Evaluation - Question 2

Evaluation - Question 2

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Way’s in which a character is represented has an impact on the interpretation audience’s have. Factors such as costumes, facial expressions and dialogue are key when showing what social group that the character belong’s to. There is only one character that has a major appearance in our opening sequence. The key character is Cornelius, and the way he is represented is determined by various aspects like  camera, sound or mise en scene. Our media product focuses on certain social groups. This includes young males aged between 18-45, and also American citizens due to this happening their country.

Characters commonly associated with the thriller genre would be the male villain and killer, an example is Norman Bates in Psycho (1960), a young male psychologically affected, but in this case our main character has a number of different personalities within his own body.

           

Our main character:

• Black, African British male
• Young, aged 24 years old
• Occupation- company receptionist(works from home)
• Possessed with numerous personalities and his body takes the fall for the split outcomes

This is shown as the camera pans onto the male when he was sleeping normally, but shortly wakes up in a trance. He appears stable until his eyes frantically open, but is mentally unstable we are made aware from the opening sequence that this man was originally stable but then another personality comes into play.

mise en scene is a main factor of the character's costume. In order to give the impression that Cornelius was a smart and educated man, dressed in a baggy formal shirt and thick black rimmed glasses. aformal shirt and glasses show someone is educated and sophisticated, however the fact that his costume is scruffy and messy goes against and challenges his sophistication, which leads to confusing the audience, letting them unknowingly gain an insight into his character as his schizophrenia would cause him to act in a ambiguous manner.

Other social groups are represented are the American citizens, this is heard from the ‘voice over’  as the protagonist’s draws up the two world trade towers it is clear because the sound interlinks with the on screen images about the world famous September 911 devastation.  We are made aware that the collision happens during the news real as killings and citizens are victims of death from this tragedy. 

During our voice over for the news report on the television, we had to take a lot of factors into consideration. The person had to represent and be similar to real news reporters. We made a decision to use a variety of news reporter voices and accents due to the devastation being heard world wide demonstrating a serious incident. The representations of different ethnicities represented a range of cultures which added to the seriousness of the plot. We aimed for it to be intense and as powerful as possible. In order for the person to be suitable for the role, they had to be able to speak as clearly and as comprehensible as possible, with no comical effect but putting on the accents.

Camera shots to portray our main character include extreme close ups, when his eyes open.  This rapid movement represents him as being quite an unpredictable character, quick movement. The extreme close ups also only allow the audience to see selected parts, which also could be representative to show he has a very disjointed mentality and people are forced to seeing only parts of his personality at any time because of his mental disorder. This is seen in the close up where his eyes roll back, which represents him as being a abnormal person as it signifies that something extraordinary is happening to him which is not a usual action.

  Setting the location, we chose to place our main character in an ordinary office in                    London. It’s not overly-furnished but filled with folders, books/papers and appears completely average to reinforce the image of a single, middle-class man that lives alone and therefore adds to the realism. The setting represented the social group our main character belonged to because it was an office, normally the work place of a working class citizen.

Overall I think our film opening sequence represents particular social groups effectively and appeals to people, especially those who belong to these social groups established within the voice over to make the opening sequence more engaging as well as signifying how the story covered across the world, consisting of different accents to represent various nationalities which consisted of British, Indian, Australian and American accents