1. 1. Shameless Clip Jak Crittenden The opening scene of Shameless is given to us by use of a close up of the police man whilst he says "wheres Frank", and incline that the police man know Frank well enough to call him by his first name and not refer to his second. Therefore straight away, the regional identity of the first few seconds of this scene reinforce the stereotypes of Manchester (always in trouble with the police). The wife of Frank then follows up the police man by saying "Whats he done now", which then also backs up the thought process that Frank is a familiar face with the force. The miss en scene of the room in which it is set is that we can see dull blue walls, an untidy kitchen, a school boy with scruffy uniform, a mum in a skimpy pyjama set and another woman dressed rather manly in baggy clothes and tided back hair. It is worth mentioning that this woman is black and clearly not a relative of the family but makes it clear that she lives there. Which i believe also reinforces the stereotype of a Manchester home, they have all sorts of different people living under the same roof in order for the rent to get payed, as typically, a single family wouldn't be able to do so. Also at this point the camera angle is at a high angle shot, looking down on the three characters, showing their venerability and how the police man is above all of them in class, because he is not from Manchester. As the scene deepens, we get to see more characters, two teenage girls, one dressed in a black, very short dress, the other dressed in a white, chest revealing dress. Both outfits show how the girls have lack of respect for themselves, making the viewer believe them as cheap and tarty. At this point the rapid editing is put in place for effect, it fast changes to all the other characters but always returns to the police man, maybe to show his sense of importance, and how he is above in class to all of these other people simply because he is not from Manchester. The diegetic sound within this scene are the rest of the family discussing how the police man handles the situation and the way he treats Frank. We hear one of the characters say "Whats with the bad manners", to me, this opposes the stereotype of Manchester people, as they are known to have extreme bad manners and treat people wrong, so for the character to mention bad manners shows that maybe Manchester people do have respect and have been bought up to know their manners. However the non diegetic sound of the soundtrack is actually quite calming, which is a complete contrast to what we are seeing, maybe suggesting that these people are actually quite calm, because they do handle the situation very well. They do not try to attack the police man or cause any confrontation, which then could also suggest that they are calm because they have had past experience and know how to handle it. The next setting we get is within the police car, the lighting involved shows up the policemen more, and Frank is dimmed in the back, I don't believe that this is necessarily to show that the policemen are more important in this situation, I actually believe it is done to show that these policemen have the power over Frank, the take the lead and control him. The dialogue within the scene completely works against the stereotypes of a Manchester, drunk, unemployed man. They are known to be uneducated, vunreble and listen to others, instead Frank argues his case that they way the policeman handled him was completely wrong and he also used very complex words like 'Brutality", "exempt" and "special dispensation". The use of his dialogue completely opposes what we thought we would expect he would talk like, this suggest that not all Manchester people are what we stereotype them as, even if they don't have a lot
2. 2. of money and have many people living under one roof. Frank also motivates the editing, wherever he goes, the camera follows, also suggesting that he is important within the scene, he gets the most screen time meaning that even though he get controlled like an animal when the policeman throws him off the couch, he is still important just like any other human.