How does your media product represent

particular social groups?

Rakha Tewany

 O When producing the opening scene of our film we had to do research on who

we are going to target our film at, whether it being children, teenagers or adults. After doing the research on a genre we decided to base our film on social realism as it was less difficult to produce, as horror would have been a hard genre to produce as we would not have had the correct equipment to make it look professional. Once researching ‘social realism’ we decided to base the film on teenagers girls, this is because we thought that the girls would be able to reflect back on what was happening as they were girls themselves, they would have good understand of what’s happening and why it’s happening whereas boys would not be able to reflect back on it because they are not girls to know what goes through girls heads/ minds. We based it as teenager girls more than teenager boys because it’s stereotypical for a girl to have an eating disorder and getting cyber-bullied. This is because girls have worries that people will judge them for what they look like rather than their personality, so teenager girls feel the need to do anything to look perfect such as starving themselves to become skinny, or wearing the latest fashion to fit in and be popular or wearing a lot of makeup to be pretty. We decided to base our film on teenager girls but yet we were being stereotypical because boys can have eating disorders as well, they also can get cyber-bullied.

O Within the opening scene of our film, the characters were dressed as everyday basis teenager girls. As we filmed part of opening in school it shows are characters were teenagers still in school, as we based it partly in a school therefore shows our target audience in a way.

O During the production of our opening scene of our film, we ensured that certain parts reflect and represent different social groups. We considered things such as interests, style of our target audience, then we tried to add in the things they were interested in.

O ‘The Affected’ is aimed at teenager girls aged 13-19 and is interested in real life stories, which are story is based on.

What does our film have in common with other films?

O When researching it was clear to us that existing films with the genre ‘social realism’ was doing well as it attracted a range of social groups. By doing research we learnt what is needed within a opening scene of a film to attract our planned audience and make sure that our film is appropriate for them to watch. We had to think about what could be within the film for teenager girls, and to make sure that it is suitable for others to watch such as teenager boys as they may find it interesting as we were stereotypical and based it just a girls.

What does our film have in common with other films?

O We made sure that the colour scheme of our opening scene of our film was edited, we decided to edit the film to make the lighting darker as it looked more professional, so we made it more dull/ dim.

O When we did our opening credits we made sure that the fitted in with the film, such as the text, colour, size and font. This is because sometimes the different types of fonts makes the film look a certain genre such as thriller or horror, so we had to decide on the perfect text for our genre.

O We did certain things to make the film suitable for the audience, and make it attracting to our target audience. Existing films under the genre of ‘social realism’ have used certain things to create a successful film which help us in the production of ours, such as the camera shots, colouring, text and edits etc.

What particular social group would be attracted to our film?

O Teenager girls, there are many stereotypes all over the place about them, these stereotypes helped us add things into our magazine which will appeal to them and make them reflect on the film. We have ideas that teenager girls like such as:

O Looking good, being perfect such as pretty, skinny and wearing the latest fashion

O Going to partiesO Gossiping But there is certain things which they don’t like such as:O Being illO Getting bulliedWe used these above as we knew that girls would be able to reflect back and understand on what's happening.

Social GroupsO A range of teenager girls

stereotypically look up to artists such as Rihanna, Nicki Minaj and models, which makes them feel as if they should look just as good as them, with the makeup, there body size and so on. Teenager girls often match their styles to their favourite artist. As they are such a fan of them they want to look exact the same but with their own name.

Social GroupsO The characters within the film are everyday

teenager girls which shows our target audience being yourself is prettier than being someone your not. They are not fancy dressed, such as with there make up done or wearing really nice clothes, they are wearing normal clothes which a everyday teenager would wear. By using these girls within our film it makes our target audience reflect back more than they would if the characters were dressed over the top. This is because it makes the audience feel that the characters are exact like them but with a problem.

Age, Gender and EthnicityO Even though our film is very feminine as it appeals to girls more

then boys. Social realism films are mainly masculine, the films that we looked at within our research, the characters were mainly boys/ men, this is because social realism films are normally based of football or fighting such as Adulthood. However, we decided to take up a challenge and base our characters as females, this is because we thought that it would be interesting for teenagers to see what happens behind close doors, and things like this actually happens.

O Although our characters are all Asian, there is nothing within the film which would be offensive to other ethnic backgrounds, however even though the characters are all Asian it doesn’t make it just for Asian teenager girls, so the film is targeted at all ethnic groups.

O The film is specifically targeted at 13-19 year olds but this because this range of age group go cinema with friends whereas younger girls go with parents and parents would not really want to watch the film. Many girls around this age are interested in other peoples businesses so it makes the film more interesting as our target audience would be able to see what happens to other teenager girls.