Question 2

I decided to answer question 2 in essay form in a word document;

2. How does your Media Product represent particular Social groups?

There are only two characters within our thriller opening; a teenage girl walking through the woods, who becomes the victim and Chloe, the mental patient who escapes.

In terms of the victim (played by Charlotte), she is a teenage girl, so we decided to make her quite generic and stereotypical as she isn’t a major character and we didn’t need to develop her or express any personality. 

We dressed her in a pink jumper and black leggings, simple but typical of a teenage girl.  She also carried earphones with her which she managed to easily pull out of her pocket and use.  This also reinforced the ‘teenage girl’ stereotype as we are known as the generation that are addicted to technology.  

We were not trying to convey a message to the audience through this character, as her only purpose was as a victim for Chloe, to show her feral nature.

A large theme in our thriller is mental illness.  To avoid representing mental illness in a totally negative way we did a lot of research into schizophrenia to better our understanding of the illness.  We also decided that to avoid accusations of discrimination against Chloe, we would make her the protagonist rather than the antagonist.  As a plot twist we decided that the terrible mental asylum she was in treated her so badly and corrupt her so her violent actions in the opening are due to her lack of trust in people.  Using this plot, we are ensuring that we’re not suggesting all mentally ill people are killers.

To show that she had been hospitalised for years I dressed in a long white nightdress.  I also applied white face powder, to make myself appear paler, as if I hadn’t been outside in a long time.  I used brown and yellow powder under my eyes to make myself look sickly and hollow.  We decided to create this image to show the neglect of the patient and also to alarm the audience. 

In terms of sound and editing, we focused of building tension rather than representing social groups and therefore i would say that our thriller does not represent any social groups.  However you could argue that the spooky music and spikes in pitch imply a sense of unpredictability in people with mental health.