Evaluation- Part Two

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The opening to our Thriller focuses on the social group of youth or teenagers, and despite the negative connotations youth recieve in modern day we avoid representations such as gangs. The opening focuses on representations of the common things youth do or are involved in. For example two of the characters are a couple and are seen walking together and hugging. This is a typical and believeable action for youth to perform. Teenagers are often involved in relationships at this age and are expected to do things together such as going for a walk, a teenage audience will relate to these actions and understand them, perhaps having done them themselves. The characters also wear believeable and fashionable clothes that a teenager would be expected to wear and have an awareness of. For example the girl wears brown boots, blue jeans and a grey coat and therefore is represented as aware of fashion however this is exposed as trivial with what is about to happen to her, revealing her innocence and adding tension to the scene. The picture below is taken from our opening and illustrates an how teenagers are regularly in couples, their clothes and their actions, all of which teenagers can relate to.

The character that Andrew plays is seen walking alone, this does not conform to the common attitude that teenagers are always with lots of friends when they are out and suggests that his character is isolated, lonely and does not fit in- a reason why the killer could target him. (evidence of this is provided in the stills from our opening below)

Youth are also represented as innocent, vulnerable and naive in the opening. This is done by using high angle shots and locations where they appear are isolated such as fields, streets and parks- places that teenagers commonly visit. We filmed at these places with no one else there to emphasise a feeling of isolation and danger and causing the audience to sympathise as children are not safe in places that should be (evidence of these locations is provided in the location shots for our opening below). The characters also appear to have done nothing wrong and they are being taken by a killer for no apparent reason. This will make the audience sympathise with them and feel worried about them. We could have filmed in more typical places for teenagers to be like town or in shops however we wanted tension and a sense of isolation and threat in places that young people visit. Filming where there are lots of members of the public can also make it difficult to film due to distraction and noise.