Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The first social group the audience encounters is the representation of women. The  typical stereotype for women is that they don't go out to work and staying being a motherly figure. Also they are shown in the media as stereotypically weaker and more vulnerable than men. They are of a lower class. We chose to use this typical stereotype throughout our piece because it fits with our plot. Because the main theme of our thriller is stalking , it makes sense to have the woman as weak and vulnerable. It would be extremely unusual to have a man as the victim but i suppose this could make the product stand out . The way we created this representation is by having the girl on the floor this connotes weakness we helped exaggerate this factor by filming some shot from above to make her seem even smaller/weaker. We put tape on her mouth and hand to show the fact that she is trapped and helpless, it also victimises her . Also we put the girl in dirty jagged clothes to show that she had been unable to be free for a good while and it reflects the fact that she must have been in some distress previously.

Here we see the couple taking a photograph. This is the second social group that we chose to show in our clip. In the media people in relationships are represented as pleasant , loving and caring. We used the stereotypical representation of this social group because it helped us to get the juxtaposition across. The happy positive way that the couple is represented makes the contrast greater  with the dark representation of the kidnapped girl. The representation of the couples a huge juxtaposition to the film genre of thriller. However compared to your stereotypical teenage these are quite the opposite. The typical teenager is violent , disruptive and generally connotes negative things, they can sometimes be described as 'thugs' doing things like hanging around in the streets at night.

The third social group that the audience is presented with is men. In the media men are stereotypically represented as strong and powerful. In our title sequence its not that we used anti-stereotypes but we relieved another side to men. We represented them as stalkers and creepy . In reality there is only a certain amount of people that fall under this social group. The way we have portrayed this stereotype through our film is to hide his identity showing his back only, this creates an element of mystery which fits with the genre. Also whilst editing we put a black and white filter on the shot to add to the tone /mood. All the way through until this shot the audience is raising questions about who the person filming is. We dressed him in dark clothing because this reflects the stereotype we'll through the bland colours. Using cinematography skills we were able to angle the shots so that it looked as if someone was constantly watching the couple in the park probably linking to how the stalker was able to kidnap her (he knew her every move). people jump to the conclusion that they had been being watched for some time before the kidnapping.