+How does your Media product represent particular social groups?

GENDER?

AGE?

ETHNICITY?

+GENDER

Within our opening sequence we moved away from the conventions of horror films, were the female characters are always portrayed as vulnerable, weak, and are always the victim. I thought it was important to move away from this conventions, and portray the females within our film as strong independent teenage girls, who are the only ones to survive, showing their intelligence as well. However we showed the white male as being a victim, were he is bitten by the young boy and contracts the deadly virus. Within films men are portrayed as the fighters, survivors, showing a lot of aggression and becoming violent, however once again we moved away from this convention as we all felt that men are able to be just as caring and considerate as females. Once again within the media men are portrayed as “being bas fathers” and so to contradict this we showed the sympathy of the teenage male towards the small child. However staying to the conventions of portraying males within movies, we ensured the male was also portrayed as brave and confident as he approaches the ill looking child.Furthermore we challenged the codes and conventions of horrors by having only female survivors. Rarely if there is a female survivor it is insinuated that she survived because of the male character. However having only female characters show the intelligence, power and determination of the females within our film.

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We moved away from the typical conventions or teenage males being portrayed as aggressive and violent. We did this by portraying the teenage male character as caring and affectionate towards the young child.

Teenage female girls being portrayed as independent strong characters who like to attend popular parties.

+ETHNICITY

Creating a urban horror movie, we felt that it was very important the portray the multiculturalism of south London, and we managed to do this by using a variety of ethnicities. Within our film we have actors of a white background, black background and mixed background of both black and white. This is important to portray and variety of ethnic back grounds to highlight the diversity of today's society. By using a variety of ethnicity's, allowed our target audience to also expand, were anyone of any ethnicity is able to relate to the film. Although we didn’t have an actor of and Asian background within our opening sequence, I feel that it would be important to use one if we was to develop the film further.

Teenage girls of various ethnic backgrounds. Black, white and mixed race ethnicities.

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Conventions of many horrors is to have a middle class white male actor, however we pulled away from this convention by using a working class male. However he is still well spoken, and attracts our target audience of young urban white males.

+AGE

Within our opening sequence we mainly featured teenagers, considering it is a teen horror, we thought that this would attract our target audience more. However we are aware of the media portraying teenagers in a negative light, so we decided to work on these serotypes, and challenge everyone's expectations of teenagers, by portraying them in a positive light of being caring, and not taking drugs smoking or drinking as they are going to a party. However we did follow the stereotyping that teenagers like to go out to party as we included a party scene within the opening sequence, which I believe a lot of teenagers will be able to relate to. Altogether we portray teenagers in a positive light were they are able to have fun, without intoxicating themselves, and still participate in ordinary teenage activities.

Teenage girls participating in steortypical teenage activities such as attending a party.

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Moving away from the conventions of teen horrors we decided you use a four year old child as the villain. We believe by doing this it will contradict the innocence and vulnerability of a four year old child, and prove rather disturbing for the audience. As a group we felt that the younger the child the more effective it would be to portray the powerlessness and passiveness of the young child.