Evaluation: Representation

How does your media product represent social groups? 

Both genders are revealed in the opening film, starting off with the old man and his dog along with the young girl.  We chose to use these characters because they are both vulnerable, have less power and are both in ‘need for protection’. Therefore both characters helps build up suspense in the audience.  Also, the evil character (Evangeline) has the biggest impact on the audience and strikes fear into them as her face is barley shown so portrays the feeling of the unknown.  Women are usually treated as the victims of the film and the men as the evil characters. This is because they are stereotypically shown to have more power than women, however we decided to go against this and reverse characters.  In some ways they are representative of the gender roles they play.

Patrick is the first character introduced in our film opening.  The old man who is shown to be walking his dog in the forest. His clothing is stereotypical, as flat caps are commonly worn my old men and we can tell that colours worn are all earthy and plain. When planning a costume for this character we took into consideration in order to portray an accurate representation of the elder generation and make the film more realistic.

The young female is portrayed to being powerful in our opening scene when she kidnaps the dog off the old man. This shows that she is more powerful and in control. Additionally, this goes against the female stereotype of being vulnerable and genuine. In our film she is however stereotyped as a young girl who is wearing grey tracksuits, trainers and a hoodie. During the film the girls face is covered by her hood. This could link back to the old times when women were not important enough to be shown  and instead had to cover their identity.

In terms of age it is clear through the protagonists looks and clothing that he is an old man. The fact that the antagonist is a small height also suggests that she is young, although. We decided the make the antagonist female as it is stereotypical that males are usually stronger whereas women are presented as weak and helpless. So we wanted to change their roles around to make it more unique and to go against the stereotypical considered.  The mise-en-scene of location we filmed in reveals that it is forest through the trees and empty land. This suggest that the emptiness and loneliness of the owner and his dog may suggest something could be wrong or that danger is heading his way.  It also makes the scene realistic as it’s a usual thing to go and walk your dog in a forest.