Eval Q2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The 7 key ares of representation are:

• Social Class and Status
• Age
• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Physical Dis/Ability
• Sexuality
• Region Identity

The characters that we see in our opening are Sam and Casey. 

Our actor Ollie Moulton

Sam is stereotypical Jock. He is played by Ollie Moulton and we feel he resembles. The character Steve from Scream who is played by Kevin Patrick Walls. His character gets killed which is a key convention within Slasher films that the boyfriend of the scream queen gets murdered. This will attract a male audience because boys thrive on gore. They don't really care who gets killed.

Our actress Megan Claydon

Casey who is our Scream Queen. She is played by Megan Claydon, we have based her character on the character Casey from Scream who is play by Drew Barrymore. Her name is providing intertextuality the film Scream. Her character will not typically appeal to females as they often tend to reside with a 'Final Girl'. However this will attract the Male Gaze, this is when women in film are seen as sexual objects. Men will be attracted to this character because of her sexual connotations. The Scream Queen and Final Girl are binary opposites to each other.

Social Class and Status:

In our preferred reading both our character are middle class. We have tried to signify this by the use of Casey's car being a VW Polo. We feel that this signifies her social class, if we apply the commutation test and change that to a Ferrari then she most likely be Upper Class.

If we look at Sam's character he uses an iphone this modern technology signifies that he is an upper middle class person. Sam's house which is quite large and detached which ones more may signify his social class to the audience, this is encoded in your preferred reading.

Age:

The age of our two characters is shown by the their general appearances. The core target audience for our film is teenagers 15-24. The age of Casey is signified by the fact that she can drive. Also the mise-en-scene used when Sam pulls out is iphone. This can stereotypically be seen as the technology of the young generation. Also becuase of the the genre the key conventions is that teenagers get killed.

Gender:

The gender of these two main characters is apparent. You have your busty blonde female called Casey. And your stereotypical Jock called Sam. The clothing of provides anchorage for their sexual activity. He is wearing a blue dressing gown which signifies that he was not priory clothed. Whereas Casey is dressed nicely because she is now leaving.

Ethnicity:

Both characters are Caucasian. This is because this was filmed in Ilkley and I go to school in Ilkley the majority of people are Caucasian which is why it is this way. I have not deliberately chosen them to be Caucasian. This may therefore attract a wider Caucasian audience. The ethnicity of our killer is not kept hidden despite him being masked. We see his hands which give this away.

Physical Dis/Ability:

The Physical ability or disability of a person within a film is another key aspect of representation. In the Texas Chainsaw Massacre a character was in a wheelchair, this is an example of physical disability. In my production all the characters have physical ability. Once again the reason for not casting a disabled person was not because I didn't feel right to do so, it's because I do not know any disabled people and as a student filmmaker I am limited to casting my friends.

Sexuality:

The sexuality of our two characters are heterosexual. This is at least our preferred reading. This is heavily signified by there behaviour and me as a filmmaker connoting that they have been having sex before the film started. This is all down to the interpretation of the audience. They might have a oppositional reading to this. The stereotype of a heterosexual blonde female is a 'dumb blonde'.

Regional Identity:

The regional identity of our two characters are the 'North' more specifically Yorkshire. The stereotype of people from Yorkshire are that they are all farmers and loose with their words. The countertype of this is demonstrated in our film as we represent our characters as upper middle class. This could be a problem for people outside of this region as they may struggle with their dialect. However this may attract a more specific audience from Yorkshire. This links in with our core and secondary target audience.