Analysis of the production practices This is England

The film This is England is an auto biography of Shane meadows life. The film is about a young lad growing up in 1983. The skinhead era. One day the young lad Shaun was walking home from school where he just had a fight. He comes across the group of skinheads. Woody and his gang. They are just hanging about having a laugh and welcome Shaun in to the group. They instantly become best friends and they change his looks to suit the group. By buying him a Ben Sherman shirt, Doc Martin boots and a skinhead hair style. This all changes when Combo an old mate of Woody’s comes back. Combo is a bitter, dangerous, racist, militant and psychotic man. This is your typical skinhead culture. When combo comes back it upsets the mood and friendship in the gang. The gang splits with Woody leaving and taking a few lads with him. Therefore leaving the rest with Combo. Shaun stays realising what had happened to his dad to encouraging him to stay. Throughout the film the Shaun and Combo are the main two characters. I think this is done so that it shows the same culture in such different age groups. I think that Combo is bring up Shaun the way he was brought up when he was a young boy. This is mainly from people in the working class. This is because there was high unemployment in working class. This became people forming gangs such as the skinheads. This could be resembled as the Midlands man. Working class that is unemployed and resulted into the skinhead culture.
They female charm was very common in the 1980’s. This is where women have control over men by charming them. This is known when the girl and Shaun get together. She charms Shaun into liking her.
The cameras used in This is England are 30mm camera lensend. This is a good quality that can give a good picture. As the budget was low for the film they spent money on the camera quality to make what they had filmed good. There was not a lot of editing through the film as they wanted to make the mise en scene in the film as natural as possible.
The actors used in This is England are not well known. Shane Meadows did this because he didn’t want a well known actor that would be in what is quite a racist film. For example having Johnny Depp acting a Combo would seem convincing to the audience. So having an unknown actor like Stephen Graham is really convincing and makes it feel more realistic.
The lighting used through out the film are mostly from natural light. This is because they are on a tight budget and can not afford to pay for lighting scenes. Also by having natural lighting it gives the film a feel of the period it is set in and the location. The time period was the 1980’s (1983). In this era there wasn’t much to lighting in houses. Also as it is set in the urban area in Nottingham on a council estate the mise en scene is really dull, as they would have much money to buy what would be expensive lighting.
Props and costumes used in this is England are critical as there isn’t a very big budget and that they need to get the most suitable props for every scene. For example when using the cars for the mise en scene in the 1980’s they bought old cars off ebay instead of hiring them. This would save a lot of money. The cars don’t have to even work they used cars they didn’t run but used them as parked cars.