This is England opening sequence

This is England is a film directed by Shane Medows in 2006

Narrative Context

The story line of the film revolvesaround 1980's england. The main characters are a group of skin heads lead by there leader woody, after seeing a Young boy upset from bullying they decided to adopt him and welcome him into the gang, shaving his head, buying him a shirt and doc martens and letting him join in with all the gang activities. But the story soon takes a turn for the worse when a racist skin head named Combo turns up and convinces the boy to join him. The film focuses on the racist rebellion of that time and the social annoyance with immagration that was going on when the film was set.

The opening sequence has no narrative at all concerning the story line.  The sequence, is a series of short clips, not filmed by shane medows,  that lasts roughly 3 minutes 15 seconds. The short clips contain many different things that were happening during this time in England and also all following with the themes of the film such as war, racism, skin heads and politics. The images shown in the opening are very important as they foreshadow events that come up later in the film such as Margeret Thatcher and the Falklands war.  Right at the end of the opening there is a few seconds of actually footage of the film and this is the only insight the audience get into the characters. The films shows a boy lying in bed with a picture of a man in an army uniform next to his bed, you can hear margert Thatcher on the radio and the words, 'July 1983', 'last day of term', come up on the screen. He then gets up and leaves the house.

The video's shown in the opening are often happy but some are also sad. And this links with the feeling of the film.  There is some videos happy things that happened in this era, there is a man playing with a rubix cube, CD's being manufactured, but there is also videos of riots, war wounds and army men being sent to war.

Enigma Codes

Due to the nature of this opening sequence, the main question that the audience will ask is, 'what does all this footage have to do with the story?', the footage is a collaboration of events that most of the audience will know about, so they will be intrigued to know how this relates to the story line. Other than the questions raised by the past footage. The questions raised by the end of the opening when the boy is lying in the bed are, 'who is the man in the army uniform?', 'what significance does this day have?' and also 'who is this boy?'. Audience members will straight away link together the army man with the previous war footage, this will keep them engaged and wondering what significance all this has.

Character

The only character established in the opening is the main character 'Shaun'. The audience will establish that he is probably the main char cater as he opens the entire film. He is represented straight away in a way that is typical of social realism you can tell by his room thay he is not very wealthy and is living a working class life. You can also tell by the picture on his night stand that someone close to him has gone to war, this shows more about the status of his character. When he gets up you see his hole body and he is just wearing white Y- Fronts. This establishes his age to the audience. When he leaves the house at the end of the opening sequence, he is wearing an outfit that would of been typical of a sub- culture of that era. You also see his house when he leaves which gives the audience more insight into his class.

Location

The series of clips at the start are all set in different locations, all significant to this decade in someway, therefore establishing the time the film is set in to the audience. These settings also show the audience some of the themes that will be mentioned in the film later.

When the shot of the boys room comes on the screen, the audience will gather things about the character through the surroundings. His room is small and lit through natural light, he has peeling wall paper on the wall, and an old clock, blanket and photo all resting on a chair. Other than this his room seems quite bare. This will show the audience straight away that the character is not very wealthy.

When the shot form outside his house is shown the audience see a grey, semi detached house that looks very average and normal for those times. Even by this little time of seeing this character the audience can know a lot about Shaun.

Editing and Camera

Because this film is social realism, i think that the makers of the film have deliberately picked the clips at the start to look authentic and of the time. Therefore keeping with the social aspect that the film is focusing on. After these shots there is a black out than a fade into the photo of Shaun's dad. I think a fade has been used to here to separate all the previous footage from the actually story its self. I think they have also used a close up on the photo to show the importance of Shaun's dad to him. When the clock goes up one more minute, words  come on the screen, and alarm goes off, and the radio starts playing. I think using the change of time as a trigger for all the action to start was very effective.  Shaun than stands up, but the camera stays in one place this was done firstly to make the film look less professional and glossy, as social realism films often look quite raw, and also to show his height and stance. I think this is also important as the shot stays on his bed and wall, keeping the mise-en-scene visible to the audience.  There is no dissolves or fades, the cuts are all simple, this fits with the simple look of social realism films.

Sound

Whilst all the clips are playing no sound from the clips can be heard, but the song '65-46' by Toots and the Maytals is playing. One reason they have chosen this song is because it was popular in this era, the other is that I think it makes the opening feel very happy and free. Although some of the clips are sad, the music makes the audience feel happy and rebellious against the clips which fits with the rebellious themes of the film. The music fades on the last short clip of an injured army man, this is effective as the silence draws attention to the clip and that section ends on a serious note.  When the scene goes to to Shaun's bedroom there is no sound other than the sound in the scene. The audience do not hear Shaun speak at all in the opening. This is effective as later, the first time you hear Shaun speak, he says 'fuck off', this makes that dialogue more shocking.

Genre

 One of the conventions that has not been followed very much of social realism films is that little of the story was shown. In iconic social realism openings such as Trainspotting, more characters are introduced and more happens. The conventions that have been followed are the still camera and little panning which adds authenticity to the opening. And also the mise-en-scene and character are very common in social realism.