Evaluation:Question 2-Jess Smith

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

Throughout our thriller opening we did represent different gender's, age and regional identity. However nothing shown in the opening could lead viewers to make assumptions about ethnicity, sexuality, disability/ability or class and status. All factors are represented through camera use, editing, mise-en-scene and sound.

Gender:  
During the hall scene, Eliza is wearing glitter eyeshadow makeup, which is highlighted by the lighting, which is only worn by females (figures 1&2), therefore it's clear from the begining that the protagonists is a female, especially as she's positioned in the centre of the frame at all times. There are many ECU and CU on her face and eyes throughout the opening.

Figure 1

Figure 2

She is also wearing a femine, white dress, positioned in the cenre of the frame, attracting viewers attention (figures 3&4).

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 6

The woods scene also displays her gender as she's wearing a female, cross over black coat and girls shirt (figure 5).

Figure 5

She is also wearing a lot of liquid eye-liner (figure 6), which is usally worn by females. 

I also curled the characters hair before filming the hall scene, whereas she had straight hair for the woods scene, creating a clear difference between settings. This is easy to do for females, whereas male's wouldn't have two different hairstyles. 

It is also clear that the antagonist (stalker is male) becasue of the male shoes and black baggy trousers worn (figure 6). The antagonists hand is also shown at the end when it catches Eliza and he has clear nails, which conforms to him being male as if it was a female they would probably have painted nails (figure 7).

Figure 6

Figure 7

Regional Identity:Our opening also gave a bit of an incite into the regional identity of the character becasue the the cloudy, white sky (figure 1) in the wooded, country side area suggests it's in the UK, but it doesn't get anymore developed than that. 

Figure 1

There is also a medium shot of the antagonists feet in the cruncky, wintery leaves (figure 2), something that happens in cold temperatures.

Figure 2

Age: We chose to use a female character for our protagonists becasue one of our group members friend was happy to be the role, by it is stereotypical to use a female victim and a male antagonists, but it wasn't delibirate. Therefore we went for a more traditional, less modern style. But it works well becasue the protagonists icould be seen as at a vulderable age for females (16), so we wanted to represent her in this way, with headphones in so shes cut off from the world and she thinks she is alone throughout the whole opening.  This all conformed to the thriller genre.

Our soundtrack used apeals to our target audience (taken from our audience feedback) which is around 12-18 year olds as it fits what that age group enjoy when watching thrillers as it's a range of tempo's. The vocieover is done by someone aged 17, therefore in our target audiecne range, which will make it easier for viewers to relate to it, along with the 16 year old actors too.