Evaluation Task 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our opening sequence there are obviously two different statuses of people on one hand you have the jumper and on the other the shooter and each one we have represented differently through the work of film. We decided to use high camera angles on the jumper to lower his status and to give the intimidating impression of just how high he his. On the other hand we decided to use eye level shots with the shooter to represent that he has higher status.

We made a group decision of varying the speed of transitions according to who is on the screen, for the jumper we use lengthened shots to represent he is thinking and is under pressure. Whereas on the shooter we use short fast transitions to show he has priority and is the dominant character who is in control of the situation

We used mise-en-scene to represent class and status the most. We decided that we would conform to the hero vs enemy through looks. We decided that the costume for the bad guy should be black to represent death, authority, power and mystery as all of these representations present positive status. we these different representations fit Adam playing the character of a killer. Whereas for the jumper we decided to put him in a white shirt with a tie white represents hope and we want hope to be in the audience as they watch. White is also quite a pure and clean colour which contrasts the black suit the villain is wearing which symbolises a higher class of character who can afford nicer clothing this clearly lowers the status of the jumper  to represent him as quite a standard businessman with a family which again contrasts to a man who works as the leader of a notorious gang. We decided to avoid giving props to the jumper, we decided if he was stripped of props this would lower his status as it physically shows he has nothing which links up his mental position of having nothing. Whereas for the shooter we gave him a small pistol as this gives him higher priority and clearly links back to him being in control again. Choosing Adam was clearly based on him having a skinhead as this is quite an imposing and intimidating style of hairstyle. He also has a scouse accent which again contrasts to the voice of the jumper and as an accent sounds quite intimidating and edgy when the person is speaking in the right accent in comparison to the lower status jumper with a standard  south eastern accent. We also decided to conforming to the body language stereotypes. We decided to brief the jumper on slouching over and looking around a lot to represent him as a smaller character and to once again lower his status and represent him as the victim in contrast to the villain who we told to stand up straight and not to look around as this represents him as someone who is comfortable in that current position and clearly has had experience with similar situations before.

Sound was took an important part in representing the status and class roles also. We decided to too add in a diegetic sound of wind blowing on the shots which featured the jumper we decided to increase the volume and add an almost whistling like effect to intimidate the audience and present the jumper being in a more dangerous position. We also decided to tell the jumper to breath heavily. This depicts that he is scared and isn’t comfortable with the decision he has to make or the position he is in which contrasts strongly against the villain behind him who is once again standing there in a very neutral and comfortable position which again links back to too who has the higher status in the clip.