AS Media
G321
Foundation
Portfolio
Thursday 9th April
Question 2; How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Representation of social groups is important in any media product because it will affect who watches the media product and the reviews and public opinion of the product. We tried to focus on certain aspects of social groups and tried not to be stereotypical in our opening about social groups.
Females are usually represented in thriller films as either sidekicks or background characters, often they're presented as helpless, dainty and 'lady-like'. Often appearing as the damsel or just as an object for the protagonist and viewers to look at as a sexual icon or character. We chose not to represent them like this because we thought it was not an accurate portrayal of women and that it's not as interesting or as appealing to our target audience because the majority is made up of females. We represented females as much more unique and separate from each other, each was given a different look to make sure each character was relatable to some extent to our target audience.
Our Antagonist
Because this was our antagonist (the bad evil character) we wanted to create a distinct separation from the other characters to the audience knew definitively that she was different to the others. We first did this by establishing her look, we didn't want her to come across as any kind of helpless or vulnerable. We chose to put her in a long black dress, this created mystery around her because it's obviously not appropriate for what she's doing nor does it fit any of the scenes she's seen in. It also hides an aspect of her identity creating the fear of the unknown in our audience making her seem threatening because of the lack of identification given.
The black dress makes our antagonist look strange and unfriendly. This is conventional in terms of thriller films.
We also created this view of her through the use of the lighting, we used a black and white filter on every shot that she was in, this makes the audience relate the darkness to her. This separates her from the other characters realities because it's darker when she's around, she creates an atmosphere of dread and because of this seems scary and again strange and unnatural. The darker scenes with low key lighting when the antagonist is around creates a separate reality for her, this makes the audience cautious of her because she operates on her own kind of reality which is supernatural. This makes her not human which creates a very intense fear in the audience. This is atypical of thriller films since so often women are used as damsels or characters that aren't important to the plot.
We used a range of camerawork for our antagonist, we had multiple shots where some part of her was cut off for example in Steph's death scene (0:32). We used long shots during the woods and park scenes that she's in, in these shots she seems far away however still somewhat close which frightens the audience. This makes the audience alarmed because she covers (presumably) large distances in no time, this is especially true of the park scene as it's a vast space and she manages to get close, kill the children and get away. This represents her as predatory, she's dangerous, clearly skilled in some way and could even signify a kind rabidness. This is atypical of female characters in thriller films because they're usually 'feminine' and dainty and not bloody thirsty psychopaths. The use of a long shot (1:47) makes the audience feel helpless as they can only watch as the antagonist gets closer and increases the body count, this represents her as unstoppable and is very alarming to the target audience.
The sound was an element we closely focused on through the construction of the opening, we worked hard on picked sounds and using variation of diegetic and non-diegetic. At the end scene in the woods we cut the backing track and we replayed this small section of the track. This created a dis-orientating, almost deja vu type feel. The repetition of the one small section creates a fractured, broken reality around the anatagonist, this represented her as powerful and frightening in the opening. I think it also represented her character in the broken music, she's represented as a broken character. I think it also emphasises her fury, there's this repeated track in her head that won't stop which I think the audience can kind of see in the last scene. I think our antagonist is my favourite character in how she's represented through everything and I think if we were to make a full film based on the opening I would definitely explore her character a lot more.
We added in a lot of stuff post-filming that I think helps to create the antaognist atmosphere. One of the things we did was add a fire crackling and an earthquake sound when she's on screen to create a more violent, angry feel, to emphasis what happens when she's on-screen and what kind of atmosphere she creates. This represents her as very sinister and angry, I think editing builded a lot more onto her character. We used a lot of superimposition when our antagonist is on-screen to create a supernatural element to our film, this represents her as not human which creates a different kind of fear because if she's not human then the audience don't know what she is and don't know how to stop her. This represents her as a relentless force who clearly has no moral compass. This is very atypical since women are usually represented as no help when it comes to action or fighting or any kind of 'manly' activity.
Young Children and Mother (Family)
Typically in thriller films children are represented as vulnerable, innocent and angelic in how they behave. We went with the typical presentation of young children in our opening because we wanted to create negative feelings towards our antagonist using the children. We used mise en scene in our opening to create the presentation of innocence and vulnerability, Our park scene was in high key lighting, this makes the scene look nice and creates an atmosphere of happiness around the children and their mother. They're playing nicely together and having fun, this represents them as unified and together. This is typical of thriller films because children are often portrayed as innocent and vulnerable and in need of protecting. The children playing together reinforces the idea that females stick together which is often seen in films of all genres and an idea we liked and then used.
We used a long shot of the children playing (0:53) they're a fair distance away from their mother which makes them seem vulnerable because they're out in the open. The mother of the children is obviously the protector and the long shot looks like a predatory survey of the area around her children to make sure they're okay. Often in thriller films the mother is often just the mother her only job or role in the film is to protect her children, we kind of conformed to this convention because although the mother was attempting to protect her children (she's shown worrying about them through the superimposition of the children and her face) she clearly had failed since they end up being killed. The children playing together with the mother watching clearly signifies the unity of the family and the togetherness of them all going out together to the park.
We added sound effects in post-filming to the park scene to emphasise the innocence of the children and to highlight how young and vulnerable they are. We added a giggling sound effect into the opening that plays at 0:38 and at 0:51 to convey how much they're having fun and enjoying being together. This again creates an atmosphere of happiness and unity among them, it also signifies the childrens predetermined death however as children can be used as bait or bargaining chips in thriller films. This represents them as vulnerable and makes them seem an easy target which is typical of thriller films both in terms of children and females looking vulnerable and easy targets.
During the editing stage of this particular scene we saturated the image heavily to make it brighter, the saturation makes the scene seem almost too bright and kind of sickly. Everything seems too good signifying the 'calm before the storm' this represents the children as being doomed into an early death by a predetermined fate (the mother survives). This represents them as helpless again since they're (seemingly) too young to defend themselves or each other against possible threats. This is typical of thriller films since children are always portrayed an innocent and vulnerable.
Teenagers
Teenagers aren't overly common in thriller movies, usually teenagers are only focused on as main characters in teen movies. In thriller movies they're usually background characters, often relatives of the main character and not relatively important to the plot. We primarily made the choice to include them because our target audince includes teenagers quite heavily and also because we ourselves are teenagers so we find it easier to construct a relatable teen character. Both of the teens featured in our opening wore black and white clothing, neither of them are dressed in what you might call 'feminine clothing' an atypical representation since the majority of women in thriller films are portrayed as very 'feminine' and often wear clothing that reflects that view.
We used inside locations for both of the scenes with the teenagers in, Steph's scene takes place in a living room (Jemma's) and Jemma's scene takes place in school. Because these are locations in which we're supposed to be safe and dont expect to be attacked in, because of this our defenses are usually down, this makes the teenagers look less vulnerable than other characters in the clip (with the exception of charlotte). This represents them as stronger however could also show them as more vulnerable because of their relaxed demeanour because they're not expecting to be unsafe where they are. This represents them as less vulnerable than the antagonists other victims however still vulnerable in the fact they were unprepared for an attack and died.
The teenagers were represented as less vulnerable and smarter than the other female characters through the use of camerawork in our opening. We used a mid shot of Jemma to open her scene, during the shot she's working representing her as smart and hardworking. This is reinforced by the fact she only panics when the situation moves out of her control. Steph's character is also shown to be smarter when she enters the living room for the first time. We opened on a wide angle of the living room so viewers can see the whole room (is empty) then our character walks in, this makes us presume she's surveyed the room too and that the rest of the house is empty. This represents her as less vulnerable and smarter than the other characters. However still somewhat vulnerable since her guard is down.
We used sound for representation of the females in our clip, the voiceover stops when Steph walks into the shot representing her as an important character bringing the audience attention to her. Her entry also brings the shot back into some sort of reality, similarly to the effect created in Jemma's scene when the sound effects are first heard. The realness of the situations is something that any of the audience could be put in that situation, this helps the audience relate to the characters. This represents the teenage characters as more relatable and more human to the audience.
During Steph's scene you can clearly see when she switches on the TV that there's a news report playing, we originally wanted the audio of the report in this scene, however due to timing issues we had to cut footage and the audio was left unincluded. The news report is reporting the death of the previous victim (the lady in the car) this was to make he narrative clearer but also to make Steph look more vulnerable because she now has the information Since this was never put in Steph is represented as less vulnerable than we originally wished. I think Jemma is made more vulnerable in the hall scene, the high key lighting makes the frame look very sinister and the fact the hall looks so empty and there's no one around it makes her look less safe and more vulnerable because of the lack of people around.
You can see our friend who was in the preliminiary task video on the tv screen for a short time.
I think for the majority of the female characters we do the typical thriller film look for them because they're played off as victims which are obviously helpless and vulnerable. I think we tried not to make them the typical dainty, 'feminine' female characters that are generally common and not as interesting as other characters. I think the children are presented quite typically since they're clearly shown as innocent (emphasised by the giggling sound effect) and the mother is quite typical clearly shown watching her children carefully so she knows they're safe. I think the teenagers look like they can hold their own more where they are but are still vulnerable and caught off-guard because they're supposed to be in safe locations for them. I think that overall we presented women quite typically with the exception of the antagonist (murderer). I think that we created a range of good characters that would be more developed in the full film. I think that if we were to make a full movie based on our opening we would have a female protagonist (hopefully the mother) to keep females (majority of our target audience) interested.
Males
Males in thriller films usually make up the majority of the cast, often both the antagonist and the protagonist in thriller films are males (sometimes even the same person; The Number 23). The sidekick to the main character is also often a male as women are usually background characters or just there to attract a male audience (sex appeal).
We featured no male characters in our opening because we thought it would be more surprising and appeal more heavily to a female audience (who make up the majority of our audience). The lack of makes signifies they're unimportant or not relevent to the plot, it could also signify that they're not needed or may come later (as protagonist) however we decided out protagonist would be a female too if she was featured in the opening. We thought that a cast made of male characters would be generic and not as interesting. I think that since of audience is mostly female, they would've preferred to see a range of female characters instead of male because it's less common in thriller films and not as often seen in many movies across genres.
I think if we had chosen to use a male cast we wouldn't have them in overly important roles and put less emphasis on them as important characters. It's very atypical of us to use no male characters since men are nearly always the majority cast when it comes to media. I think that using no male characters was a good decision for the most part however I think that we could've appealed more to men in our target audience who would likely not want to watch a movie with too many females in (an unintelligent choice).
Class
Thriller films often like to use binary opposites in their movies. For example if the antagonist is lower class (poor) the protagonist is likely well-off in terms of money, if the protagonist is lower or working class then the antagonist is likely to be quite rich but greedy with his money.
I don't think we focused very heavily on class during our opening, we wanted to focus more heavily on the events than character development. I think we set a base for most of our characters (probably not as much for the old lady in the car) however personalities and more background information is more for actual films than just the opening. We didn't intend any of our characters to be from either end of the spectrum (neither very poor nor rich). We wanted them to be regular working class people something we tried to present in their scenes (day out to the park in small village, public school).
I think the only character whose class is undetermined and that's our antagonist. We did this on purpose because we wanted the audience to know as little as possible to keep the fear of her very intense. Her class isn't easily distinguishable by her appearance because she's wearing a formal kind of dress however she has no socks or shoes on. We actually didn't want the audience to know anything about our antagonist, we didn't want to give away much and I don't think we would've learnt more from a full film if we made one. Our lack of explicit class differentitation suggests that it's not an important element in the media product and it's not really focused on or as prominent as the themes and events.