Evaluation - Question Two

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The old family photograph

There are only two main characters present in my thriller sequence; the antagonist and the victim. The antagonist is played by a male friend Eddie Woodley while the victim was played by one of my group members Kerry Boyne. The antagonist is a young male who has experienced a traumatising childhood that has left him psychologically damaged and led him to become a serial killer. Our narrative explains that the killer murders young girls with dark hair because they remind him of his mother who also had dark hair. We portrayed this by creating a mid shot of an old family photograph of a mother with a child and the mother had very dark hair.

The antagonist

The abandoned house

The antagonist wears dark, scruffy clothing and a plain white mask to conceal his face. The dark colours of his clothes represents the evil in him while the whiteness of his mask represents his innocence as a child. Similarily, the victim wears a white dress to portray her innocence and vulnerability. Her hair is dark like all of the killers previous victims and she is younger than him which further highlights her vulnerability. He lives in an abandoned house located in an isolated forest and has become twisted and psychopathic due to his disturbing childhood. It is made clear that the mother is behind the reason of his unsettling childhood due to the eerie old photograph of her that is shown near the beginning of the opening sequence. The audience can then see that he must have a hatred for women who resemble his mother as all of his previous victims have had dark hair like hers. We know this because there are five images of each of his victim hung on a wall in the abandoned house. Four of the pictures are crossed out which suggests that they have already been killed previously yet there is one image that is being circled which suggests she is next.

The victim

The image being circled is of Kerry, who plays the most recent of the serial killers victims in our media product. She is an average girl with no relation to the killer. She is young an innocent and has been targeted, stalked and captured by the antagonist purely because of her hair colour that represents his mother. She has been kidnapped and tied up by the serial killer and is left to wake up in the abandoned house. She becomes aware other surroundings and understands that she will not survive if she does not attempt to escape so she unties herself and runs away.

Strong body language

Frightened facial expressions

While the antagonist shows no facial expressions, the victim portrays exaggerated frightened ones to show her fear and anxiety. This is also conveyed by her body language which is feeble and scared. However, the antagonists body language is strong and bold to represent his confidence and knowledge that he will eventually capture her. We chose these two characters because we believe that it is most effective when two characters heavily contrast each other. One is male, dominant, emotionless, confident and wears dark clothing while the other is female, vulnerable, scared, innocent and wears white clothing. The white clothing has connotations of innocence and childhood which induces that the victim has done nothing wrong in order to get where she is. It was purely bad luck and determination from the antagonist that caused her to be kidnapped.  The representation of innocence is emphasised further when the victim is shown tiptoeing through the house and out of the door before escaping. The child-like mannerisms portray her fear as she is walking very slowly in order to stay quiet and undetected by the antagonist.

High angle shot of the victim 

The victim possesses representations such as vulnerability which is due to the fact that she is an average naive girl who has found herself in danger. She is confused and frightened by her new surroundings and situation and knows that all she wants is to escape. The audience know that the antagonist is a serial killer and therefore has killed several times before which suggests that he is likely to achieve in killing this victim just like the others. The use of cinematography represents the victim as inferior and weak compared to the killer. This is shown through a high angle shot that represents her as vulnerable and small.

Furthermore, the victim is represented as alone and isolated. This is portrayed by showing the abandoned house in the middle of the forest at the start of the scene using a panning shot before the victim is introduced. This reveals to the audience that no one else is around to see, hear or help her and that she has been isolated with the killer. The victim being a female  has representations of her being weaker and less able than the antagonist who is a male. This suggests she is likely to get killed. We portrayed this representation by creating a steadicam of her panicked running through the forest and juxtaposing it with a long shot of the antagonists bold powerful walk.

The antagonist is represented as dominant as he is portrayed as in control of the situation throughout. For example, when the victim escapes he is confident in himself that he will catch her and bring her back to the house. We can tell this because of his slow powerful walk that follows her as she runs away desperately. Another representation of the character is manipulative and obsessive which are both characteristics of a psychopath and conventional to the psychological thriller sub-genre. The audience can see he is obsessive due to the fact that he has several photographs of his victims on the wall. This proves that he is obsessed with the idea of killing to release the hatred he has for his mother. It also proves that he is a serial killer and has killed several times before; stalking, taking pictures and planning carefully the murder of each victim.

The antagonist is portrayed as powerful also which was achieved my an over the shoulder shot of him circling an image of his next victim. This shows him controlling the situation and planning what he will do to the next victim while she has no choice as he is more dominant and powerful. Furthermore, the killer is represented as frightening and scary as both the victim and audience are afraid of him and threatened by him. This is demonstrated by an over the shoulder shot of the victim running from the antagonist in the forest. The shot shows fearful facial expressions on the victims face which is paired with  the non diegetic heart beat which represents the fear of the audience and the victim.

The gender roles are presented in a stereotypical way because they are conventional to a thriller because women or child victims are found to be more effective when used in a thriller film as they seem more weak and vulnerable which makes it less likely that they will escape and the audience understands this which make them feel more sympathetic and stressful. This tells us it would be less threatening to use a male as a victim because there is a higher chance that he would escape as he would be portrayed as less vulnerable. Because of this we decided to use a male as the antagonist as they are generally perceived as more threatening killers.

The target audience for my thriller is teenagers and young adults which is why my sequence is rated an  age certificate of fifteen. The victim appeals to the target audience because she is in the same age group. This makes the audience believe that she is similar to them and therefore they put themselves in her position because they feel like it could be them. As a result this makes them feel more empathetic towards her because they feel as though she is similar to them and that they could be in her position one day. The antagonist is slightly older than most of the target audience which will instantly make him more threatening and dominant to them as he has authority in terms of age. this makes the audience believe he is stronger and more powerful than them which therefore makes them feel more frightened of him.

I decided to include these representations in my media product because I believed that they made it conventional to the thriller genre. This means the opening sequence would be more successful in provoking shock, suspense and surprise in the audience as well as creating elements of enigma. In terms of the victim and her representation of innocence, I believed it would allow the audience to relate to her and the opening sequence overall as innocence is a strong theme represented throughout in both characters. The fear and worry of the audience is increased as they wonder whether she will escape and hope that she will as they know she has doing nothing wrong to be in the situation she is in. The victim's representation of vulnerability helps the audience to build a relationship with her as they feel sympathetic towards her and want to be able to help her escape but know they cannot. This is mostly because they either feel they themselves can relate to her or they believe someone they know can relate to her. Both of these representations engage the audience as they want to know is she will escape.

The victim is a female and the representations that come with this stereotype (vulnerable, weak, inferior etc.) are conventional to a thriller film. This is because it is stereotypical for a girl to be weaker and slower than a male and this therefore makes it more difficult for her to
overpower him or escape from him. The audience knows this and therefore becomes more fearful on the victims behalf. I decided to include my representations of the antagonist for several reasons also. Dominance as a representation, allowed the audience to feel threatened and inferior compared to the antagonist and so they would therefore relate to the victim more as they would feel sympathetic and build a relationship with her. This makes them more fearful and anxious as they wait for the outcome of the opening sequence; they are frightened that the antagonist will kill the victim and want her to escape. The representations of manipulation and power were included because they both inform the audience that the antagonist is in control which in turn makes them more fearful of him. This makes him appear stronger and superior so he is likely  able to hurt and kill the victim which is what the audience is scared will happen.

Representing the antagonist as frightening worked well because it would allow the audience to relate to the victim in terms of fear felt. Because the viewer would feel similar to the victim they would put themselves in her shoes which further increases their fear of the antagonist and makes the sequence more suspenseful, shocking and surprising to watch overall.