Evaluation Activity 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Pick the key characters from your opening. Take frame grabs of reasonable sized images of them. Think of one or more characters from other films with some similarities to them (but maybe some differences too!), find an image on the web of that/those characters and save it as well. Drop the two into Photoshop, as a split-screen. Export this split-screen image as a jpeg then post it into your blog and write about the similarities and differences in terms of appearance, costume, role in film etc.
So, for example, if you have a flawed detective type character, look for other detectives to compare them with. You need to do this for all your characters and then to expand beyond their character types to discuss any use of social groups including stereotypes or expectations i.e. having a young female victim fits the gender stereotype of weakness and vulnerability or you could have a killer who’s a doctor, which makes them more threatening as it plays against our expectations and normal trust in this profession.

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The key character in our production is Karen, and she is played by Emma Bailey.  If our opening were to actually be a part of a full feature-length film, the plan would be that Karen wouldn’t feature in the film, but only in the beginning, as it is implied that her character dies at the end of the opening just before the main title, with the high-pitched scream and the sound of something clattering.  This fits in to the stereotype that women are vulnerable, and in thrillers one of the first people to die.  However, we killed the male character first, going against the general thriller convention and stereotype.   This is because we wanted the killing to be a surprise to the audience.  We essentially wanted Karen to be the catalyst of events yet to come in the film. 

Her character was partly inspired by the teenage girl from the opening scene of Ils/Them, because she witnessed a crime and tried to run away, but still ended up dead.  Being a young woman in a thriller fits the gender stereotype of weakness and vulnerability.  Although their situations aren’t exactly the same, both of the characters were female, and therefore were portrayed as vulnerable.  Both characters lose people close to them: the girl from Ils lost her Mum, and Karen loses her friend and work collegue, and then dies.  They both have a similar role in each of their films: both are used to set the story and to give the audience an idea of what is to happen to the main characters in the film.  For costume, the teenage girl is dressed more casually than Karen is, because this fits her character better than for her to wear office clothes, as she is portrayed as a rebelious teenage girl.

               

Another character similar to Karen is Olivia William’s character in Sixth Sense: Anna Crowe.  While Anna is married to the victim in her film, and doesn’t die, she still sees the death of her husband.  In this way, both Karen and Anna show that while they are stereotypically vulnerable, they are also both strong individuals that are capable of dealing with these difficult situations.  Both wear costumes fitting for the locations: while Anna wears a dress because she’s come home from an awards dinner, Karen wears smart office wear because she is at work and she has to look professional.