QUESTION 2: HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS?Millan Panchal

The clear social group in our production is based on the victims of bullying and how it can have serious consequences.

AGE

Teenagers are usually portrayed in thrillers as being quite naïve and insecure. This is shown through the camera shots and angles we used. For example, when the character Eric was in his room, he was placed in the corner and we used a high angle close up to connote to the audience that he has been pushed away and can only express his thoughts through pen and paper in his bedroom. We also used props such as a cigarette which represents the rebellious act that an audience would expect from a typical teenager in a media product. However, in our media product Eric uses the cigarette as a way to calm his nerves and ‘get away from it all’. We chose to implement this representation of him, as we wanted defy the convention of the typical young teenager in a thriller and present Eric as a character who would do this rebellious act despite not really wanting to.

Gender

In thriller films, it is usually a woman that is victimised and treated badly, however we juxtaposed the role of power between them to show that it is the male character who is mistreated, potentially by a female.

No female characters appear in the opening of ‘Columbine’ however, it could be implied that a female character too has had a negative impact on Eric and Dylan as in the narrative, we understand that they have been badly bullied, but don’t know who by.

A lot of the camera shots used shows Eric either on the edge of the frame or in the centre of the screen representing that he is isolated from society and isn’t standing out which is how male characters are usually represented as in thriller films.