Explain how representations of family are created in the shown extract of Shameless (Series 1, Ep 5, 37.23 - 40.00)

In the lesson we looked at an episode from the first series of hit television drama ‘Shameless’, in this particular scene Philip finds out his Dad, Frank, is ‘having fun’ with Philip’s girlfriends, Karen, despite being in a relationship with her agoraphobic mother, Sheila. When looking how family is represented in this particular exert it becomes quickly apparent, from the ridiculous plotline amongst other things, that the main representation of these families is of them being dysfunctional. However I am not going to deconstruct the plotline or how the family is portrayed using physical entities, I am going to look at how the camera work and editing conveys the dysfunction to us, perhaps unconsciously.

To begin with there are a couple of shots showing Frank presumably walking home from the pub where he seems to spend most of his time. The first shot is long, wide shot of Frank walking with another man, in the corner of the frame a car slowly follows him, this is repeated in the next scene however the shot is of the camera tracking Frank around a corner. This gives us the idea that something isn’t correct as the car seems to be stalking Frank, as it is always in the corner or background of the shot. If you were to know this was Philips car immediately you would know that something was wrong between him and his father, this reinforces the idea of dysfunction between the father and son.

The next technique is a match on action method of editing, this is used when Philip attempts to run down Frank when he is crossing the road however He crashes into a lorry instead. Match on action is used here to get a full picture of what has happened, it gives us as the audience a view from different angles, one of which is Philips POV shot. The fast editing used during the crash creates the idea of danger and once again relating to the representations mentioned earlier, creates this sense of anger between Philip and his dad therefore creating a representation of family dysfunction. After this it cuts to a close up on Franks face to show his response as he sees Philip climb out the car, then another editing technique is used called shot-reverse-shot when it switches between Franks POV and an over the shoulder shot from behind Philip. This works in a similar way to the match on action by giving us more than one point of view on the action, in this case the action being Philip hitting his father in the face.

Once Karen has noticed they are fighting in the street, she goes into a state of panic and worry. This is shown by using a fish eye and a high angle shot to make her look powerless and debilitated, the fish eye lens shows a slightly distorted view to reflect the way she is thinking at that moment. This reinforces the dysfunctional representations that are created throughout the scene.