Exhibition

Box Office Grossing

This is England generated £207,676 on its first opening week in the UK box office, at 62 screens. The films highest ever grossing in the U.K was £1,315,593. The film made a box office grossing of $8,176,544 world wide in total, making it a huge success for an independent film and surpassing Shane Meadow's previous film Dead Man Shoes which was also produced by Film Four.

Rewards

This is England won a few awards such as a BAFTA for best British film in 2008 and British independent award for best British independent film.

Critic Reviews

On 5 January 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 93% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 82 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 86 out of 100, based on 23 reviews — indicating "universal acclaim".This made it the tenth best reviewed film of the year.

The film appeared on several US critics' top ten movie lists of 2007; it was third on the list by Newsweek's David Ansen, seventh on the list by The Oregonian's Marc Mohan, and ninth on the list by Los Angeles Times' Kevin Crust. In Britain, director Gillies Mackinnon rated the film the best of the year and David M. Thompson, critic and film-maker, rated it third.The film was ranked fourteenth in The Guardian's list of 2007's Best Films and fifteenth in Empire's Movies of the Year.

Technological Convergence

The introduction of new technology has helped change the film industry vastly by creating new ways of distributing, marketing, producing, exhibiting and exchanging films. This is England is an example of a film benefiting from technological convergence such as Film Four marketing the film online through the use of the web 2.0. Websites such as video streaming sites, social networking sites and online radio sites has created a larger appeal for 'This is England' and has created a more viral marketing affect which has created a larger 'word of Mouth' affect. The larger the advertisement, the larger the chance the film has in attracting its target audience, improving the chance of more viewers for the film and more profit for Film 4 and the other synergy companies in the production of the film. 

Though technological convergence has brought about a positive change in the film industry, it has also brought about a negative one which is 'piracy'. The web 2.0 is a major example of piracy due to how people can now go onto video streaming websites and download illegal films onto their computers without having to pay the original producer of the film. This has left the film industry in the U.K to lose hundreds of millions of pounds. Though there is new technology being created through technological convergence once again to halt the piracy of films such as new blue ray disks, which have a heavier encryption code then DVD's to stop people from pirating films. The negative side to this is that blue ray disks are not as popular as DVDs and so people will buy DVD's more then Blue Ray disks, due to how Blue ray films are more expensive and they need a blue ray player in order to play them which costs more then a DVD player. 

Digital Technology at the Cinemas  

• Fitting the cartoon is a European non-profit organisation set up to increase the animation of European films.

• Digital distribution is cheap, efficient and fast.

• Cinemas are now having digital equipment installed in them such as servers and screen projects to show films at a higher quality and faster pace.

• Traditional cinema methods are now being left for digital techniques.

• Advantages of digital complex cinemas are that films can be changed from one room to another without the physical removal of the film disks. Digital projectors never lose quality.

• 33mm films are old fashion methods of filming which easily got damaged when projected and the quality of the films would be lost due to dust in the film’s disks.

• 3D films are now being created at a rapid paste to entice film goes to come to cinemas, due to the rise in video game entertainment systems and home cinemas technology.

• Cinemas are trying to offer cinema goes realist experience of films through 3D technology and surround sound.

• Digital technology helps distributors save vast amounts of money through not having to create thousands of copies of the film on DVD or Blue Ray. People can digitally download the films.

This is England - Technological Convergence

This is England was distributed to cinemas on a printed 35mm (blowup), never made to be distributed digitally to play on Imax cinema screens. When the film was released for home cinema entertainment, it was released on video tape, DVD, then later on Blueray enabling the film to be viewed in high definition.

Distribution and marketing

‘This is England’ was given a wide release in England due to how all the film production companies (Wrap Films, Film 4, EM Media, Optimum Releasing and Screen Yorkshire) didn’t know how successful the film would have been if it was to become a universal release.

Shane Meadow was known for making other award winning movies but the production companies still couldn’t take a risk with the movie being distributed else where and not selling due to people not liking. In the end, the film was distributed through theatrical cinemas (by Optimum Releasing), television (e.g Film 4, channel 4, etc), DVDs, Internet (itunes), etc. It’s only till it was released in the UK and people found it amazing, that the movie was then distributed internationally to other countries such as the following:

• A-Film Distribution (2008) (Netherlands) (theatrical)

• Arthaus (2007) (Norway) (theatrical)

• IFC Films (2007) (USA) (theatrical)

• IFC First Take (2007) (USA) (theatrical)

• King Record Co. (2009) (Japan) (theatrical)

• Nippon Shuppan Hanbai (Nippan) K.K. (2009) (Japan) (theatrical)

• NonStop Entertainment (2007) (Sweden) (theatrical)

• Optimum Releasing (2006) (UK) (theatrical)

• A-Film Home Entertainment (2008) (Netherlands) (DVD)

• Ascot Elite Home Entertainment (2008) (Germany) (DVD)

• Canal Film (2008-2009) (Norway) (TV)

• Madman Entertainment (2007) (Australia) (all media)

• NetFlix (2007) (USA) (DVD)

• Red Envelope Entertainment (2007) (USA) (DVD)

• Sandrew Metronome Distribution (2008) (Finland) (DVD)

This is England was produced by a synergy of institutions and so the film had a budget of 1.5 million pounds in order to help distribute and market the film, although the effort and impact of the budget would be relitivley small due to how the budget would be able to fund for expensive and large ranged advertisement schemes such as television adverts of the the film inbetween football television breaks, to target at mass audiences. Here are the following production companies of the film.

Big Arty Productions

EM Media

Film4

Optimum Releasing

Screen Yorkshire

UK Film Council

Warp Films
 
This is England was screened at a number of film festivals around the world such as the London Film Festival in England. This was done so that film fanatics would hopefully cause a 'word of mouth' effect about the film, in order to give it a viral marketing effect. This way of marketing was expensive but it gave the film the chance to entice viewers who would be the type of audiences that would watch the film, due to Film festivals mainly showcasing the latest innovative films from short to large from known directors to upcoming directors. This made this is England the perfect film to be marketed through a film festival, due to how it met all those categories.

Here's a theatrical poster of 'This is England' showcasing some of the casting of the film. The colours red, white and blue in the title of the film represent the traditional colours of the England flag, emphasising the title of the film being about England. The customs the characters are wearing suggest that the film is set in the 80's in the time of he skin head movement, due to how they all seem to be wearing light blue jeans, where most of the men's heads are shaved off and the women's heads have a very masculine hair cut style, which clearly stands out.

There's a small boy at the front of the poster who's the only one out of line with the rest of the characters behind. This suggests that the film could be based around this boy and his life as a kid growing up in the 80's, in the skin head movement. There's only one black male character in the poster suggesting that the film could also be relating to the culture aspects of England, maybe showing the prejudice and discrimination against non-whites in the Country.

Certificate rating

This is England was certificated an 18 by the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification), which prevented the film from being aimed at younger age audiences from 15 to 17, which Shane Meadows had originally hoped for. Shane Meadows appealed to the BBFC, aruging that This is England was given the wrong age rating, which would prevent it from being watched by younger viewers who would benefit from it greatly. After this appeal, city councils started looking into the film themselves which led to This is England being rated 15 in certain areas throughout England such as Bristol, Westminster and Camden, due to how certain city councils found BBFC's age rating unsuitable. This led to This is England being made more accessible for younger age audiences throughout certain cities in England.