Evaulation- Question 2- Imogen Evans

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The most popular social groups which could have been represented in our film are:


Gender,
Age,
Sexuality,
Ethnicity,
Class & Status,
Ability & Disability,
Regional Identity

We chose to represent the titles highlighted in red.

By choosing to represent teenagers and a middle class status it reflects on the creators of our media products as we fit under these social groups. This gave us first hand knowledge on how to portray our characters and how to fit them into chosen scene scenarios, an example; we knew how a teenager would react to their mother dying, so we gave our ideas to our actor.

Using a different age range it would be harder to portray emotions like we did with a teenager.

How have these representations been constructed through the use of technical codes?

Camera:  A close up is used when the main teenage character is smoking a cigarette which constructs rebellion and a sign of getting older and mature. By using a close up it also emphasises the characters facial expressions of him sighing out of stress and pain which is common AMONGST TEENAGERS.

                                                      Here it is shown the protagonist releasing stress

Mise En Scene:

Props- We focused on using a cigarette as that constructs can drama and it can reflect the growing of a teenager by rebelling and turning to cigarettes. Cigarettes can also emphasise the emotional and stressful times the character is facing, smoking is part of him growing up and learning about who he is.

Costumes- The main character wore a causal superdry jacket and his teenage friends wore hoodies. This constructs their teenage image and age, superdry is an expensive brand which shows

his middle class status.

                                                                           The superdry jacket vs the black coat


In contrast the elder antagonist character wore a longer black coat which constructs age to the film, it emphasises the maturity level between each character as an someone older would not wear a superdry hoodie.

Positive or negative representations, modern or traditional?

The main teenage character is given a negative representation due to him being out late in the dark and smoking which links to the way grief has changed him. In an adults perspective he would be a negative representation but at iseajh we see a positive representation as it is only human to act out when pain strikes.


It is a modern representation of a teenager as it shows modern material goods such as his clothing and cigarettes. By setting the end scene in a college it represents a teenager in a modern day lifestyle.

                                      Here is our main character in his stereotypical superdry jacket

Why have you chosen to represent characters in this way?

We have chosen to present the main character whom is the protagonist in a angry but innocent style to make the audience sympathize for him for losing his parents. We make the audience sympathize the main character by making the actor have emotional facial expressions through out the opening.

An example is that when he bangs the railing he clenches his face and bows his head as if to show he is trying not to cry. As shown above

We have tried to make the audience dislike the antagonist by hiding his identity which will make the audience wonder who he is and what link does he have towards the main character. By giving him a bloody scar this makes the audience dislike the antagonist as they will believe it is out of bad decisions he has this scar.

These are the traits which the audience will dislike the antagonist

Within our opening we have not decided to set out to challenge stereotypes but instead follow stereotypes of a white middle class teenage boy. We followed stereotypes as we wanted our film to be as natural as possible so it looked like it could be happening in the present day which is why we chose to film in a college and locations people could recognise 'Worth Church'.

A character profile of Tom our stereotypical white boy.

                                     If we had put more thought into stereotypes we may have used a different specific group but because we did not have many actors on hand and it was more convenient we chose to stick with what we knew best and what we could link together, two white men who could bare a resemblance.

In contrast to other thriller films I looked at, it does not show any stereotypical white middle class boys. An example that in 'The Lovely Bones' there are no stereotypes within the film so by us creating the stereotypical image it is showing a different angle.

Considering 'The Lovely Bones' and 'Unanswered' were set in different time periods it is different but 'The Lovely Bones' considerably focuses more on the females in their opening whilst our opening is male dominated due to the link between Father and Son.

The Lovely Bones is set in 1973 whilst Unanswered is set in 2016.

Here is the difference between the time periods: The Lovely Bones vs Unanswered