How does your media product present particular social groups?
The protagonist in our thriller is a typically ‘normal’ teenage girl and she is a victim in our film. We wanted our main character to be female and for her age to be roughly 16 years old because in current times young teenage girls are the demographic which is the most effected by images in the media. This is greatly due to their interests such as reading fashion magazines, television programmes and images of the internet. These all portray physically appealing women or in the case of fashion magazines and the internet photo-shopped images of women.These types of media, especially high fashion magazines such as 'Vogue' also present products which lower social class may not be able to afford whereas the higher class who might earn more money will be able to afford the luxury items. Our target audience is teenagers aged 15-18 and so if our main character is of a similar age and is struggling with a situation which is currently occurring then they will greatly relate to it.
She wears white and light clothing to denote purity and innocence and her makeup is very light and natural. This is important as it connotes to the audience that this girl is young and innocent and should not be made to feel the way that she does at the end of the opening titles. The character does typical teenage activities such as reading fashion magazines as shown in our thriller however the media is affecting her mental health and she becomes angry and depressed because she does not look like the women in the magazines. The magazines are very important props as without them, our audience would not understand or get a hint at the story which is about to unfold. The magazine she is reading represents the media and all the images of women the media tells teenagers they should look like. The ripped up and bloody magazines shown at the beginning of the titles represent the girls anger and mental state towards herself and the media. We thought that this was a relevant story line because the stereotype of a teenage girl is a girl who enjoys shopping, socialising, wearing nice clothes and wearing make-up which are all quite materialistic things and reveal that they are conscious of the way they look.
The first screen shot of the teenage girl is a long shot which was important to establish where the girl is which is relaxed in her home doing stereotypical teenage behaviour which includes watching television, reading magazines or being on their mobile phones. She is shown reading the magazine because as explained before, as well as being a prop which represents an activity a teenager does it is a key element in explaining our story line.
The second screen shot is a close up of the girls face and this was filmed to show the girl ‘jump’ after hearing a bang upstairs. Close up shots can give an element of suspense and this close up was used to show the emotion on the girls face and show her concern while it also allowed us to show the audience the girls simple makeup. Both shots were filmed in the living room of her home to show the girl being comfortable while the lighting was bright which parallels with the use of light makeup and clothing for the girl. All of this represents the peace of mind the girl is feeling while relaxing at home and the white and brightness represents her innocence and purity.
The only other character in our opening titles is played by the same actress and is essentially still the teenage girl just a split side to her personality. Our thriller is called ‘Alter-ego’ and the alter-ego character is meant to portray the mentally unstable part of the teenage girls mind who is insecure and angry about not looking like some of the women do in the media.
This character is not evil however we decided a dark costume would portray her emotions and actions well; she wears all black to display the darkness and her corrupted mind. The makeup used has been made to look smudged and distressed and is also very dark which is in contrast to the teenage girls makeup. She has dark make-up around the eyes and around her face to denote bruising or tiredness. The alter-ego represents the emotions which the teenage girl is feeling and is meant to show the damaged part of the girls mind which makes the alter-ego another victim.
The alter ego’s props are pages and posters from magazines which have been pinned to the teenage girls wall. We tried to be creative in revealing the title of our film and so had the alter-ego character rip the posters off of the wall and reveal the title underneath. The ripping off the posters is another representation of the girls anger and tipping point after feeling insecure and depressed for a long time. From the mental health website named 'YoungMinds' a statistic tells us that: "The number of young people aged 15-16 with depression doubled between the 1980s and 2000's." A reason for this could be because the way women were portrayed in media greatly changed in the 80s with revealing images of women while the computer program Photoshop was released in 1990.
Shot number one is a high angle shot to make the alter-ego appear vulnerable. This is because the alter-ego is the damaged part of the teenage girls mind and has been corrupted from pressure from the media. She is crouched on the floor which is a protective position and the shot maintains continuity as the teenage girl has just pulled back the door to reveal the alter-ego and the shot is taken from where her eye level would be looking down.
Shot number two is an extreme close up of the alter-ego’s eyes; this shot appears quite quickly twice during the sequence. We used this shot to reveal the emotional pain which the character is feeling, it also gives the audience a look at the makeup used on the character which is in great contrast to the teenage girl; it is very dark and the eyes appear tired and sunken. Both of these shots were filmed in the teenage girls bedroom and the room is stereotypical of a teenage girl because it is pink and is filled with photos and makeup on the dressing table. The shots were filmed in the bedroom because the alter-ego is part of the teenage girl and so is only seen in the girls most intimate and private place: her bedroom. The lighting is also significantly darker than the shots of the teenage girl which denotes the sadness and darkness surrounding the character.
The character Jill Roberts from the horror-thriller ‘Scream 4’ is similar to both our characters the alter-ego and the girl. The character Jill is also a young teenage girl and appears to be innocent through out the whole film. Her innocent nature in the film is similar to that of our teenage girl character however the costume choices are quite different as we chose to represent our innocent character with light coloured clothing.
This is because visual innocence was important in our thriller as the teenage girl has no lines to say in our opening titles, whereas in ‘Scream 4’ Jill Roberts innocence was shown through her acting through out the film.
At the end of ‘Scream 4’ it is revealed that Jill Roberts is actually the serial killer and has been killing her cousins friends. Although our alter-ego character does not kill anyone, they are similar because of their darker nature. Our characters and the character of Jill Roberts do contrast because Jill Roberts does not have a split personality, she is only acting innocent in the film and then shows her darker side in the ending. However our alter-ego character is meant to be a side of the teenage girl which she cannot control.
Similarly to our teenage girl character wanting to be like the women shown by the media, the character Jill Roberts from ‘Scream 4’ aspires to be exactly like her cousin Sidney Prescott accept Jill is prepared to kill her cousin to take her place. The role of Jill Roberts is a psychopathic teenager who is deluded and violent while our alter-ego character is vulnerable and insecure.
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