Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our film introduction we have tried to cover three types of social groups throughout. Firstly, the detective represents powerful strong leading woman who has a commanding presence. Despite all the actors being under 18 the aim was to create a film where age was not a key aspect but only references to children and the subsequent connotations of innocence are prevalent in our film introduction. Gender plays a key role in the opening to 'Good Mourning'. With the victims character we have tried to present in a relationship with the antagonist, due to her exposed look (high cut dress and lying on bed). However we played around with the victims look to apply a twist to our story as it soon turned out that she was a victim of abuse. Her outfit represented vulnerability and fragility due to her exposed look. So in that respect gender played a key role in the development of our film introduction due to the twist it set up. However, compared to film from the late 20th century (in which women were often seen as fragile and made to look a certain way), we aimed to also attract to social groups who push for female empowerment. Through this we have used Candice Feddis who acts the detective in 'Good Mourning'. Her character holds the floor well and holds eye contact with the antagonist, showing she is not fased by his presence, for the majority of the scene. The camera is consistently placed at an eye level angle highlighting how this female character is neither above and more importantly beneath the antagonist in terms of superiority. 

Our antagonist

Ben Nizon pictured who plays the role of the antagonist seen in 'Good Mourning'

Anthony Perkins

I think our male antagonist, Ben Nixon, has many similarites and in some aspects is based of the character from Psycho, 1960, Norman Bates played by Anthony Perkins, pictured above. Anthony Perkins was an American actor and singer. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his second film, Friendly Persuasion but is best known for playing Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcocks 'Psycho'. Both film were thrillers and the aim from the directors was to lure the audience into thinking that this character would never do any harm. This was achieved by the fact that they are what one may call attractive males. In the film psycho Norman Bates's mother is accused of murdering many different people and so people are quick to assume that Norman Bates himself has some role to play in the murders. However as the story progresses one finds out that this Norman Bates character is dressing up as his mother and is therefore the muderer. We have tried to use a similar effect in the way we have shown Ben Nixon's antagonist. When he is intially walking up the stairs he is surrounded by white light and we see his broad figure. When he reaches the bathroom and then the bedroom one assumes that he is in a relationship with the female due to the way in which he is stroking her arm. We have used the illusion of his body and in the following shots his face to draw the audience in, so to speak. This effect can be seen also in 'The Fall' where Jamie Dornan, also a model, plays the role of father and muderer but due to his appearance the audience would warm to him. We have used the cover of appearence to alter with the viewers thoughts that a murderer is someone that is a gruesome person both inside and out, subsequently allowing us to provide the audience with an enhanced sinister tone and twist. 

Jamie Dornan

Jamie Dornan

In addition they both wear similar clothes which hide their true identity. In 'The Fall' Jamie Dornan plays the role of a father who can be seen taking his children to school, and caring for his wife. He wears light brown clothes which promote warm connotations and the same can be said for Norman Bates in psycho. In the images he can be seen wearing relatively ordinary clothes, a work shirt and trousers (a seemingly ordinary outfit for a working man). However both these characters almost use this outfit to blend in and to enhance the element of suprise. Jamie Dornan slips into black overalls when he goes off to murder innocent women and Norman Bates dresses up as his mother changes his personna completely, he uses this to then disregard any accusations made against him. However with Ben Nixon's antagonist we have and haven't implemented these features. We have dresses Ben in seemlessly ordinary clothes to show how anyone is at risk and break the stereotypes and safety barrier the audience would hold. Rather than dress the anatgonist in completely different clothing when we filmed him by his victim we offfered the audience the chance to work out whether this man is ordinary or is pyschologically disturbed. As seen in the image below the antagonist can be seen wearing his trouser leg reaching beneath his foot. This is an unusual sight and whilst this was initially an accident when filming this scene we used this to our favour, taking inspiration from Norman Bates and Jamie Dornan's Paul Spector, as this highlighted that this ordinarity was false and the anagonist actuually leads a double life. Much like in the final scene in Psycho, when Norman Bates appears to be possessed by his mother in that moment as he completely disregards 'her' wrongdoing in recent murders we have tried to implement a similar technique into our film opening. At the end of the interrogation during the detective scene Ben Nixon can be seen to completely disregard what the detective had been saying, when he says 'I like you'. This completely diregards the intermedation technique the detective had been trying to build and shows the audience how truly sinister and psychologically disturbed the antagonist is to feel no remorse for the victims but instead is fascinated by the detective, in it's simplest form (also in psycho) this makes the audience feel very unnerved and 'frightened' of this character. 

Jamie Dornan's Paul Spector in 'The Fall' in a scene where he is picking up his children

Paul Spector after coming back from one of his murder (the clothes suggest he has two personnas and that he is truly sinister)

Ben Nixon in 'Good Mourning'

Norman Bates

Norman Bates again but this time he is dressed up in his mothers outift. This shows a complete change in personna from someone who is usually quite calm and quite to someone who is a brutal murder, enhancing the shock aspect and the sinister nature of the thriller.