The Film Marketing of

This is England
(S. Meadows, UK 2006)
by
Cina Aissa
cinnaramone@yahoo.co.uk

This essay is a development of my previous research on the film marketing behind

Shane Meadows’ Somers Town (2008). Here, I will seek to compare the marketing tools of
two of Meadows’ films: This is England (2006) and Somers Town (2008). After first looking
at a synopsis of each film, I will compare their box office records and look at the key
marketing tools that have been used to promote them.
I will also analyse my questionnaires’ results, explaining what I have found out question by
question and overall.

Synopsis: This is England (2006) is Shane Meadows’ 6th film. It was released after Dead
Man’s Shoes (2004), ‘Warp's debut feature’ and first collaboration with Meadows which
‘received a record eight British Independent Film Award nominations, including Best Film,
∋
Best Director and Best Achievement in Production.’
Summer 1983, school’s out. The recently finished Falklands war has left scars on people’s
consciousness, unemployment is rife, rubix cubes are all the rage and Margaret Thatcher is in
power. Twelve year-old Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) lives with his mum on a coastal town in
the north of England. Being small for his age, he is also regularly teased by the local boys for
wearing funny ‘trousers’. When he runs into a group of friendly skinheads on his estate, little
Shaun vents his frustration and is invited to join the gang. Shaun is instantly adopted as a little
brother by Woody (Joseph Gilgun), Lol (Vicky McClure), Smell (Rosamund Hanson), Milky
(Andrew Shim) and the others who become his family. Shaun is eager to belong and is given
a free skinhead hairdo. He takes on the attire of his new friends, which worries his mother
Cynthia (Jo Hartley). But when Combo (Stephen Graham), an old acquaintance of the gang, is
released from prison, he quickly divides the group because of his dangerous ideologies and
racist ideas. The group splits and Shaun has to choose his camp. He follows Combo as his
new father-figure until one night, under the influence, Combo beats up Milky, the only black
guy from Woody’s gang, leaving him half dead. Shaun is disgusted and throws the St

1
George’s flag to the sea.
Synopsis: Somers Town (2008) the 7th film of Shane Meadows, Somers Town (S. Meadows,
UK 2008). A typical coming of age film, Somers Town follows the cartoonesque adventures
of two adolescents: Tomo, freshly arrived from the Midlands and Marek, a withdrawn polish
boy who lives only with his dad who works a lot and is drunk the rest of the time. After
meeting by accident in Somers Town, the boys are brought together by their loneliness and
boredom. At the local greasy spoon café, they meet Maria, a French waitress whom they both
fancy. Meanwhile, on the estate, an eccentric neighbour gives them small cash-in-hand jobs.
But when Maria vanishes, the boys are devastated and look for a way to see her again.
Thankfully, after saving some cash, and getting discounted tickets through Marek’s dad , they
can jump on the Eurostar, which is a mechanical character in the background ready to take
them there. Just like in the Wizard of Oz (V. Fleming , USA, 1939), the boys escape their
grim black and white reality and dive into a dreamlike Technicolor montage of happy
moments with Maria once they have crossed the channel.

Awards and reviews:

After being shown in festivals in its year of production, This is England (2006) gathered an
array of awards, attracting a lot of attention with awards and reviews. Total Film described it
as a ‘stunning and powerful movie’ while Radio One’s Edith Bowman described it as
‘incredibly powerful’15. But the controversy about This is England’s (2006) certificate also
attracted a lot of additional media coverage. Meadows argued that, the very people who would
benefit from watching the film were being prevented from it. Quite ironically, Thomas
Turgoose could not watch his own film at the cinema16.
The film was the ‘winner of the best film at the British Independent Film Awards 2006’ and
was the ‘winner of the Special Jury Award at the Rome Film Festival 2006’ 14. This is England
(2006) was released on 62 screens in the UK on the 27th Apr 2007. The box-office takings that
week-end were £ 207,6761. A pre-summer release, This is England (2006) stayed 14 weeks at
the cinema2. Between its first and fourth week, the numbers of screens had been extended from
83 to 128, building up more audience as the positive word of mouth was spreading3. The film
took its highest earnings in week 4 when it was released onto 151 screens across the UK and
took £ 1,184,118 during that week-end. By the time This is England (2006) was taken off the
UK screens, it had been released in the US on the 25th July 2007 where it peaked with 14
screens in its 6th week. Its total US gross was $327,9194. When it wore off the US screens, it
was released as a region 2 DVD in the UK on the 3rd Sep 2007 and it was finally released as a
2
region 1 DVD in the US on 13th Nov 2007, just in time for Christmas 5. Altogether, This is
England (2006) has had an exposure of more than 6 months. Shane Meadows' This is England
(2006) received ‘Lottery funding from the UK Film Council's P&A Fund’, [having been]
nominated for seven British Independent Film Awards, the film [had] already made an impact
at festivals [….]. The award [has expanded] the film's release from 20 to 70 screens; an
additional 20 prints [have been] purchased and the formatting of the film for digital
distribution will allow for up to 150 deliveries to DSN sites. The media campaign [was] also
[…] increased [to] include print, television and online advertising’6.
-Somers Town (...summer time?) was sold as ‘This is England’s director’s new film’. A small
release, it came out in the UK on the 22 nd August 2008 7on 60 screens for the first two weeks
but then dropped to 39 screens in the 3rd week8. It was introduced to an eager audience
through advance screenings on 11th august 2008 across the UK. It was an end of the summer
release that relied on the last week of the summer holiday’s time and spending budget to
invest in this feel-good social drama. Prior to that, Somers Town (2008) had travelled through
a network of key film festivals in the spring and the summer. The film was officially selected
at The Berlinale9 in February, was awarded best actor at Tribeca Film Festival 10 in April-may
2008 in New-York and won the Best British Film award at the Edinburgh Film Festival in
June 2008 11. All this information presented the film as a high quality production that earned
high exposition through a multitude of reviews and positive word of mouth before its
anticipated release. Even controversy claiming that Somers Town (2008) was just product
placement actually gave extensive publicity to Somers Town (2008). The film did £ 121,345
gross during its first week in the UK ‘s box office12. It was a small release in the UK and a
very small indie release in the US where it was later bought and distributed by Film
Movement and Advitam in France. It was released in both countries in July 2009. Its Total
US Box Office was $46,660 gross13.

The posters:
There are 2 main versions of This is England (2006)‘s British poster: one which is a portrait
format and roughly divided in 3 parts: the bottom one shows a long shot of the cast (Shaun
and his 10 friends) standing in front of a corrugated metallic fence with 2 tower blocks in the
background. Standing there like that, there is a resemblance to a suspect identification at the
police station and in that, maybe, a reference to Trainspotting (D. Boyle, UK, 1996), which
had 10 years before also lined up an interesting bunch of clear cut dysfunctional characters.

3
The middle part is the stencilled tri-colored title: This (red) Is (white) England (blue). Above
the title is the logline: ‘Summer 1983. A time to stand out from the crowd’in blue sans serif
writing. Underneath is a caption reading: ‘A Film by Shane Meadows’ tagged in back spray
paint. Still under, three laurels showing that the film was officially selected at the Toronto
International film festival in 2006, Tribeca 2007, and winner of the special jury prize at the
Rome International Film Festival in 2006. At the top of the poster and on a background of
blue sky, ‘WINNER • BEST FILM’ in blue writing, followed by the red letters in smaller font
caption ‘BRITISH INDEPENDENT FILM AWARDS 2006’. The American version is
similar, except that the reviews are quoted from the US press. The other version of the British
poster is similar except the top 1/3 of the poster it has Combo (Stephen Graham) opening his
arms almost as wide as the landscape format in a crucified pose. The second third of this
poster is a tri-colored title and showing the films awards next to the director’s name. The
bottom part shows the cast of 11 standing in front of the corrugated metallic fence.
The poster was different in France where it shows Shaun throwing the British flag in the sea,
again here, the three colours emphasized with Shaun dressed in jeans (blue) throwing the red
and white St George flag on the white background provided by a deserted beach. The title
‘THIS IS ENGLAND’ is overwhelming big in red sans serif capital letters, supported by a
smaller red text reading ‘LE MEILLEUR FILM ANGLAIS DE L’ANNEE’ British film
awards 2007 (underneath in blue letters).
-Somers Town (2008) ’s poster is simpler and there are also 3 different versions. The British
poster presents a landscape black and white mid-shot of Tomo (Thomas Turgoose) and Marek
(Piotr Jagiello) in an urban environment, surrounded by council flats. At the top of the poster,
a caption reads ‘FROM THE ACCLAIMED DIRECTOR OF THIS IS ENGLAND’.
Meadows’ name is put forward on the poster, his ‘personal style’ (Bordwell and Thompson
1990: 29) is recognisable and announces “that the film is clearly an art house film-one that
will appeal to a specialized audience that is primarily composed of relatively affluent,
educated people living in urban areas” (Durie 2000: 94). The poster also presents Somers
Town as an “intimate art house drama” (Durie 2000: 94) with only the name of the director,
the awards and the big sans serif title in yellow (one of the colours of the Eurostar logo) stand
out the black and white photography of Tomo and Marek in the background. The French
poster presents us with a black and white establishing shot of Tomo and Marek, standing on
the 1st floor balcony of an anonymous council building for the top 1/3. Underneath, the sans
serif title ‘SOMERS TOWN’ stands out in orange. The colour orange is also used for ‘Shane

4
Meadows’ and ‘This is England’. Underneath, are 3 deck chairs striped orange and white, on
a black and white background of a very ordinary brick wall and wire-fenced window. Somers
Town (2008)’s US poster is a coloured version of the British poster. Tomo and Marek have
airs of Beavis and Butt-Head (1993) with the red Arsenal shirt, the blue sky and the yellow
curtain brightening up their urban black and white surroundings. Here, also, above the title, a
caption alerts us that this is ‘from the director of THIS IS ENGLAND’.

Trailers:
-This is England (2006)’s trailer contextualises the story with pop music, documentary
‘footage of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the Falklands War and the National Front’17.
The soundtrack is an important part of the trailer and has been marketed as a standalone
∗
product that can be purchased. On the website , Soft Cell, Toots and the Maytals, UK Subs
and the Specials are played in a loop to reel us into the world of the characters. Indeed, ‘music
footage has been carefully edited into the film to provide historical context, bringing to life
the political, cultural and social climate of 1980s Britain’. 17The music of long-time Meadows’
collaborator Gavin Clark gives the film a stamp of ‘auteur’ realism, authenticity and
consistency with Meadows’ other film. The trailer gives different angles on This is England
(2006) which looks like a comedy, a documentary and an autobiography.
- Somers Town (2008)’s trailer opens onto laurels indicating that the film was the winner of
the Michael Powell Award and the Best British Film at the Edinburgh Film Festival. An
additional caption reads ‘from the acclaimed director of this is England’. In the background,
Gavin Clark’s folk soundtrack runs alongside the drama of this intriguing mixture of coming-
of-age and boy(s) meets girl drama.

Questionnaires:
This time, I decided that my sample would be 30 people, 10 more than in my previous survey.
I thought it would give me a good enough idea of what I was looking for, the factors that have
mainly motivated my participants to watch This is England (2006). I know that it will not give
me an insight on the audience for Shane Meadows as a whole but I think that this number is
sufficient to give me clues and enable me to draw some simple observations.
At the end of my last essay, I reflected back on my questionnaires and wished I had catered
for the people who had not seen Somers Town (2008). However, when I came to create This
is England (2006)’s questionnaire, I realised that I was more interested in people who had
seen the film.

5
I saw how that it would be more beneficial to target the people I was giving my survey out to,
as I wanted to find out how the film was positioned and which audience it sought to attract. I
proceeded to put ads on gumtree to recruit people who had seen the film. I also recruited some
more by posting a link to my online survey on ‘facebook’. Finally, I e-mailed a bunch of
students from university and asked them to fill in my survey if they had seen the film. I was
overwhelmed with the amount of people who agreed to fill in my survey, and at the end, I had
to close it down to keep the number manageable.
Study of the responses:
The first question aimed at finding out how many people had seen the film. Out of the 30
people who took the survey, 27 have seen the film. This showed me how the film would have
had a more certain audience in some circles. I am indeed associated to independent film
production companies and independent music labels too, which are niches containing loyal
and knowledgeable fans internationally.
My next question sought to find out where people had seen This is England (2006). Here,
more than half had seen the film at home, which confirms that they had sought to buy or
borrow the film out of having heard positive things about it. Eleven out of the 30 had seen it
at the cinema, which is a fair amount. Question 3 showed that the director’s reputation had
been the main motivator to see the film. Out of those twelve people, eleven claimed having
seen other Meadows’films with quite a few referring to Dead Man’s Shoes (2004) and fewer
saying that they had liked all of the previous director’s work. This confirmed that those who
took my survey and had seen This is England (2006) perceive Meadows as an auteur and are
now his followers. Question 4 was concerned with finding out which conceptual image had
stuck into the audience’s consciousness. Twenty-three out of the 30 thought it would be about
‘skinheads’ before seeing it. The next question tied in well with this by asking if watching it
had had confirmed their expectations. Here, 22 said yes, showing that they had arrived ‘at the
film with specific assumptions’ (Corrigan and White, 2004:8) and that their ‘[expectations
had been framed]’(Corrigan and White, 2004: 47) correctly. Question 6 confirmed that This is
England (2006) had built more loyalty into the 27 people who had seen the film, as 26 of
them would go and watch another one of his films. When asked what they would recommend
especially to a friend about This is England (2006), a majority said that they would
recommend Meadows as a director, sealing this film to a string of other productions that
constitute Meadows’ brand. It is difficult to categorise exactly the type of occupations that the
people who filled in my survey had but there were 7 students, 2 actor-actress, 6 media
employees, 2 lecturers, 1 retired, 1 finance analyst, 2 engineers, 2 office workers and 6 others.

6
These results confirmed my expectation that it would be easier to find more awareness of This
is England (2006) in the academic and media-related professions. Next, it was also confirmed
to me that Meadows’ public was young because 14 out of 30 were between the ages of 22 to
34 years old. Here, I regret not having framed the age ranges differently to at least find out
how many out of those 14 were closer to the 35 years old, the age of Meadows when This is
England (2006) came out. Since the film is an auto-biographical drama, Shaun (Shane?), who
is 12 in 1983, would have been born in 1971. The film was made in 2006 for a target audience
of 35 year olds who would have been born in 1971 as well. Here, watching the film would
have been an experience of ‘identification and cognition’ (Corrigan and White, 2004: 7).
Finally, it was obvious that This is England (2006), as a multi-faceted drama, was not only
targeting a strictly male audience. Seventeen out of the 27 who had seen the film were
females. The ‘cuteness’ of little Shaun, the music and fashion elements and vintage collector
side had a very important appeal reminding us that ‘successful advertising appeals both to the
head and to the heart, to reason and emotions’. (Beatson in Brierley, 2002: 137)
Overall, I see how those who loved This is England (2006) are music enthusiasts, politically
aware leftists who share the vision of Shane Meadows. ‘[His] name [indicates…] that the film
is clearly an arthouse film, one that will appeal to a specialized audience that is primarily
composed of relatively affluent, educated people living in urban areas’(Durie et al, 2000: 94).
Meadows portrays like no other British director the rite of passage from childhood to
adolescence, an experience that everyone can relate to, a ‘big kid film’. Meadows’ films strive
on memories, a near-documentary realism that prides itself on operating independently with a
few trusted partners (the same non-professional actors are used, Gavin Clark writes the
soundtrack, Sheffield-based Production Company Warp Films produces, etc…).
There is still so much that could be said about Shane Meadows and his films but watching
them is the only satisfactory experience that keeps his fans coming back and attracting new
people to this all inclusive movement of British cinema that is a community building
experience, a bit of warmth in the cold climate that is post-Thatcher ‘s Britain.

Bibliography:

- Bordwell and Thompson, Film Art, an introduction, McGraw-Hill, New-York 1990.

-Corrigan, T and White, P, The Film Experience, An Introduction, Bedford/St Martin’s,

Boston, USA, 2004.

- Durie et al, Marketing and selling your film around the world, Silman-James Press, Los
Angeles, 2000.
7
-Brierley, Sean, The Advertising handbook, Routledge, 2002, London

Websites: (all accessed on 20th January 2010)

http://www.realmovienews.com/movies/8607
http://www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/article/12436/May-2007
http://www.thisisenglandmovie.co.uk/
http://shanemeadows.co.uk/
http://warp.net/films

Notes:

8

http://warp.net/films/features/a-bit-more-about-warp-films (accessed on 20th January
2010)
1
1
1
1
http://www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/article/12435/April-2007 (accessed on 20th January 2010)
2
http://www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/article/12418/UK-Film-Box-Office-Jul-27--Jul-29-2007
(accessed on 20th January 2010)
3
http://www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/article/12436/May-2007 (accessed on 20th January 2010)
4
http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/2007/0TIEN.php
(accessed on 20th January 2010)
5
http://www.realmovienews.com/movies/8607 (accessed on 20th January 2010)
6
http://www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/10321 (accessed on 20th January 2010)
7
http://www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/article/14634/UK-Box-Office-22-24-August-2008 (accessed
on 20th January 2010)
8
http://www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/article/14664/UK-Box-Office-5-7-September-2008 (accessed
on 20th January 2010)
9
http://www.berlinale.de/en/archiv/jahresarchive/2007/02_programm_2007/02_Filmdatenblatt_2
007_20073601.php (accessed on 20th January 2010)
1
10
http://media.tribecafilm.com/documents/TribecaFilmFestivalA
wardsHistory2002-2009.pdf (accessed on 20th January 2010)

11
http://www.edfilmfest.org.uk/awards/winners (accessed on 20th January 2010)

12
http://www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/article/14634/UK-Box-Office-22-24-August-2008 (accessed
on 20th January 2010)
13
http://www.thenumbers.com/movies/2009/0SOTO.php (accessed on 20th January 2010)
14
http://www.thisisenglandmovie.co.uk/?#/awards/ (accessed on 20th January 2010)
15
http://www.thisisenglandmovie.co.uk/?#/quotes/ (accessed on 20th January 2010)
16
http://www.uncut.co.uk/film/uncut/reviews/9750 (accessed on 20th January 2010)
17
http://corporate.itn.co.uk/about-itn/media-centre/press-release/itn-source-congratulates-bafta-
winning-movies.aspx (accessed on 20th January 2010)

http://www.thisisenglandmovie.co.uk/
1