Evaluation two• How does your media product represent particular social

groups?

What is a social group? A social group is a collection of people who interact with

each other and share similar characteristics and a sense of unity.

The social groups that we represented in our opening were:

Victims of domestic violence A violent spouse An unsupportive mother

How do you represent those who have appeared in your film?

A victim of domestic violence: Sam is represented in the social group of ‘victims of domestic

violence.’ People who are victims are usually represented as weak and vulnerable. Typical personality traits of someone who is a victim of this type of abuse may include being fearful of their partner’s temper, trying to avoid any type of conflicts, having poor self esteem and taking the blame for the abuse. We wanted to try and incorporate all of these personality traits in our character of Sam as we wanted her to be a believable and relatable character in our thriller; if our thriller is believable it will be more tense and suspenseful which are both common themes of a thriller. In our opening we also made sure that Sam was portrayed as an average girl next door to draw attention to how she is a normal girl finding herself in an extraordinary situation.

Sam’s Personality traits:•Weak •Vulnerable•Average girl next door•Sensitive•Self conscious

Sam

Sam

Inspiration for mise en scene: Lighting is a key part of mise en scene in any film but when it came to the footage of Sam

running away from her home we decided to use low key lighting with a dark toned sepia effect as it set a gloomy and mischievous atmosphere to the opening instantly. Our inspiration for this sepia toned footage came from the opening scene of face off which is also has a sepia effect on it; the sepia colour foreshadows the gloomy and upsetting events to come.

Another major element of mise en scene is hair and makeup; our inspiration for Sam’s hair and makeup came from the character of Rachel in girl on the train. Rachel is an alcoholic and is really suffering recovering, in a similar way our character Sam is also suffering from her own problems. Both of these characters have major problems in their life and the least of their worries is what they look like, based upon this we had Sam’s hair tied up and very basic makeup to draw attention to the fact that she is having a tough time.

One of the props Sam has in the opening of our thriller is a ring. The inspiration of using a ring came from a real life documentary that I watched with a similar story to our opening. I thought that if the inspiration came from a true story then the tension will build even more than before and the opening will be more believable and dramatic.

• We got our inspiration for Sam’s character from Julia Robert’s character Laura Burney in the film ‘Sleeping with the Enemy’ who fakes her own death in attempt to get away from her violent husband. In a similar way, in our opening Sam is also attempting to get away from her abusive and violent husband Darren which is one of the reasons for her going on the run. Laura’s characterSam Laura

The sepia colouring of both our opening and Face Off’s

Sam and Rachel’s basic/no makeup and basic hair

The use of the ring in our opening

How do you represent those who have appeared in your film?

A violent spouse: Darren is represented in the social group of ‘a violent

spouse’ in our thriller opening. People who are violent and abusive in real life are seen as powerful and dominant people which means that we wanted our character of Darren to be exactly the same as this. Typical personality traits of a violent spouse usually are very dependent on their victims for power, easily angered or have other extreme emotional swings and may be controlling. Again, all of these personality traits we wanted to include for the character of Darren as we want the best outcome that we can possibly have for our opening,

Darren’s Personality traits:•Manipulative•Dominant•Powerful•Selfish•Angry•Violent

Darren

Darren• We got our inspiration for Darren’s character from

the character of Jackie Boy in the film Sin City. Jackie Boy is a typical tough ‘lad’ character who is violent towards the character of Shellie and tries to manipulate her. His personality is exactly what we wanted for the character of Darren; furthermore in one scene in Sin City Jackie Boy hits Shellie around the face which showed his power and violent ways and this is why we included Darren hitting Sam around the face in our opening.

Jackie BoyDarrenInspiration for mise en scene: Inspiration for Darren’s hair also came from the character of Jackie Boy in sin city as it looks

scruffy and like a typical ‘bad boy’ character; we wanted Darren to look like he is care free in his appearance to draw attention to what he is saying and his actions rather than his appearance. We also took costume inspiration from Jackie Boy as he wears all black which connotes death and danger which is exactly what we wanted for our character of Darren, we wanted him to come across as intimidating and as a threat.

One of the props that Darren used was a knife and we took our inspiration for this prop from Kill Bill as when we watched this the use of a knife was shocking to us and this is what we wanted for our opening, it was important to us that we also created this shock factor to build tension and a sense of mystery to our opening so that it was thrilling to our audience.

The lighting we used for our character of Darren was black and white, we took this inspiration from Sin City as it creates a gloomy, dark atmosphere which is exactly what we wanted from the presence of Darren’s character.

Our inspiration for Darren’s hair, costume and lighting came from this specific scene with Jackie Boy in the film Sin City.

Our inspiration for the use of a knife as the villains Prop came from a fight scene in the film Kill Bill.

How do you represent those who have appeared in your film?

An unsupportive parent: Christine is represented in the social group of ‘unsupportive

parents’ in our thriller opening. People who are said to be unsupportive parents are said to usually be emotionally unstable and unsupportive to their children which is how we wanted the character of Christine to be towards Sam. Typical personality traits of an unsupportive parent is that they don’t know to deal with their own emotions, they like to be the centre of attention, they have little/no empathy, they don’t care to listen to their children and they can put a lot of pressure onto their children. We wanted all of these traits to be incorporated into the character of Christine so that the audience would feel empathy towards the character of Sam.

Christine’s Personality traits:•Unsupportive•Uncaring•Selfish•Vain•Snobby•Manipulative

Christine

Christine• We got our inspiration for Christine’s character

from Rose’s mother, Ruth in Titanic. Ruth is described as rude, snobby and selfish; she is the type of lady to turn down her nose at her own daughter. This type of personality is exactly what we wanted to incorporate into the character of Christine as she always puts herself before her daughter and this is what we wanted for the relationship between Christine and Sam to draw empathy towards Sam and how lonely her character really is.

Christine RuthInspiration for mise en scene: Our inspiration for Christine's hair, makeup and costume in our opening came from the

character of Lily from the TV programme Gossip Girl, Lily always is very pristine in the way she dresses and presents herself, sometimes this can come across as selfish- this is how we wanted Christine also to be presented in our opening. Christine cares more about her appearance and herself above everything else.

The lighting in the scenes with Christine’s character are all edited in a black and white effect; the use of black and white in films emphasise that the footage is occurring in the past. The effect of using this editing technique came from the opening of Casino Royale which is also set in the past which helps the narrative become clearer and more tense when the audience are watching.

We got our inspiration for Christine’s hair, makeup and costume from the character of Lily from Gossip Girl.

We got inspiration for the use of black and white to highlight the past from the opening of Casino Royale.