My main method of research for this assignment has been internet research which has been very productive. I tried another method of research which was to find magazines with articles on Dead Man's Shoes at the university of Brighton library but only found one physical copy which was a issue of Sight and Sound magazine. The other magazine articles in my research came from websites.
My internet research was very successful as I found at nearly everything I needed to know about the financing, production, distribution and music rights of my film. Although unfortunately I was not able to find out the name of the music supervisor during my internet research of my film. As I have already mentioned above my magazine article research was fairly unsuccessful but I think this was because the library did not have issues of other film magazines with articles on Dead Man's Shoes which I ended up finding online.
I think what I would have done differently would have been to interview someone who had worked on the film and looked for magazine articles on Shane Meadows and Paddy Considine. These processes may also be used to find out completely different information about the film for example its rating on IMDB. The validity of the information collected from each method of my research is very strong as they are backed up by sources and are written by professionals and experts. Overall I think I have my research has been very successful although a possible weakness is that one or two websites I looked at for research did not appear to have an author.
I found that websites like IMDB, Wikipedia and official Dead Man's Shoes and Shane Meadows sites to be the most helpful in my research. The film review sites and forums I found were only helpful regarding the genre and audience part of my research. Online newspaper articles were also very useful in my research of Shane Meadows and Paddy Considine.
Tuesday, 11 December 2012
DMS Research - Box Office Foreign
| Country (click to view weekend breakdown) | Dist. | Release Date | Opening Wknd | % of Total | Total Gross / As Of | |
| FOREIGN TOTAL | - | 10/1/04 | n/a | - | $191,673 | 11/2/06 |
 | ||||||
| Australia | Hopscotch | 10/12/06 | - | - | $5,369 | 11/2/06 |
| United Kingdom | Optimum | 10/1/04 | $79,786 | 42.8% | $186,304 | 10/10/04 |
DMS Research - Box Office Weekend and Weekly
2006
Italics indicate four day weekend.
| Date (click to view chart) | Rank | Weekend Gross | % Change | Theaters | Change / Avg. | Gross-to-Date | Week # | |
| 109 | $1,825 | - | 1 | - | $1,825 | $1,825 | 1 | |
| 115 | $1,039 | -43.1% | 2 | +1 | $519 | $4,048 | 2 | |
| 101 | $905 | -12.9% | 2 | - | $452 | $5,793 | 3 | |
| 110 | $1,125 | +8.3% | 2 | - | $562 | $6,013 | 3 | |
2006
| Date (click to view chart) | Rank | Weekly Gross | % Change | Theaters / Change | Avg. | Gross-to-Date | Week # | |
| 109 | $3,009 | - | 1 | - | $3,009 | $3,009 | 1 | |
| 115 | $1,879 | -37.6% | 2 | +1 | $940 | $4,888 | 2 | |
| 110 | $1,520 | -19.1% | 2 | - | $760 | $6,408 | 3 | |
DMS Research - Box Office
Dead Man's Shoes
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Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic Summary
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DMS Research - Empire's The 100 Best British Films Ever
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 | | Dead Man's Shoes (2004)
Directed by Shane Meadows
Starring Paddy Considine, Toby Kebell, Stuart Wolfenden, Gary Stretch
Most films on this list are here primarily because of the person behind the camera. In this case, and with no disrespect to Shane Meadows' assured direction, it's the stunning turn by its star and co-writer, Paddy Considine, that's won it a place. He's the spine of the film, an ex-soldier who returns to his hometown and brings down a world of pain on the men who bullied his younger brother. The result is a sort of Sympathy For Mr Vengeance for Derbyshire, a brutal but strangely compassionate look at a ruthless and violent figure, a sort of slasher movie in reverse. A showcase for a deserving actor, and a perfect example of the indie sector's ability to tackle storylines that studios would shy away from, this is one of the finest British films in years.
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DMS Research - Empire's 500 greatest movies of all time
462
Dead Man's Shoes (2004)
Director: Shane Meadows
Meadows' small-town vigilante movie restages Get Carter with pathetic rural crooks harried by Paddy Considine's vigilante in a gas mask. "What are you looking at?" "You, you cunt!"Read Review
Director: Shane Meadows
Meadows' small-town vigilante movie restages Get Carter with pathetic rural crooks harried by Paddy Considine's vigilante in a gas mask. "What are you looking at?" "You, you cunt!"Read Review
http://www.empireonline.com/500/8.asp
Review
Dead Man's Shoes
Plot
Army-trained Richard (Considine) returns to his hometown with his mentally-challenged younger brother, Anthony (Kebbell), in tow. Anthony has been used and abused by a raggedy bunch of local drug dealers, and Richard plans to teach the bullies a deadly lesson...
Army-trained Richard (Considine) returns to his hometown with his mentally-challenged younger brother, Anthony (Kebbell), in tow. Anthony has been used and abused by a raggedy bunch of local drug dealers, and Richard plans to teach the bullies a deadly lesson...
Review
Shane Meadows' raw revenge flick should be called Sympathy For The Bogeyman, because the director dusts off the invincible-killer-picks-off-teens routine and tells it from the bogeyman's point of view. The result is a thoughtful, possibly controversial, horror that offers none of the easy comforts typical of the genre – these victims are far from innocent, but do they deserve to die?
The film is so pure of purpose that it feels like a zero-budget debut; after the sprawling Once Upon A Time In The Midlands, that may have been Meadows' intention. Its first steps are, in fact, faltering, with the supporting cast struggling to improvise necessary exposition – but whenever Considine is onscreen, the movie has a magnetic centre around which the others can happily orbit.
Potentially Britain's answer to De Niro, the actor made a searing debut in Meadow's A Room For Romeo Brass, a film that boldly changed gear halfway through. This is even more fearless – genre conventions are trashed, key characters summarily dispatched and liberal niceties squashed. Meadows may not offer genuine insight into the psychology of monsters, but here he has created a memorable movie bogeyman.
Shane Meadows' raw revenge flick should be called Sympathy For The Bogeyman, because the director dusts off the invincible-killer-picks-off-teens routine and tells it from the bogeyman's point of view. The result is a thoughtful, possibly controversial, horror that offers none of the easy comforts typical of the genre – these victims are far from innocent, but do they deserve to die?
The film is so pure of purpose that it feels like a zero-budget debut; after the sprawling Once Upon A Time In The Midlands, that may have been Meadows' intention. Its first steps are, in fact, faltering, with the supporting cast struggling to improvise necessary exposition – but whenever Considine is onscreen, the movie has a magnetic centre around which the others can happily orbit.
Potentially Britain's answer to De Niro, the actor made a searing debut in Meadow's A Room For Romeo Brass, a film that boldly changed gear halfway through. This is even more fearless – genre conventions are trashed, key characters summarily dispatched and liberal niceties squashed. Meadows may not offer genuine insight into the psychology of monsters, but here he has created a memorable movie bogeyman.
Verdict
Disturbing, uncompromising and completely gripping, this could do for slasher movies what 28 Days Later did for zombie flicks.
Reviewed by Colin Kennedy
Disturbing, uncompromising and completely gripping, this could do for slasher movies what 28 Days Later did for zombie flicks.
Reviewed by Colin Kennedy
http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?DVDID=10457
DMS Research - Online Articles
Dir: Shane Meadows. UK.2004. 90mins
Dead Man’s Shoes is billed as a return to basics
for Shane Meadows after the relative disappointment of his last feature, Once
Upon A Time In The Midlands. Semi-improvised, this is a project striving
after the raw edge and dynamism which characterized Meadows’ shorts (for
instance, Where’s The Money, Ronnie’)
His ability to mix humour, violence and lyricism remains unimpaired, but
Dead Man’s Shoes is a frustrating mish-mash of different genre elements
(horror film, revenge western, social realist drama) which is ultimately let
down by its own posturing and machismo.
Meadows is a paradox: a populist filmmaker cherished by critics and
festival programmers but whose work is yet to find a wide audience. 24:7,
his debut feature and still arguably his most accomplished film, sold widely in
the international marketplace, but then under performed at the box-office both
in Britain and abroad.
His two subsequent features, A Room For Romeo Brass and Once
Upon A Time, like wise garnered reasonable reviews without making much
money. There is little evidence that Meadows’ latest effort will buck the
trend.
Though it will show up on the festival circuit - it plays both Venice
and Toronto among others after its premiere at Edinburgh - international
distributors may well keep their distance unless the film shows some legs in
the British market (where it is being released by Optimum in October). Whether
it will do so is a moot point. The downbeat box office fate of Bille
Eltringham’s This Is Not A Love Song, another intense, low-budget
British drama that won plaudits on the festival circuit, suggests that this may
be a tricky sell at home as well as abroad.
As ever with Meadows, the action is set in the Midlands. The story
begins in striking fashion (Meadowshas always had an eye for a shot) with two
silhouetted figures seen on the horizon. One is Richard (Considine), a bearded,
enigmatic army veteran, the other his sweet-natured but simple-minded brother
Anthony (Toby Kebell) to whom he is devoted.
As in John Sturges’ celebrated modern-day western, Bad Day At Black
Rock, they are coming to a town where the locals are harboring a very
guilty secret. In the years that Richard was away with the army, Anthony was
taunted, humiliated and physically abused by Sonny (played by ex-professional
boxer, Gary Stretch), the local drug dealer, and his motley crew of thugs. Now
Richard wants revenge.
What makes the film so disconcerting are the random shifts in tone.
Early on, while the lads in Sonny’s gang mislay drugs, read articles in porno
mags and mooch about their flats, the mood is comic. There’s a deadpan humour
familiar to British audiences from comedian Steve Coogan’s Paul Calf sketches
or indeed from Meadows’ mini-feature Small Time. The protagonists may be
feckless petty criminals, but they’re also likable and self-mocking types,
trying to while away the boredom of life in a depressed Midlands town.
Once Richard gets down to business, the playfulness rapidly disappears.
We learn in gruelling flashbacks just how badly Anthony was abused. It also
becomes apparent that Richard is an angel of death, determined to kill his
brother’s tormentors in as sadistic away as possible. All of a sudden, as the
bloodletting begins in earnest, the film lurches off into Grand Guignol, Texas
Chainsaw-style territory.
At times, the film seems like a boys’ own wish fulfillment fantasy.
(With the exception of Shirley Henderson in Once Upon A Time In The Midlands,
Meadows’ films feature few strong female characters.) There are far fewer of
the lyrical interludes which are found in the director’s earlier films - for
instance, the beautiful, slow-motion sequence of Bob Hoskins’ boxing trainer
dancing a waltz with his elderly aunt in 24:7. The quietest moments here
- notably the scenes between Richard and his brother hiding away in the
countryside, reminiscing about old times - are the most affecting, but they’re
in short supply.
The attitude toward character is often confusing. Small-time hustlers
like Herbie (StuartWolfenden), Soz (Neil Bell) and Tuff (Paul Sadot), who
initially seemed comic and sympathetic, are transformed into one-dimensional
villains waiting the irturn to be bumped off. Richard torments them, feeds them
drugs and prolongs their deaths. His behavior toward them is so violent and
excessive - and their treatment of Anthony so repellent - that we’re left with
a narrative in which all the protagonists seem equally loathsome.
Though Dead Man’s Shoes purports to explore “the underbelly of
contemporary rural Britain, ”Meadows isn’t really interested in exploring the
reality of life in a provincial town. He portrays a world in which half-a-dozen
people in a small-knit community can be killed without the neighbors raising
the alarm or the police intervening.
Considine brings menace and quiet intensity to the role of Richard,
playing him as a Midlands version of Clint Eastwood’s high plains drifter. A
final reel twist provides a belated explanation as to why he behaves with such
viciousness, but by then, he is likely to have forfeited the sympathies of most
spectators.
Individual sequences are powerful, comic and touching by turns - they
just don’t hang together with any coherence. The filmmakers shot Dead Man’s Shoes
at break neck pace, using real locations, adding dialogue and re-writing the
screenplay as they went along. Maybe such an approach was liberating but it
surely also explains why the film so often feels inchoate and unstructured.
For several years now, Meadows has been touted as “the great Brit hope.”
Here, though, as with Once Upon A Time In The Midlands, there is a
dispiriting sense that he is still marking time.
Prod
cos:Warp Films, FilmFour, East Midlands Media Investments
UK dist:Optimum
Releasing
Int’l sales:Element X,(44) 20 73171440
Exec prods:Peter
Carlton, WillClarke, Steve Beckett
Prod:Mark Herbert
Co-prod:Louise
Knight
Scr:Paddy Considine, ShaneMeadows
Cine:Danny Cohen
Ed:Chris
Wyatt
Main cast:Paddy Considine, GaryStretch, Toby Keb, Stuart Wolfenden,
Neil Bell, Paul Sadot
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