Question 2 Evaluation: How does your media product represent particular social groups? - Ryan Evans

Characters Our main character: Eli a 19 year-old working class caucasian male from Brighton, UK. The fact that he's both working class and 19 years-old means that he needs a quick money making scheme to help himself get by in his lonely world. His morality is conveyed as being a menacing young male, interested in crime related activity: illegal drugs and violence. He is typical of the crime thriller genre as he is a rebellious teen looking for anyway way to make some money. His typical traits being: impatient, street smart and fickle about his opinions. Additionally, his age in lots of ways reflects his naivety, so Eli’s decision to start selling narcotics conveys his lack of intelligence and awareness of consequences.

Typical or Atypical, and Representation? Our character Eli resembles a typical teenager in this genre of films, being recklessly involved in drugs and violence. As he is of the age of 19, he matches the typical characteristics of a teenage thuggish male, prowling around the dark streets of Brighton looking for any trouble which he can negatively involve himself in. As the film plays out, Eli’s character type could be considered questionable, as the audience are unaware if he’s the protagonist/antagonist, as his involvement in drugs and violence is understandably perceived as being frowned upon. Because of this, Eli is categorised in the typical ‘British Hoodies’ group, conforming to this social group as his actions relate to actions which people, who are similar to him, take part in.

Mise-En-Scene Setting: The various locations we used develop the idea of our character and his relations to drugs and everything that it involves. Before the idea of drugs is made clear in our sequence, we incorporated shots which express drug related activity, in quite typical looking settings. Our first drug deal takes place on the street, as Eli is walking alone, he sees it in the corner of his eye. Because this was introduced so early on, it provides indications to the type of character Eli is, and what his interests are. It shows that he is interested in selling drugs because he knows it can be an easy way for him to make money quick. Costumes: Eli appears in full black, with a hoodie and hat. His appearance reflects that of a typical British Hoodie, emerging as being a violent and untrustworthy individual. Him being in full black could indicate he’s trying to appear un-noticeable, blending in with the darkness surrounding him. It could also demonstrate his loneliness or isolation, as him purposefully trying to blend in conveys his solidarity. Props: We incorporated a parcel/package at the end of our sequence, located in the prolific graffiti area of Brighton, to construct enigmas in the mind of our viewers. The parcel contains illegal drugs, which reflects well with a large population of teenagers in Brighton who use drugs, as the brown envelope appears indistinct, although it does relate well to the drug culture as a whole.

Mise-En-Scene Continued… Appearance: Eli continuously wears his hood up or a hat, which gives the impression to the audience he's trying to conceal himself, hide his identity. This provides more clues to the type of character Eli is, someone who appears quite skeptical and untrustworthy. We purposefully added this element to Eli's character as it conforms to the stereotypical British 'hoodlum', which also relates well to the urban gritty atmosphere our sequence conveys.  Figure Expression: His portrayed figure expression usually consists of being quite bleak and uninterested. As of this, his unenthusiastic portrayal relates well to our theme of drugs and to the thriller genre as a whole. This is because the fact that Eli shows almost no emotion until when he initially comes across the package, and looks inside, his facial expression changes and suddenly he conveys a sense of interest. We incorporated this as it suggests the type of characteristics which Eli maintains, an arguably rugged thug like individual, stereotypically and contextually fitting to the character conventions in this specific area of crime thrillers.

Reflections from various characters from other films Our character contains lots of characteristics which were inspired by other films. For instance, in 'Kidaulthood' and 'Adulthood', they surround a main character which carries fairly similar attributes, which inspired us. These attributes include: chavy, thug-like, British 'hoodie', street smart and mischievous. In addition, we aimed to include the gritty British portrayal of these films into our sequence, having similar settings and clothing choices. We were also inspired by the main character in 'The Wolf of Wall Street', who greatly desires money and narcotics, appears a crazy, drug fuelled psychotic. However, in our sequence we couldn't explore that aspect as it would have been added if we made the film. In contrast, the main character in this film conveys a moral sense of class, whereas Eli appears as more of a jagged individual, being working class and unemployed.