Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?



 

The images below are from our thriller opening title sequence. As you can see both the two characters were played by the same actor, the two character are dressed differently one is dressed in colourful/ white clothing and the other is dressed in black clothing this shows that although the two characters are the same person they are both represented in different ways. The actress playing these two character is 16 and therefore the audience might relate to these two characters as they are of a similar age to our target audience, the target audience are aged 15 and over. The social group that my thriller represents is a stereotypical normal teenage girl as the characters are teenagers.

 

The first character in my thriller opening is the teenage girl. She is a typical normal teenage girl who likes reading magazines and being with her friends. This characters costume reflects her personality; she is wearing a white jumper, and a floral skirt with black tights, her costume suggests that she is the protagonist in my thriller opening, the colour white connotes purity and innocence and therefore this reflects her personality as she is the good personality of herself. The fact that this character is the good and pure part of her, it could relate to the younger audience aged 15 as this character could relate to them. This character is the light/ good part of her personality and therefore will relate more to the audience as although everyone has a dark side, everyone still has their good side which is seen more than their dark side. This character is dressed in a white jumper and flower skirt, her make-up is natural, this tells the audience that she is the protagonist or the innocent character in our thriller.

 

With using the teenage girl as our main character we have represented a young female in her own home shared with the rest of her family with a twist of no one except her being in the house. We decided to have a character as they would be able to relate to our target audience more than if we had an older character. The way our character looks is used to create an impact on the audience, the first few scenes that we filmed show the young girl reading a magazine this introduces the stereotypical image of the character as she is reading a gossip magazine. This type of magazine is usually related to girls of a similar age. As this character is the first person you see in our thriller it makes it clear to the audience that she is the main character and the protagonist in our thriller as well as it is clear that something is going to happen which involves her.

 

 

The second character in my thriller opening is the alter-ego. This characters costume reflects her personality; she is wearing a black jumper, and a black skirt with black tights, her costume suggests that she is the antagonist in my thriller, the colour black connotes darkness and therefore this reflects her personality as she is the dark personality of herself. The fact that this character is the bad and dark part of her, it could relate to the target audience as everyone as a dark side. This character is the dark/ bad part of her personality and therefore will relate more to the audience as everyone one has a dark side. This character is dressed in all black clothing, her make-up is dark this makes her stand out and also tells the audience that she is the antagonist or the dark character in our thriller. This character is also shown as being “gothic” as she has dark clothes and make-up on, the “gothic” audience would relate to this character more than the other character as this character is similar to them; therefore this character is a stereotype of a Goth.

 

With using the same actress to play two different characters, one with a light personality and the other with a dark personality, it shows that the character has spilt personalities and therefore makes the audience relate as everyone has two different sides to their personality. We decided to have another character played by the same actress because it makes the audience think about what is actually going on and what could happen in this thriller. The way our character looks is used to create an impact the audience, the scenes that I shot of the alter-ego show the girl with dark make-up on.

The use of the two characters showing the two different personalities and the fact that they are played by the same actor shows that our thriller opening title sequence is unique. There aren’t any psychological thrillers that have the same actor playing two different characters to show two different personalities already out there that have been distributed by any production company. This shows that our thriller is unique and different from any other real thriller and therefore I think that audiences would like to see this as it is so different from anything else.

 

 

  This shot shows that this character is a stereotypical teenage girl who likes reading gossip magazines.

These two images show the female characters in my thriller. The image below shows the alter-ego smudging her lip stick, this could suggest that this character doesn’t like the way women are shown in media for example some women are photo shopped on the front of magazine covers.

 

 

This shot shows the alter ego smudging her lip stick this could suggest that she doesn’t like the way she looks. At the start of our thriller opening there are shots of magazines with blood being dripped on and the alter ego smudging the blood on one of the magazines, this could suggest that this character doesn’t like the way they look or how girls in magazines are being shown.

 

 

The alter ego character from our thriller is similar to this character. These characters are similar as they both have dark/black make-up on, this shows that they are the villain antagonist in the film. The representational ideas the make-up gives the audience are that it shows what their personalities are like and that they are both dark characters. They also both look like they are a similar age, the character on the right from the real thriller could be a little bit older than the character in our thriller as she looks like she could be in her 20s.

We made sure that the alter ego character in our thriller was dressed in black and wore dark make-up to make it clear to the audience what her role is in our thriller. We chose to have this character wearing all black because it clearly shows what her role is. We wanted to clearly show that this character is the villain/ antagonist in our thriller opening title sequence. We chose to use this actor because she is young and we thought that having an actor who is a similar age to our target audience would be able to relate to the role and the audience would be able to relate to the character more.

 

 

The teenage girl character from our thriller is similar to this character. These characters aren’t similar as they are both wearing different costumes; however they are both the hero/ protagonists in the films. The characters are both different ages this shows that the characters are different.

We made sure that the teenage girl character in our thriller was dressed in white and wore natural make-up this is so that it was clear to the audience what her role is in our thriller. We chose to have this character wearing white because it clearly shows what her role is. We wanted to clearly show that this character is the hero/ protagonist in our thriller opening title sequence. We chose to use this actor because she is young and we thought that having an actor who is a similar age to our target audience would be able to relate to the role and the audience would be able to relate to the character more.

Women in media create stereotypes for example women on the front covers of magazines are sometimes photo shopped to create a prefect body image. This makes the younger audience feel like that this is the body image that they should have and therefore it makes younger women feel conscious about their body and what they look like and therefore make them want to change the way they look and want to make themselves look like the stereotyped image. In my thriller we wanted to create the message that the alter-ego character doesn’t like the way she looks or how women are shown in magazines and other types of media.