Shane Meadows

Shane is an English director that started film making after dropping out of secondary school before reaching his GCSE's. Meadows began to create films with the help of his friends as he had access to cameras and film equipment in return for working unpaid at a local media centre. After realising that he had no way of publicly displaying his work, he and his friends approached a local cinema in hope to set up a film festival in which locals could display their productions. This became popular in his town and eventually he was picked up by a scout who took him on as an amateur film director.

Shane has since then made 8 feature length films including "This is England", a blockbuster at the box offices. Meadows has become renowned for his kitchen sink realism which he was influenced by film makers such as Ken Loach and Mike Leigh.

Shanes short film "The Stairwell", made on his mobile phone shows the way that he likes to work. Through the use of experimentation he achieves his style and tone in his films. By use of his mobile phone he could get a look and feel across in the film without having to worry about all of the problems that using professional equipment might have.

In this film shane shows two characters violently bumping into eachother halfway down a staircase. Though in essence a very dull idea for a film, Shane has used interesting, voyueristic camera angles along with low key lighting to make the scene feel much more dramatic than it actually is.

At the point of impact, exaggerated expressions are shown which really accentuate the nature of the location and sterotypes of these locations. It looks to be a council estate, where it is rare to see people expressing happy emotions and so one can assume the feelings before the point of impact.

The thing I find most interesting about the piece is that although it is a 39 second film, it still has a narrative structure. There is an obvious beginning middle and end. Marked by the intro and outro titles.



Bibliography:
1. Shane Meadows. (2005). The Stairwell. Available: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCvixoWmviU. Last accessed 5th February 2010.