How does your media product represent particular social groups?

During the process of constructing my horror film I looked upon the audience that my film would be aimed at. I came to the conclusion that the target audience would be around 15-25 year olds. The reason for this would be due to the audience research that I had undertaken and the feedback given from questionnaires that I gave to members of the public. The film is that of a Slasher/Horror film so straight away I looked into the Slasher genre of film that usually feature a teen cast that get killed off by the antagonist. This then presented us with the social group we would be representing in the film. We created a protagonist who was a school pupil; however, this character was not the stereotypical ‘popular’ teenager, or the stereotypical nerd, but was a mixture of both. We chose to have this type

of character so that the audience can the relate back to him considering the social group that our product is aimed towards. Like many American teen slasher films there are specific social groups which are portrayed in a very stereotypical way, for instance the jock look. one film that looks at these groups would be "I Know what you did last summer" where the teens are portrayed into specific social groups within teen society. For the character "Bruce" we

didn't choose to go against this but challenge it in a way that the protagonist doesn't look overly exaggerated due to the fact that we wanted a range of social groups to be able to view our product, not just specific groups of people due to the character.

Throughout the film the audience look upon the protagonist "Bruce" where he is shown investigating paranormal activity within a school. The mise en scene that we used to depict that "Bruce" was a school pupil would be the clothing that was worn. My group and I chose to have "Bruce" wearing a typical shirt and tie to suggest this idea of a nerd but, as previously mentioned, keeping the full-on stereotype limited to not over suggest this idea which would unfortunately have created comedy. Because my film’s audience was between 15-25, having the protagonist, portrayed as a teen, puts the passive audience into the film. From recently being in school the audience can then relate to the character and feel more insecure with the film. Looking into the teen aspects and having "Bruce" a teenage boy would relate back to typical high school

thriller/horror movies but with a twist. The use of a supernatural element helps to put the film into a sub-genre for horror. One film that looked upon a teenage horror with a supernatural element would be “A Nightmare On Elm Street”. This film portrays a bunch of teens that, if they go to sleep, die. From the age rating of this film and the audience looking upon the characters age in relation to its audience the film makes the

audience feel wary and on edge. This is one idea my group looking into, even though only one character was portrayed this feeling of wariness and insecurity was still there.

As the opening that my group and I created only portrayed one character, what was planned, was to then develop this further with a time gap of a few years and a group of teens finding this tape. Then unleashing the antagonists power again. This is where my group might have planned to include these stereotypical characters to help the audience relate to their specific social group. This would then relate back to other films such as "jeepers Creepers", where a group of teens who wouldn't usually socialise depend on each other to survive. This would then bring in a wider audience as teens could relate to specific characters.

Also, again, to depict the certain social group of teens, the use of location would help to connote this idea by having the bases of the film in a secluded location of a school. Through the portrayal of dark/gloomy corridors to set the scene the audience are now more attracted towards the wariness and can put themselves in "Bruce's" shoes by

living this experience from being at school. The setting is shown to be very isolated and secluded from the outside world, this would help the film evolve around the protagonist and the antagonist. One film that has used this idea of solution from the outside world would be “whispering corridors" where the film is based upon an evil entity killing children in a school. This film looks upon one location to keep the focus on the characters and indicates that there is no escape. The use of secluded locations and isolation from the outside world has also been looked upon in the supernatural film “The Blair witch project” where a group of students are lost in a woods where an evil spirit is around tormenting them. from singling out the protagonists knowing that the antagonist could be anywhere makes the audience feel frightened and evoke emotions of worry and place the audience themselves within the film from experiencing something like this when walking alone down a corridor in school that is isolated from everyone else. Different social groups can still relate back to the location from previously being in a school. For that reason the audience are now more terrified and thus the film making the audience relive their school lives and witnessing dark corridors, attracting them more.

As the age range for my product was from 15-23 there was no need to include and adult roles within the film due to the fact that the casting for "Bruce" required a young man that our specific audience can relate back to and thus targeting the right social group for our product. By including an adult figure within the film the audience wouldn't be attracted into the film as much due to the age. But, casting a adult would then allow for a wider, adult audience to view our product. As the film progresses we may have included a adult figure but for this opening sequences we wanted to reach out and attract the audience meaning that the right social groups are targeted.