How do the production

practices appeal to the target

audience in ‘This is
England’?
JACK FOX
The target audience of ‘This Is England” is aimed perhaps at the working class,
most likely teenagers, because the working class can relate to this film, because
of the setting and story line, and because most of the cast are teens/young adults,
it enables teenagers to relate to the film a lot. The production practices are, in my
opinion basic, because the set is pre-fabricated in residential areas of
Nottingham, which makes it realistic, which helps the audience relate.

One element, which makes the film feel realistic, is the camera work. The camera
work in the film is mainly handheld, which almost places the audience in the
room, with the characters, as if they are involved in the story line. Handheld
camera makes the shot shaky, like a homemade video, which is another element
makes the film more realistic. It is clear that Shane Meadows is trying hard to
portray realism extensively, because throughout most (if not all) of the film,
natural light is used, by this I mean non other than daylight, or normal ambient
lights of a building, of course this adds to the realism factor of the movie, because
it makes the shots look natural. Using all these techniques is not only successful
to adding realism to the film, but it is also very inexpensive, so the production
team would not need to spend a large percent of their budget (which was
£1,500,000) on things like a set, and/or lighting.

Shane Meadows and his casting team decided to hire less established actors to
portray his characters, which is also inexpensive, compared to hiring a well
established, Hollywood actor. Another benefit of using a less established actor in
a film like This Is England, is that the audience may not have seen these actors in
anything else before, therefore they are able to believe the roles they are playing
more, because the audience do not have any other movies to compare them too.
The protagonist ‘Shaun’ was a young boy, who has a amusing character, so a
large audience will find him likeable.

Working class Britain in 1983 is obviously the main factor of the mise en scene in
this film, because the houses, and the neighborhood are perhaps quite worn out,
and scruffy, and all the houses looked similar, which we could connote that this is
a council estate. Usually Directors rent cars to use a props for their film, but
Shane Meadows actually brought some of his cars from ebay, which didn’t work,
and just placed them in a set to add realism and because the cars were typical
1980’s cars, it added a sense of time.

Even though most of the characters are young, I think that the older generation
can relate to the film, because they can look at different aspects of the film, and
remember them from when they were young, and they can compare then, and
now because it is a great contrast between what it was like in the 1980’s, and
2010.

Overall I think that Shane Meadows used different techniques to produce realism
really successfully, and the film has obviously been a success making revenue
over $8,069,240 in the box office.