Who is Shane Meadows?

Shane Meadows worked his way up from an ex-thief to one of the most known short film directors. After realising that he wasn't going to be a criminal mastermind, Meadows voluntarily worked at Intermedia Film and Video LTD in exchange for use of their filming and editing equipment.

Meadows used his friends and family in his video experiments and once he had completed a few short films his friends and family were impressed by his work and became enthusiastic about appearing in Meadow's work.

Eventually Meadows had a big collection of short films and with the help of his friends he set up an event called ‘Six of the best’ This was a way for Meadow’s and others short film work to be screened because prior to this event, there was no other outlet for short films to be viewed by the wider public. In time ‘Six of the best’ became very popular and became an international video festival called ‘Flip Side’.

‘Where’s the money Ronnie’ is probably Meadows’s best known short film and the one that gained him the interest of the film industry. The short comedy led the path for Meadows to make a channel 4 documentary about Bartley Gorman – a bare knuckle boxer friend of Meadows.

Eventually Meadows had made enough money to create ‘Smalltime’ a short following a gang of small time crooks. This was a perfect example of Meadows’s working philosophy – He stuck to what he knew and this gained the attention Meadows needed to make his first feature film ‘Twentyfour Seven’.

The popular film ‘This is England’ created by Meadows in 2006 was recently made into a small drama on Channel 4 which shows that Meadows is still relevant and developing as a filmmaker. Meadows continues to ‘stick to what he knows’ by returning to short films and focusing much of his work on his friends so that ‘can’t go far wrong’.

PostSecrets Task

'I hate people who remind me of myself'

A young boy hates the fact that he is gay. He is quite popular at school and nobody knows the secret he is hiding. He bullies to boys that are openly gay calling them insulting names. When he gets home we see him on a computer typing to someone in a chatroom and realise that he is on a gay chatroom.

Shane Meadows - The Stairwell

Shane Meadows created this 40 second short film - 'The Stairwell' for The NOKIA Shorts Competition. It was shot on a mobile phone and in my opinion a perfect example of the freedom short film allows a director to have.

-Meadows uses his own version of a steadycam by having the camera attched to the woman's body. This creates a floaty, panicky feeling for the audience.

-The male character is produced from behind. His face is hidden, adding to the mystery and automatically making the audience assume that he is dodgy.

-The music played a big part in manipulating the audience's expectations as it was quite dramatic, building up tension only to reveal the anti-climax.

About a Girl

In this lesson we watched the short film 'About a girl' filmed for the BBC and produced by Janey de Nordwall.

The opening titles are done in a mobile phone text style already allowing the audience to pre-conceive ideas about the film. As mobiles are quite modern and texting is associated with young people the film may be targeted or surrounding young people/teenagers. The title is also a contrasting connection to the mainstream, high budgeted 'About a boy' film.

It opens up with a young girl silhouetted standing in a field. As she's in an isolated field by herself the audience asks themselves 'Where are her parents, Why is she alone while it's getting dark?'She is singing Britney Spears - Stronger giving the impression that she is just a young innocent girl. However the songs she is singing 'stronger' may have underlying meaning to the film.

In the next shot there is an instant change in how she is portayed. She shows a hard exterior and through the location and costume we see that she is from a poor background as she's wearing cheap looking clothes and is walking through a council estate. She's shown to be not as naive as previously portayed when talking to the camera about her dad looking for work and claiming to be grown up because 'I'm 13'

Whilst sitting with her dad the audience can see through their body language tqowards each other that it is a forced relationship on her dad's part. Through her voiceover and cutaways this is reinforced as she's neglected and ignored yet still idolises him.

On the bus with her friends she subtle insight is given into what may happen when she claims that she isn't innocent.

It isn't until right at the end of the film that we see where she is walking to and throws the plastic bag into the canal. The shock of seeing a dead baby shows just how much she has gone through in her short life and that she is a product of her envirionment following her mother's actions of drowning the dog. The camera films the plastic bag being trapped symbolising her and that she will never be able to leave her environment despite her dreams of being a singer.
Reflecting back on the title it is clear that the film is about girls all over the world who fall victim to the vicious circle and become products of their environments.

Prophetic fallacy is used because throughout the short the weather is grey and dull and for the first time the sun comes out after she throws the baby in the canal.

I thought this film was very effective as it was able to portray a message about society whilst still keeping the audience engaged. Although we gathered that she had come from a hard background and had to deal with quite a lot at such a young age, the ending was still a complete shock.

Prey from BDC on Vimeo.

I thought Prey was an effecive short film.Following the codes and conventions of other shorts, it is less genre specific and is shot in a documetnary style- featuring a main protagonist and her story. It also managaes to raise awareness on a growing issue about illegal cabs.

The mise-en-scene gives off a good vibe as the character is quite upbeat and has smudged makeup as if she had a good night out. However it becomes clear through the change in her tone and use of cutaways as flashbacks that everything isn't as it seems.

The use of camera movement in this short film is prominent as the camera is static when on the protagonist. It isn't until she reveals the bruise herself that the audience are able to see the full extent to what happened.

Short films chosen by class

In class a few people showed a short film that they particularly liked for various reasons. They were...

- Sorry I'm Late
- Skin Deep
- Spin
- Sign Language
- Envy
- New Boy

The Black Hole

Mise-en-scene
Dull & dim lighting, empty office - Tells audience that the time is way past office hours

Protagonist
The protagonist doesn't use any speech so we rely on his body language and actions to  narrate the story.
He stands completely still as if frozen looking extremely tired.
He sighs to emphasise his tiredness
He checks his watch which shows that he wants to leave

Message
Like many short films ' The Black Hole' follows the conventional method of portraying a message. This short is a metaphor for 'The force of Greed'. We can tell through use of sound effects and actions that the black hole is pulling the protagonist in like a magnet and that ultimately, his greed became his downfall.