Evaluation Question Two

How does your film opening represent particular social groups?

Within my final task I I haven’t represented a massive range of different social groups. Throughout the research that I performed within the first stages of this task, I found out key representations that are very stereotypical within supernatural horror film openings such as gender and age.

My film opening represents a small particular social group. I believe that it shows teenagers in a very stereotypical way, although I decided that I didn’t want to give much of their stories away within the opening sequence, I believe that you do get a sense that teenagers will star within my film. Therefore this means that as the viewer you don’t get to see a great deal of characters and the roles that they play. However I do think that the plot to my opening sequence is strong enough to allow my audience to understand what will happen within.

However I believe that the roles that they play and the fact that their storylines will intertwine shows how I have represented particular social groups, from the Ouija board scene you can gain an idea that these teens are rebellious and daring because they are choosing to be involved in a séance. This is a stereotypical representations of teenagers within horror/supernatural films as they are vulnerable enough to

Therefore age would be played on within our opening scene, as teenagers would be far more vulnerable than adults so this is why we decided to choose actors that were between 16 and 17. From the Ouija board scene you can gain an ideas as the viewer that these teens are rebellious and daring because they are choosing to be involved in a séance. This is a stereotypical representation of teenagers within horror/supernatural films as they are highly vulnerable, and get themselves into tricky situations. I used a group of teenagers that included boys and girls. Using a mixed group of teens within my opening is typical within some real media supernatural horror products such as; The Cabin in The Woods.

Within my opening I have also used a very important archetype character which is the ghost/spirit/scary being at the end of the opening. This is highly conventional as most supernatural horror films include this element for example, the Paranormal Activity franchise. Each of the five films include a different archetype character.

Teenagers within horror films

As you can see within this still from The Cabin in the Woods, there is a stereotypical ‘large’ leading male character. That tries to save everybody due to his strength. I tried to incorporate this type of character within my opening sequence.

Likewise to the above image you can see that there is a conventionally ‘attractive’ female that is usually the first to be killed, this is usually due to lack of intelligence. If you look closely within my opening sequence you can see that I have used this type of character.