Peaky Blinders
For this part of the assignment, I would like to talk about a scene that has been in my mind for a while now. The Peaky Blinders scene where Tommy scolds his brothers before his wedding was always a scene that stood out for me. Not because of any action, explosion or anything like that, but I guess it was because of the simplicity of the scene & how it was able to evoke so much more emotion than any other key iconic scenes throughout the series.
The scene begins with Tommy’s fiancee and her guests chit-chatting in the main wedding hall, and then it cuts to Tommy & his brothers causing a ruckus in the kitchen. The contrast of those 2 settings, paired with the rock music present for the kitchen setting further narrated the differences between Tommy and Grace’s lives; the hierarchy of Grace being at the top while Tommy is at the bottom hidden at the kitchen even though it is their wedding. In addition, I noticed that they particularly shot the scene with MCUs, Medium shots, and OTS. I believe that they effectively used it to their advantage as it created a close and tight atmosphere, suggesting a tense moment as it closes up on the emotion of Thomas’ frustration whilst his brothers are seen taking things lightly. I felt that if they had a wide-shot during the family meeting, it wouldn’t have been as effective as having close-ups made me feel like I was part of the meeting and incorporating a wide shot might have made me lose that feeling of involvement, and instead of observing the meeting as a third person.
Furthermore, another aspect which I have only recently appreciated is the knowledge of eye lines during a scene. With Peaky Blinders being a professional TV programme, their edits are seamless, like you wouldn’t find anything wrong with the scene. Although it might sound easy, I can only imagine how tricky it is to construct an hour-long episode and remembering to keep the eye lines in line with each other to create a continuous conversation during the dialogue. There were several times when doing group work, where we had to flip the clip due to the subject having the wrong eye line with the other clips. Being able to appreciate the smaller details in filmmaking will hopefully make me improve as a filmmaker and not make simple careless mistakes in the future.
Moreover, what I enjoyed with this scene more than any other scene is the simplicity and how natural it comes off. It didn’t need music to last throughout the scene, it just needed the sounds of the busy kitchen environment, as well as the use of tracking Thomas to create a natural feel to the scene; just like a real-life family meeting. Even during the tense meeting, they were still able to add a bit of comedic effect to not make everything too tense with shots of his brothers’ reaction to his orders, as well as the funny moment where Tommy fought with the waiter after just addressing his brothers not to fight. I am just starting to learn about the proper techniques of filmmaking and I aspire to create scenes as effective, yet simple as this scene.
Reference
Narc 2016, NO F*CKING FIGHTING! – Peaky Blinders S03E01, YouTube, 13 May, viewed 06 August 2021,
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRLSRX1nF0s>