How does your media product represent particular social groups? Question 2 How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Laurie Young - Victim Overview of her character: Laurie is the young female protagonist/victim in our opening title sequence. We came up with the idea that she is 22, she grew up and lives in Brighton. She is training to be a nurse at Brighton university. Laurie is middle classed and grew up in a middle classed family. Atypical or Typical? Laurie is typical of the genre as she is an ordinary person as in Thrillers the protagonist is a normal person and is easily identifiable to the spectator. Laurie has her mind set on what she wants to do (nursing) which is typical as usually people in their early 20’s would know what they want to do with their life. This is clear through the opening title sequence as you see that she wants nothing to do with Sam and wants to take her own path. She is a typical victim of a Thriller as she is depicted as weak / vulnerable however she has strength which is shown when she breaks up with Sam. Representation: Laurie is represented as the weak helpless female. This is because she is being stalked by Sam and can’t really do anything about it so needs to be saved. However, she does break up with Sam so she can pursue her own career. This isn’t a very typical representation of females in Thriller films.

Laurie Young: Cont. Mise-en-scene: Our group took inspiration for our film from the movie ‘Se7en’, from this film we took the idea that the character’s actions were more important then the actual character. We also took the idea that the characters cannot be seen. We took the idea about actions on board for our character Laurie. When choosing clothes for our character Laurie, we decided to go with a colour theme of pink and red. This is because we thought that the colour pink / red was quite innocent looking when in comparison to Sam’s black clothes. We chose the red dress as it shows the danger that Laurie is in when she is around Sam. Laurie’s figure expressions are neutral during the entire film, however, during the flash backs she is smiling and laughing. This suggests her personality when she was with Sam and how happy she was before everything went wrong. Other films where there is a similar character: When researching for our opening title sequence we had to study different films and try to get inspiration from them. One that we found stood out the most in terms of a female character was ‘Brick’. The female victim is one of the first people you see in the film and we see different parts of her body that could suggest social class / age. We see that she is wearing quite young persons clothes which is similar to our character in the sense that her clothing gives away her age. This is the image that we took inspiration from, from ‘Brick’

Sam Addison - Antagonist Overview of the character: Sam is a 21 year old male, he is originally from London but is living in Brighton when he moved here to be with his girlfriend Laurie. He is our antagonist in our opening title sequence. Sam is from a working class family and is working class himself. He has no intention of finding any job but could be seen as a househusband. It may be seen as strange that Laurie and Sam were together as they are so opposite. Atypical or Typical? Sam is a typical antagonist of a Thriller film. This is because of the fact that he is stalking his girlfriend Laurie and this is a typical element of a thriller film. Also, Sam is wearing a black hoodie which can be seen as a threat to society so he fits in well somewhat as the ‘villain’. The idea that Sam takes drugs and drinks is a typical trait to the thriller antagonist. This is because these are usually seen as a bad thing to do so would be associated with bad people. His characters face is left hidden which makes him a mysterious character that can be uncomfortable for the viewer to view as they are worried about what he is going to do to Laurie. Representation: Sam is represented as a typical antagonist who is threatening and menacing. He is meant to come across as quite aggressive. We have done this by making it so his facial expression does not change except for when he is in the flashbacks where, similarly to Laurie he is smiling and laughing. This, again, makes it so the spectator would know about their past happiness. We have also made it so you cannot see all of Sam’s face at any given time. This makes him represented as a more mysterious/eerie character.

Sam Addison – Cont. Mise-en-scene: Sam’s character is wearing a full black outfit. He is also wearing a hoodie. This is because we thought it was in high contrast to the colours that Laurie is wearing when he is stalking her (pink/red). We also thought that hoodies are associated with danger in society so he is a typical Thriller antagonist. It also shows how he has a threatening personality towards Laurie as he is stalking her and would be seen as a danger to her as he is hiding in the shadows. The main prop that we have used in our opening title sequence is the necklace. The necklace is supposed to show the relationship that the two had previously and in one shot we used Sam is attempting to give it to Laurie but then he realises that it’s all in his mind and she disappears from shot. Inside the necklace is an angel which can have connotations of death or even guidance which would make the spectator wonder what is going to happen to Laurie. Characters from other films that are similar: Our group took some inspiration for Sam’s character from Vincent from ‘Collateral’ this is because of the idea of a hidden identity which Vincent has throughout the film (as he wears sunglasses). This is the image we used for the inspiration of Sam’s character.

Inspiration for both characters: Opening scenes. When planning for our opening title sequence we looked at a lot of opening title sequences for other films. As I mentioned earlier, the main inspiration for Sam’s character was Vincent from ‘Collateral’ who is played by Tom Cruise. Here is a link to the opening of this film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYB9ytA6weo We also used the female in ‘Brick’ as an inspiration but only in the opening title sequence. This is because you can see the girls clothes in this scene and she is wearing clothes that suggest her age. We took this idea from this film and used it in our own and used different colours to suggest Laurie’s age. Here is a link to the ‘Brick’ opening scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd0_LYXwGro

Images that we used to show our own characters: