Three Tears for Jimmy Prophet Short Film Analysis

Three Tears for Jimmy Prophet is a social realism short film that was directed by Shane Meadows,
who is also renowned for directing the blockbuster This is England, another social realism film. The
short film begins with a few black and white stills of the main character, portraying a sense of
depression, death, violence and poverty. This is supported by the non-diagetic music playing
simultaneously which is of an acoustic guitar playing a sad passage of instrumental music. So already
we are exposed to some of the typical conventions of a social realism as the film continues a
slideshow of stills from various camera angles, levels and distances highlighting the negativity the
main character is giving off through his facial expressions and body language. The mis-en-scene
contributes also as it what we visually see and in this instance it relates to his past life as a boxer by
showing us the setting of a gym and also the clothing he trains in.
The director Shane Meadows has only used a small range of camera angles; this suggests that the
short was filmed on a very low budget. There is also basic editing evident in the film as the final still
dissolves into moving image of the boxer training in the gym adding to the list of low budget
features. Meadows also decided to film the short in black and white rather than the norm of colour,
this gives the film a more realistic feel emphasising the dull and dim of reality of the lower class. The
most effective camera shot in my opinion was the zoom shot towards the end of the short which
shows the main character taking a breather and by the time the camera has zoomed in fully to the
frame of the mirror it shows the reflection of the boxer jabbing the speed ball. From the wide shot of
the gym its clear that its in bad shape and is suffering from neglect however the users are patriotic
as theirs a union jack flag being hung.
The non-diagetic sound plays an important role of the genre as the characters voice throughout has
an echoing affect emphasising the sorrow and guilt the character feels for his past actions that have
consequently ruined his life. This leads onto empathy being created by the director through the use
of frequent close up shots to truly see the sadness of the actor as you feel that you are looking at
him face to face and confesses his current situation of being rejected from his family and most
importantly his daughter.