How does your media product represent

particular social groupsBy Lewis Manning

Our film includes a very particular set of social groups; in this PowerPoint I will talk about how each character is illustrated and why; I will also talk about why I have included them in my opening sequence and how I would like the audience to react to each of the characters within my piece.

I will also talk about cultural signifiers such as hairstyles, clothing and how that impacts them as a individual and how my audience could take a perception on them.

The representation of social groups in our film is vital into making the audience understand who and what the character is and does within the film. The first way we wanted to represent them was the use of costume and the setting which the character is seen most in which will then give the audience more of an idea of what each character is like. An example of this is the Innocent bystander (Luke) when he is walking; we can see that the character is wearing a blue jacket which blue has connotations of innocence and happiness and with the black trousers representing death. This will then make our idea of Luke being innocent transfer to the audience and successfully apply our conventions.

James (Drug Addict)Within our film we can see that there are many different social groups involved with each other. I wanted to make this character seem very lad back about everything, and as he is a drug addict, he doesn't take life very seriously. We wanted the audience to know straight away what he is. The first way we decided to do this was the costume of the character, we wanted it to seem to the audience that James did not spend too much money on clothing and appearance as he spends most of his money on Drugs. We wanted to take a bad perception on the character at first and then realise after he gets in trouble with the loan shark and killing an innocent bystander that when the drugs are not involved with him, he changes personality, this would then change their view of him from antagonist to protagonist. We also used the colour black to represent the character as a death character; as you can see from the picture we dressed the character in all black clothes, we did this because we wanted the audience to realise the death that the character brings to everyone and the way the character is killing himself with drugs he is taking.We also made his hair quite unstyled to show that the character depends on drugs to do anything so throughout the film he is quite laid back appearance wise to show the audience that he cant live without drugs

Black coat and jeans representing sadness and death

Unstyled hair showing he relies on drugs to live his normal lifestyle.

Chris (Loan Shark)For this character we wanted to make it very obvious towards the audience, the wealth that the character has and also wanted to make sure that the audience knew that he was antagonist. We showed this with the voice; in the first scene we see Chris holding a knife towards James’s neck, with a very deep and angry tone of voice, so by using sound we can get the audience to realise that the character is the antagonist. We also decided to use two colours with the costume of this character; the first reason for this was to explain to the audience that the character had two personality's against him; white being happy, innocent and black being death and authority as well as power. This would then make the character seem very two-faced in a way that they did not know when each personality was going to be applied. We wanted the audience to realise that the character can be friendly and innocent if you don’t betray him or humiliate him, but if you do, then the death personality kicks in. Also we used quite a formal costume to show the wealth that the character has, so by wearing a shirt and trousers in his normal day to day life, the audience can see that the character has a lot of money to throw around and shows that’s why he is in the Loan shark business.

Black and white showing that the character has two personality's.

Designer bag showing wealth.

Luke (Innocent bystander)This character within our film only shows up for about 30 seconds but has a vital part in the film. Luke gets run over by James as he is not concentrating on the road. We made sure that the costume would fit the film and would fit his character. First of all we did some research on what most people wear when travelling into town, we see the outcome and decided the costume. We made Luke wear hoody and chinos because we wanted him to fit in as normal member of the public, we wanted the target audience to know that he was just a random man In the public, so by wearing the same as everyone else the audience could understand, his cultural background. We also used the colour blue to show the innocence that the bystander had when being hit by the car showing that the character didn’t deserve to die just because of James’ character not concentrating on the road. This also puts across the message we wanted to put across about road safety.

Blue showing innocence

Grey showing dull death, depression.

Lewis (Drug dealer) For this character we wanted to

make the audience feel angry on what he is doing. We made this character the antagonist because we wanted the audience to feel like the reason why James is addicted to drugs is because of him and also the reason why the innocent bystander is dead is because of him selling drugs to James while he is driving. We decided to make the character look quite a laid back character that is trying to fit into the crowd because he doesn't want to get caught by the police selling drugs. We also made the character were a red jumper to show the blood that the character has got on his hands and also the death he carry's with him due to the selling of the drugs.

Casual jacket; fitting into crowd

Red = blood