Evaluation: Question 4

Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?
The target audience which we are most looking to appeal to, would be young adults, potentially those interested in social equality issues. This is because the characters also are young, and the denial of gender roles, and sexist thriller archetypes may be of interest to that particular demographic.
Characters which people can relate to are most appealing, and our character is hopefully very relatable, and acts as a voice for the unspoken, bringing further awareness of domestic violence (even if the retaliation is a little unrealistic, and serves only as). Demographics suggest that 1 in 4 women will experience domestic violence in their lifetimes. Although it’s more common for women, 1 in 6 men experience domestic violence, so the film hopefully will resonate with them also.
Both of the characters in the film are White-British, so unfortunately there’s nothing much to say about ethnicity.
Sexuality isn’t much of an issue in our film, as it mainly centres around violence, but considering how women are much more likely than men to experience sexual violence in their lifetimes, the film may appeal to them.
The costume and part of the soundtrack of the film are both based on goth/punk/hardcore/metal subcultures - since punk is such an old subculture, it may bring in a larger range of viewers - old punks, and new punks alike. Metalcore and related genres are something which emerged in the 1990s, so may also appeal to the younger audiences.
The other piece of music is piano based. Piano is a timeless instrument, with no particular age group which it could appeal to - often held as one’s starting instrument, it could help draw attention of viewers from ages 0 to 200.
The film with the largest amount of similarities to ours would be ‘The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’ - it is a rape revenge thriller, the protagonist is a goth and female.

Evaluation: Question 2 Powerpoint

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation: Question 1 Prezi

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?



Evaluation Question 2 | 2nd Draft

Question 2

Representation of gender

The aim with our characters was to challenge the stereotypes of many thriller archetypes, by making gender irrelevant to the plot. We therefore chose to use a contemporary portrayal of women.

In our society at present, women are stereotyped as the recessive gender; weaker than men in most respects — Maria is represented as the opposite. She is headstrong, balanced and not afraid to behave as she pleases, not under the rule of any other. She is the lead character, who is not ‘subdued by a marriage’, and isn’t punished for resisting societal restrictions.

The protagonist is not a hyper feminine, sexualised character, which many films, often even contemporary ones, still regularly perpetuate as the norm. She has a mission, and that, rather than her anatomy, is what defines the character.

An example of the misogyny which we are trying to avoid in our piece, would be Irene Adler, from BBC Sherlock. She originally was written — by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — as the first person to outwit Sherlock Holmes — the fact that she is female making it all the more defiant of stereotypes of feminine weakness.

But Stephen Moffat did not stay true to the plot line with the way he wrote the character. Moffat makes the character a dominatrix - while this is obvious hyper-sexualisation, it would be misogynistic in itself to assume that her job defines her character - much like the writer has done.

The character falls in love with Sherlock, and has to flee to another country. As she is on the brink of being beheaded, Sherlock appears out of nowhere and saves her.

Overall, the character is defined by her work in the sex industry, and through a non-mutual love for a man. The former being very taboo in our culture, and the latter stripping her of any power she may have initially held.

In our production, we stray away from the dominant male, and passive female stereotypes.

Due to Maria’s domination of TM, he is emasculated, thus denying the generic convention of tough male protagonists, and their weak, female lovers. Films which perpetuate these traditions, would include ‘Once Upon A Time In America’; in which Eve is Noodle’s mistress, and Psycho; in which Marion Crane is willing to steal from her employer in a desperate attempt to buy her lover - she pays the ultimate price for her deviance.

Maria’s quest for revenge clearly reflects other modern thrillers, which also deny gender stereotypes - examples include; The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - in which the protagonist, Lisbeth Salander, is a rape survivor, and is on a quest to get revenge on the perpetrator, by tattooing on his chest ‘I AM A SADISTIC PIG, A PERVERT, AND A RAPIST’. 

Maria displays a lack of empathy; clearly shown when she nonchalantly puts in her headphones at the end. This may make audience members uncomfortable, probably assuming that she is a sociopath — but, would the audience be as uncomfortable if it were a man carrying out the same actions? James Bond shows no remorse at all for the large amount of people he kills in the films, but regardless, the franchise is still a massive hit.

There is no specific representation of youth, other than that both of the characters of our piece are obviously young adults.

The world which they inhabit does not seem to connect to reality, and the violent content of the production, acts as a microcosm for the violence among some groups of youth in Britain. Much like how the Essex Marshes (where Jason Locke of Essex Boys, dumps his hapless victim after throwing acid in his face), are a symbolic representation of the isolation of his career path.

White British is the ethnic group which most dominates our TV and film screens in the UK. Our film. For example, Midsomer Murders, in the past, has had controversy surrounding the lack of ethnic minorities shown, due to the fact that everyone in the show is white.

Unfortunately, our film also reflects that, simply because we did not have the actors available for any sort of ethnic diversity.

Final Media Film | 2nd Draft

Only uploaded for sake of feedback.

Evaluation Question 2 | Draft

Question 2

Representation of gender

The aim with our characters was to challenge the stereotypes of many thriller archetypes, by making gender irrelevant to the plot. We therefore chose to use a contemporary portrayal of women.

In our society at present, women are stereotyped as the recessive gender; weaker than men in most respects — Maria is represented as the opposite. She is headstrong, balanced and not afraid to behave as she pleases, not under the rule of any other. She is the lead character, who is not ‘subdued by a marriage’, and isn’t punished for resisting societal restrictions.

The protagonist is not a hyper feminine, sexualised character, which many films, often even contemporary ones, still regularly perpetuate as the norm. She has a mission, and that, rather than her anatomy, is what defines the character.

An example of the misogyny which we are trying to avoid in our piece, would be Irene Adler, from BBC Sherlock. She originally was written — by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — as the first person to outwit Sherlock Holmes — the fact that she is female making it all the more defiant of stereotypes of feminine weakness.

But Stephen Moffat did not stay true to the plot line with the way he wrote the character. Moffat makes the character a dominatrix - while this is obvious hyper-sexualisation, it would be misogynistic in itself to assume that her job defines her character - much like the writer has done.

The character falls in love with Sherlock, and has to flee to another country. As she is on the brink of being beheaded, Sherlock appears out of nowhere and saves her.

Overall, the character is defined by her work in the sex industry, and through a non-mutual love for a man. The former being very taboo in our culture, and the latter stripping her of any power she may have initially held.

Because of being dominated by Maria, TM (a male) is emasculated. This denies generic stereotypes, since generally, it is the other way round - the female character generally is the recessive, like in the flashbacks.

Evaluation Question 1 | Draft

Question 1

Locations

The location we used for the film, was the basement of my house - we had the curtains closed to eliminate any soft, ambient lighting, and used only a desk lamp, television on static, and a torch as lighting.

The location is fairly generic, as basements are very enclosed spaces, with a sense of not being able to escape. They also are very common place in most houses, and the by corrupting a norm, we spark unease within the viewer.

One of the most famous examples of this, would be the Psycho murder scene, in which Marion Crane gets stabbed to death by Norman Bates’ ‘mother’ in the shower.

Our use of a basement is therefore a use of generic convention.

Characters

We chose Ellie to play Maria, as she has the look of a classic blonde femme fatale, but our representation of her creates an irony as we seek to defy such misogynistic stereotypes.

Ellie’s striking blonde hair, also draws similarities to Ruth Ellis - the last woman to

be executed in the UK. She was convicted after the murder of her lover/boyfriend, following an unhappy, physically abusive relationship.

We chose the name ‘Maria’ as it links to the 1927 sci-fi classic - Metropolis - in which the ‘good girl’ is named Maria, but the antagonist transforms her into a destructive robot, thus creating a good and a bad Maria.

This links to our character, as after her abusive relationship with ‘The Man’, Maria becomes ‘bad’ in her quest for revenge.

I was chosen to play TM, as I look the oldest in the group, and an older looking character was necessary as it seems more threatening.

We decided to keep the character nameless. This was to create an intrigue into his identity, and again adds a sense of enigma. This is, in a way, similar to ‘Bill’ from the ‘Kill Bill’ series.

Costumes

Maria wears only black clothing. This draws connotations of death and mystery, which compliments the thriller genre. This is because, death is a prevalent theme throughout many films in the genre, and use of enigma is very common. On the other hand, these are traits typically found in male characters, but our denial of this stereotype, shows that we are using a contemporary portrayal of gender in the film.

Some inspiration for this outfit for Maria, was drawn from Lisbeth Salander of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, who dresses in gothic attire. Goths dress like this, as an expression of themselves — a unique style which defies generic trends, and only adheres to one’s sense of self, music and art. We wanted Maria to display traits of this, hence her soft goth style. A black leather jacket, black top, jeans, and black Dr. Martens are worn.

She also has her hair tied up and the outfit is comprised of very durable, long lasting pieces, which also do not expose much skin. This shows that she is also dressed for the sake of practicality, rather than necessarily just fashion.

Overall, the outfit shows that she is dressed for herself, doesn’t care for other’s opinions, and defies fashion trends of traditional femme fatales — thus emphasising her strength, and lack of regard for her victim.

TM was dressed smart casual — a black trench coat and boots balanced with a white and grey wooly knit jumper underneath, thus implying that he knew he was going out, but the attack by Maria was a surprise. 

The trench coat also links to classic film noir, corrupt inspector stereotypes, perhaps giving a clue towards the line of work which he is in. 

Lighting

The lighting at first is fairly simple - we used a desk lamp, as single source lighting, which allowed us to achieve a chiaroscuro look - for example, the silhouette of Maria cleaning the knife.

This silhouette links to the idea of enigma, and by having TM’s face illuminated in the background shows how he was ignorant of this side of her.

This type of lighting is very prominent in noir thrillers, and is a  generic convention of the genre. Films such as Once Upon A Time In America and  are good examples of this style

We also used the static of an old TV, which added an unnaturally cold blue wash to the scene — the opposite effect of what using warm ambient lighting would look like. This coldness adds an unsettling feeling of alienation to the scene.

Music

The songs we used, were;  ‘Gymnopedie No. 3’ by Erik Satie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l99X1V9Tzw), and ‘The Prestige - Scariest Music Ever’ by user JosephPage on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9XMd2eAy_4).

The former is a piano solo piece, which sounds rather melancholic but reminiscent - as though she is thinking about, and regretting her relationship with TM.
This beautiful piece starkly contrasts the content of the scene - it is somewhat ironic considering the ‘dead’ body tied to the chair.

Once the television is switched off (and therefore the first song), the second piece emerges from underneath - the second piece is based on a drone which gradually increases in volume, also creating suspense, as the viewer expects something to occur at the climax of the piece.

All of the editing is in time with the music, which gives the piece pace without the editing looking jumpy.