Question 2: How does your media product represent particula social groups?

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our main character in our thriller opening was our protagonist; out protagonist was a young school girl, she was the only character that you fully saw throughout the opening. As she was out protagonist she was represented as a weak victim, we did this through the age difference in the characters; she was the youngest and it made her look the most vulnerable.

The costume and make up we used helped to create how we represented her, her costume was a school uniform this helped to emphasise how young she was and that she would be the weaker one out of the two. The makeup we used was a muddy effect; this showed that there had been a struggle and she had fallen and was getting flustered.

 

 

 

The representation of age was the man thing that was represented throughout the opening, the antagonist as a much older character and he was shown as that stronger more dominant character and the protagonist was a much younger weaker smaller character. One way we showed this was through camerawork and shots; most of the opening was shot at the protagonist’s level and the antagonist was cut out of shot making it more mysterious but also making him appear bigger as you never saw him fully in shot.  This is shown during the final shots when the antagonist final captures the protagonist, you see the protagonist’s full reaction and you can only see a small amount of the antagonist this adds mystery as you never fully see him or his reactions but also shows his enormity compared o the protagonist.

Another way that we were able to create a sense of vulnerability from the protagonist was through the setting ; we used the woods as out location to film this help to make the girl look small as the setting around her was so large compared to her. Also the setting doesn’t look as large when the antagonist is in the same setting as the protagonist; this then also helps to show how much more powerful he is compared to her.

 

A film with a similar character to our protagonist was Man on Fire, they are both young girl that are in danger of being taken and both eventually are, and they are in similar costumes and of a similar age. They are both represented in very similar ways; they are both shown as being defenceless, when someone is attempting to capture them neither of them can defend themselves nor prevent what is about to happen to them.

 

A film that represents age in a very different way is Orphan, in this thriller the young girl is the antagonist and the one everyone is put in danger by. The thriller first represents the girl as being innocent but then turns and it is revealed that she is not the small innocent child you think and is that she is someone who should be feared and avoided. We chose not to represent age is such a different way as we felt it may of confused the audience.

Thrillers often represent gender in a similar ways; they usually show females as being the weaker less powerful ones and males as the dominant ones. We also represented gender in this way as we had the protagonist as a female and antagonist played by a male. Our male character was the more dominant character and over powered the protagonist and we felt that this was more effective and emphasised how powerless the young girl was.