The document summarizes a media project about a character named Brad who has delusional disorder and hallucinations. The creators aimed to portray how mental illness can affect someone who seems normal. They represented the male character as powerful and intelligent to create an "anti-hero" despite his illnesses. No women were directly portrayed but the planned female lead was to match the male lead. An actor was chosen who could best portray the character through his personality rather than his exact age. The film implies deaths through crossed-out pictures on a board but does not show any deaths directly.

1. Media Evaluation - How does your media product represent particular social groups? Carys Cooke

2. Representations we planned to communicate In this particular piece of work, we wished to convey the use of mentally ill people who go through their lives believing they are fine. This is seen in films such as ‘American Psycho’, where Patrick Bateman seems like a normal man, but eventually slips further and further into his mental disorder. In our thriller, the concept was similar. Our character Brad has Delusional disorder and also has Hypnogogia (Hallucinations) Which is present in the section which we filmed whereupon He saw a woman in his mind, and also believed he saw something behind him in the mirror. We decided to approach this particular subject as there is a wide variety of films which focus on the aspect of mental illnesses and it was a interesting prospect to develop.

3. Representation of men and women We represented the male character in this project as quite powerful and seemingly quite intelligent, due to his profession. Though the character is mentally ill, it was not a reflection on how males in general society were, and instead we tried to convey a situation which could occur from the illnesses the character possessed. We made the character quite intelligent and strong/powerful because this created a kind of anti-hero, and made him more likeable as a character. It also was a direct contrast to his illnesses, as even though he was delusional and had hallucinations, he was still coherent and intelligent the majority of the time. No women were portrayed in the actual final project itself, though in the planning, the main female protagonist would have been perceived as a intelligent, strong individual female to match our main anti-hero.

4. Decisions about casting We decided to choose a person who we knew and trusted, and who we believed would be good for acting the part. We analysed our characters profile and decided who best could portray him. There were issues with the desired age of the character, as we couldn’t find someone at the exact age to film, who fitted the character of Brad. Eventually we decided to choose Max Knowles as he was tall and looked older than he was, and this made it easier to portray Brad. He also was able to express Brad’s personality in the film, and this was preferable to us rather than exact age of the actor.

5. Does anybody die? The only deaths in the film are those which are implied. In the scene with the board, where pictures are crossed out. This implies that there were people who were killed, but for the moment, no-one knew why they were killed or how they were killed. The implications of the deaths in the film and the hierarchy of ‘victims’ on the board and the way the character was running at the start highlights that there were issues with the murders, and this indicates that the people who were killed were strong and powerful and were difficult to kill.