Establishing Shot

Filmmakers adore clichés and no more so than in what are called ‘establishing shots’. It would be virtually impossible for a production featuring Sydney, Australia, not to include an image of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. After lingering briefly on these over-familiar icons, we’d get, for the geographically challenged, a caption saying ‘Sydney’, or more likely, ‘Sydney, Australia’; this is to distinguish it from Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada which has a pleasant enough harbour but, alas, no opera house or overarching bridge.

Paris – Eiffel Tower, LA – Hollywood sign, Rio de Janeiro – Statue of Christ; the list is endless. And London?

You cannot have an establishing shot of London that does not include one, two or more of these:

A red double-decker bus
A policeman with a funny shaped hat and no gun
A guardsman in his Busby being seriously motionlessness
A black cab
The Houses of Parliament
Tower Bridge

One iconic London object is the Tube Train, forerunner of all the world’s subway systems. It is, by nature, a shy, timid creature, rarely seen above ground in the centre of the city and so missing from the pantheon of images that film directors think signify Britain’s capital.

However once it heads for the suburbs and what little countryside remains, it pops out from its tunnel and cavorts freely across the endless miles, revelling in the kiss of the sun on its trim aluminium body. In today’s image, a District Line train head out into the wilds of Essex, carrying weary city workers home to a supper of fish and chips and an evening of beer and skittles.

Hold on. Did I drop some clichés in there somewhere?