How does your media product represent particular social groups?

What is a Social Group?A Social Group is a group of people who interact with each other and are aware of having something in common.

Some types of Social Groups are determined by…• Gender• Race• Age• Religion• Moral Beliefs

Social Groups in ‘Sole Retribution’The VictimStereotypes of a Victim in a thriller film:

Innocent Intelligent Strong-willed Young

In our film ‘Sole Retribution’, we got our friend Princess Robinson to play our victim, who was named Erin Wolfe. We decided in our first team meeting that we wanted to make the victim a female character, as it would make her more vulnerable and susceptible to an attack. Some examples of thriller films with females as a victim include 'Kim' in 'Taken 2', 'Shelley' in 'Sin City' and 'Jill' in 'Gone'. We dressed her in normal clothing, which, combined with the location of a house, made an ‘extraordinary scenario’ happen in a normal location, making the scenario more eerie and dark. It also made it more thrilling, as it made the audience believe that this could happen to anybody, including themselves, putting them on edge. We wanted the character Erin to speak softly, as she was playing someone young and innocent. However, we also wanted her to sound startled and stressed, as she felt vulnerable knowing that someone, who was potentially dangerous and threat to her, had been look through her house and could potentially still be there.

Social Groups in ‘Sole Retribution’The Victim

We got inspiration for Erin Wolfe from the character 'Jill' in the thriller film 'Gone.' Jill is normal girl who was kidnapped when she was younger, which represents the innocence aspect within her. We wanted to use this in Erin as we felt that this was vital in making Erin seem vulnerable and susceptible to an attack. The character of 'Jill' is also strong-willed and intelligent as she pieces evidence together to prove to the police that her kidnapper is back. We took inspiration from this and used it as part of Erin's character. For example, Erin's first instinct was to phone the police and check upstairs, which implies that she is strong-willed and brave too, as the 999 operator would not have advised to do this for her own safety. This shows Erin's determination, which is also another stereotype of victims in thriller type films.

Social Groups in ‘Sole Retribution’The Villain

For the Villain, we got Becky’s brother, Tom, who we dressed in dark clothing and a hoodie. We chose for him to wear a black hoodie because black has connotations of danger, death and mystery, which are all aspects which are associated with a thriller. We also wanted to conceal his identity to make the scene more tense and thrilling, by encouraging the audience to question who this person is and what he is after. Although his face is visible in some scenes, we still wanted the audience to question who exactly he is and what his motives are, which we believed was vital for the storyline of our film. We wanted him to come across to the audience as violent and intimidating, and so we used different camera angles to portray this. For instance, when he shoots Erin (representing his violent character), we used a POV shot which showed the villain looking over Erin, which clearly represents his intimidation and how he is a more powerful character than Erin.

Stereotypes of a Villain in a thriller film: Intelligent

Violent Intimidating

POV Shot

We concluded that we would make the villain in our film a man, as we thought that it would therefore make the character more intimidating, powerful and dominant over the victim, which are all stereotypes for villains in thriller films. We got inspiration from the character of 'Jackie Boy' from Sin City. He is dressed all in black, which we thought would also make our character look more intimidating, and black has connotations of evil and death – both of which are involved in thriller films. Jackie Boy is also intimidating, as he is violent and sees himself as being better than Shelley as he is a man, something that we also wanted our villain to have in his character. We wanted our villain to come across an intelligent, much like 'Martin Walker' in the thriller film 'White House Down', as he is the mastermind behind the plan of the White House takeover. Therefore, we added into the storyline the villain tearing down evidence from a crime case and downloading evidence from a memory stick onto a laptop, meaning that there is no evidence to support this specific case. This also allows the audience to question who he is and why he wants to get rid of evidence.

Social Groups in ‘Sole Retribution’The Villain