HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA GROUP

PRESENT C

ERTAIN SOCIAL

GROUPS?

Q U E S T I ON 2

INTRODUCTIONWe intended to represent the social groups and characters by including specific camera angels and camera shots to emphasize certain character emotions and feelings.

So that the audience communicated effectively with the characters we made sure that we used unique camera angels as well as recording techniques to highlight character feelings & emotions through facial expressions or body language.

MALE CHARACTERSThe main male character "Alex" was represented in our thriller film as weak and lacking in courage to engage in anything.

The stereotypical male is shown to be strong and defensive against opposition, however as shown in our kidnapping scene; Alex is confused and the audience sees him run of in another direction, leaving Sophie to defend for herself.

Our audience feedback identifies to us that "Alex" is a character that seems to be confused and that the audience can see he is unsure what to do in multiple situations. The character type we have incorporated here follows the theory by Propp that suggests men are to be powerful whilst women and to be more emotional; however in our film "Alex" is a male character that is portrayed as weak and emotional in most scenes for instance when "Sophie" walks in to the room he tries to hide his true feelings but once she persuades him to talk he releases all of his emotions right there, which is very stereotypical of a female character which is why our film is unique and to many people that have viewed it so far have stated that this makes it more appealing for them as characters are not normally presented like this in other thriller films.

"Alex's" body language is also very different to the stereotypical male and it appears to the audience that he is very vulnerable and disengaged with reality; this is shown mainly through his facial expressions, and this can be seen when his discussing his father with “Sophie" and all of a sudden his facial expressions become very different and the audience catch onto this very quickly as I slowly cropped the video footage towards the characters face to exaggerate the feelings towards the audience so the narrative is easier to understand in the future.

FEMALE CHARACTERSAs our production was intentionally trying to challenge the stereotype that men are always strong. The main female character in our production "Sophie" was portrayed as the stronger character who was supportive for Alex.

Sophie is shown to be a strong character that is physically & mentally stronger than the male character "Alex" this is un-conventional and was intentionally done to intrigue our target audience.As the audience start to watch the opening sequence to our film it becomes very clear that we are challenging the stereotype that men are always strong and women are weak. Sophie is shown to the audience as a heroic character as she embraces the emotional state of the male character "Alex" who is shown as apprehensive to the audience, this competes the stereotype initiated from Propp's character types theroy.

In all types of media from magazines to TV dramas most of the time women are shown to be volatile, however the scenes in our thriller film compete that stereotype as our female character "Sophie" is very powerful in the way she speaks and she shows no sign of emotion when discussing personal subjects with the male character "Alex". However in our kidnapping scene "Sophie" is shown to be fearful and afraid, and in a way its like she was a different person; however due to magnitude of the scene and the variety of cuts that occurred our target audience did not pick this up. And for the most part the audience feedback showed me that they believed we still competed the stereotype that women are weak and men are strong.