How My Thriller Represents

Particular Social Groups

My thriller planned to communicate a young middle class couple. The reason for this being because it could attract the target audience we aimed our thriller at as they may feel that they can relate to the characters. The reason it is ages 15 and above is because it has scenes of violence and crude language. The scenes of violence are when Jack Collins, the Hit man, is murdering people and when he is getting threats from his Boss. Also, in one of the final scenes where Lilly Collins kills the Boss. Violent language is used throughout. We think that target audience will be in this age group because the couple in our film are in their 20s so the audience will be able relate to characters more, which will make them more likely to watch the film as they will be more connected and emphasis with the characters, making them want to find out what happens in the end. We wanted to represent a wider social group as it would make it more realistic and appeal to a larger audience.

In the film I decided to represent the man to be dominant and secretive in the opening sequence. The idea of a man being dominant is stereotypical and I wanted to stick to this, however, the secretive aspect was to portray that even if you think you know someone, you may not as well as you think. This was shown by Jack (the hit man) standing over Lilly (his wife) when she finds a load of money in his gym bag. He stands over her making him look more dominant and in control in a situation in which he shouldn’t be. Also, when he shots the innocent victim at the end of the first two sequences, his dark clothing, black leather jacket, hood up and the fact that he is carrying a gun gives him more power. The fact that it is dark when he kills his victim adds to the power he possess.

The women, Lilly, was represented to be innocent and naïve. The reason for this being because she is unaware of her husband’s double life. Innocent is portrayed when she is cleaning around the bedroom, tidying her own things and her husband’s. She wears normal clothing to represent the middle class society she lives in. When she finds the money she doesn’t say a word. This, again, adds to her naivety in the sense that she doesn’t even know where to begin to question him.

These decisions were made to abide by the stereotypical view of men and women as I followed the results of the questionnaires distributed of what the audience preferred. This gave the audience what they wanted, hopefully increasing the popularity of the film.

The thriller suggests that the older the generation, the more of a target you are as the victim in the opening sequence is in her late thirties and is completely unaware that she is being followed, until she is shot.

Having the antagonist being a younger man says that men are stereotypically more likely to be a villain. During the murder, Jack has his hood up which instantly gives a dangerous element to him, making the audience fear him of fear for the victim. We also then fear for Lilly as she is unaware of his other life.

It portrays women stereotypically as Lilly is cleaning up, looking after her family, whilst her husband is out at work. Naivety reflects here as it turns out he wasn’t really at work. She is also a teacher who is currently out of work, this is a stereotypical job for a women, to look after children.

I decided that Bryoni Millward should be the female star in my thriller as she fit the mental description of Lilly Collins. She was good at keeping a straight, serious face so this meant that we wouldn’t need to take as many shots as it was less likely she would mess up. Being a close friend, she was willing to star in it and was available on the days we wanted to film.

Jack West was chosen to be the male star in the thriller as he is tall and looked the part. This being that he looked innocent enough to pull off fooling Lilly into thinking he was an accountant rather than a hit man. He too was also available on the days we wanted to film and had easy access to the area we were filming.

Someone does in fact die in the thriller, however, who they are isn’t that important. All the audience need to realise is that the hit man was told to kill her for some what reason which is only later revealed in the film along with other victims. We don’t get to know the victim at all because we want to keep this mysterious reasoning to be anonymous. Getting to know the victim would take the focus away from the hit man and his life.