British Social Reality Dramas

- Shane Meadows- A Room For Romeo Brass




Shane Meadows moved to Nottingham when he was about twenty years old, but grew up in Uttoxeter. His films hint on the kitchen sink realism (a movement in the late 1950s to the early 1960s) with a modern twist. A lot of what is included in his films is based on his own experiences from when he was growing up. 'A Room For Romeo Brass', (1999) was inspired by his best friend and nieighbour, Paul Fraser and his young self. Paul suffered an accident and had to stay in bed for a long period of time and Shane befriended a messed up individual instead. It is a real life movie with elements of comedy and drama. It uses local locations in both the countryside and the beach. Meadows, known as one of the rising stars of British cinema has created a relaxed style of film with ad lib which is no script and it is made up as they go along. There is a lot of rehearsal time using unknown characters, and other actors feel encouraged to take this style on to create a better sense of reality within their acting.
I feel that within our film, there is a similar style as we wanted our film to have a simple and realistic approach, and I think it has really worked quite well.

The film begins with credits in a unique font on a black background. Sound sets the feel of the film. The volume is high on the credits and in the background when action is occurring. The merging of the narrative and credits used to break up action and involve the audience more in the story and we are waiting to see what happens next. We are introduced to the characters and the storyline with a mini storyline which is started and completed. There are clues about the genre.
Our film does not do this. Our title sequence is completely unique. Our title is unique and comes up on the background of the playing opening which is in full colour.

The film starts with two characters who are young boys. The audience can tell they are good friends from the way they insult each other. The fat boy says: ''Why did i do this again?'', referring to why he has eating more than his own share of chips and the thin boy replies: "'cause you're fat?''. The chubby boy does not get offended and there is familiarity through dialogue.

The themes of friendship with Romeo and Gavin or 'Knocks' growing apart. Morrell begins by helping the boys however becomes increasingly violent when he becomes infatuated by Ladine and threatens Gavin and Romeo's father. Romeo's father is in the scene but Romeo does not get on with him. The audience hope that Morrell is going to flip and want Gavin and Romeo reunited.

The overall feel of Shane Meadows' films is that they have that local, urban and realistic touch to them, and I think this is definitely something we can link to in our film, as we used local settings and did not spend any extra money on props. I think our film could be a microwave film as we have kept the locations simple, and have not spent any money on sets, props, make- up, costume, special effects or paying actors and we would therefore have a cheap budget.We just worked with what we had, and it worked really well.