1. 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.

2. 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.