MovieChat Forums > This Is England '90 (2015) Discussion > Shaun's photography went nowhere? Chekho...

Shaun's photography went nowhere? Chekhov's gun


Shaun got given a camera by his mum for his college course. Then Shane Meadows chose to show him in class during a talk about "capturing the perfect moment" and the talk went on for a good minute or so, long enough to give me the impression that it shauns photography would come into play later. Chekhov's gun, much?

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Indeed, i thought his photography was going to come into play. i thought he might have taken photo's of Combo's imminent beating/murder to show to Lol at the wedding and drop Milky in it. It was perfectly set up for that with Sean and the burd wandering round old disused flats taking pics.

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I imagine a lesser or more formulaic show being as cliched as that, but I never expected it from this.

OOM POM PAH OOM POM PAH thats how it goes...

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It's not a 'Chekhov's gun' one bit. It was simply part of his character development, and the finality of the character's arc.

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Shaun is supposed to be a young Meadows so I think it was to show how he became a filmmaker, starting with his passion for photography. The lecture about capturing the moment in time kind of sums up Meadow's idea for This is England. I like how he gave "himself" a pretty girlfriend out of his league!

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[deleted]

If you know photography, you will see Shaun had a Pratika camera.
Trust me, these were worse than useless...he wouldn't have learned much from using that!

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Sorry......Praktica camera.

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A Praktica is what I learned on at art college in the 90s. Fine beginner's camera. Nowadays every spoilt brat instantly has a top-of-the-line Canon or Nikon, but that wasn't the case back then.

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You clearly don't know photography then do you if you think that the quality of the camera has anything to do with how good a photographer someone will be.

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Back in the late 80's and early '90s, the brands used were Olympus, Minolta and Ricoh as Canon and Nikon were too expensive.
However, these were still pricey, hence Praktika entering the market.
I tried using them, found them to be heavy, cumbersome and basic at best.
I now have 2 canon DSLR cameras, EOS 5D and EOS 70D, and if a beginner wanted to learn, I'd advise learning SLR before digital, but be very wary of Praktika type brands.

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the photography thing was more like a mcguffin to get shaun acquainted with the classmate that becomes his girlfriend later on.

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