, he is scared of it happening, when he first speaks to Heather, he says he is scared.
Editing:
A blue filter is added to the film, this gives the film a very cold and lonely feeling, which reflects how Heather and the man are feeling. A slow fade is added between most scenes, this adds to the idea of time passing. Sound bridges of Heather and the man talking are added between some scenes, this shows their relationship coming together and them forming a stronger bond the more they talk. The pace of the editing increases as the jeopardy increase, the jeopardy being his death so as the pace increases the time left until he dies decreases.
Mise-en-scene:
As the film starts you see a large grey building, all the colour is very plain and cold so it feels quite empty, also connecting to how lonely Heather is as she is in a big city on her own. However against the plain background her brightly coloured hat stands out making her the main focus of the scene and giving her the audiences attention. In the call centre, the walls are very plain and blue and everything is very dull and impersonal, which creates a juxtaposition between the impersonal surroundings and the very personal phone calls they receive there. Also against the surroundings her face looks more colourful and warmer, showing her as a very friendly and welcoming person. The mans house is very white and pure, symbolising heaven and how he has now died and gone to heaven. In the house there is also shown to be a mantle piece cluttered with little ornaments, this is stereotypical of an old person so links to the mans age. Heather is wearing very relaxed clothing that doesn’t hug her figure, she isn’t trying to look attractive making her easier to relate to for the audience and showing that she cares more about her job because she isn’t there to look all made up, she’s just there to help people. At the end of the short film, the room is a lot more colourful, giving it a happier, more romantic feeling, which also gives these feelings to her finally having a date with her colleague, making the audience fell happy for Heather.
Megan Jackson's AS Media Studies Blog 