1. Evaluation Question 2 How does your media product represent particular social groups?

2. Point- how did you intend to represent the social groups featured in your production? We intended to represent the little girl (Ella) as weak and vulnerable. We did this through mise en scene. For example we made sure she was wearing bright colours including pinks and reds in order to portray her age and helplessness. In our production we left the colour of her red trousers and her pink rucksack, however we turned the rest of the footage black to connote her innocent clearly to the audience. Additionally we included high angle shots looking down on Ella which showed the audience how small she was in comparison to Harry the kidnapper. Our audience feedback suggested that the use of leave colour (on Ellas costume) throughout our production was effective as it drew focus to the young child. However some of our target audience stated that this technique was not effective as it detracted from the narrative. To improve the representation of Ellas character I think we could have used dialogue to show her lack of development. 3. Cont. I think the stereotype associated with the character of Ella would have made the audience feel sympathetic and protective of her. For example the audience may have been able to empathise with her mother. Stereotypes are important within films as they allow the audience to have a pre-judged idea of the character before they feature in the text. Stereotypes help build a personality for the specific character as the actions of the character will be already established. Sometimes this can help the narrative of a text to develop as the stereotype may be prone to a certain way of living. 4. How did you intend to represent the social groups in your production? The second stereotype we featured within our production was the antagonist. For example we specifically chose the antagonist to be male. Males are usually stereotyped as being the antagonist as their character usually has to convey anger and violence (which may not be seen natural for a woman). In order to create this stereotype the mise en scene in the shot had to be effective; for example he needed to wear dark clothing (black coat and dark jeans). We additionally succeeded in this stereotype via the use of body language. For instance we made sure the antagonist was standing behind a wall and looked very sinister in order to connote evil and danger ahead. 5. Cont. I think the stereotype used in this example would have an impact on society as this may reinforce the idea of men being the antagonist. For example the behaviour of males is usually regarded as more suspect than the same behaviour of women. We could have possibly treated the groups more fairly by including another antagonist (a female) as this would have been an counter-type and would have represented both men and women in a similar way.