The document discusses how the production team created relatable characters for their target audience of lower-middle/working class young adults. They portrayed the characters Amy and Sean as stereotypical members of this social group through their clothing, settings, and mannerisms. Amy challenges the "damsel in distress" trope by seeming independent yet forced into difficult situations. Sean is portrayed as a typical young adult male living alone who is fashion-conscious. The document analyzes how these characterizations make the production more relatable and enjoyable for its intended viewers.

1. By Aaron Gemmell

2.  Within our production, both my production team and
myself chose to make our production relatable to our
target audience by presenting our characters as a
similar social background to that of our target
audience. Within our production this social group
would be lower-middle/working class. We made our
characters stereotypical to this social group, an
example of when we did this was with the characters
Amy and Sean, they were both young adults and wore
clothing and had a setting around them which could
be commonly associated to that of this social group. I
have chosen to analyse how we achieved this in our
production and what over production have done
similar and got the same results.

3.  The character Amy was played by Sarah Taylor-
Warner is a middle-class female character who is still
in higher education. The idea of a conventional
‘Damsel in distress’ was challenged within our
opening sequence, we instead made Amy seem more
independent and yet out of her depth, and being
forced to go into things which ordinarily she would
never want any part of. This portrayal of being forced
to do something she ordinarily wouldn’t do in the
situation is presented by other films as well such as
‘The Hole (2001)’ in this film, Liz Dunn, played by
Thora Birch, is forced by the circumstances she is put
into to do things she ordinarily would never do, and
she was an ordinary member of society before these
event unfolded.

4.  The character Amy however is a little different to Liz, purely in
the respect that Amy dies within the opening sequence of the
film, this challenges the idea of the damsel in distress being the
reward.
 Both of these characters present a middle class and fairly well off
upbringing through their clothing and fashion sense. They both
seem fairly cultured and somewhat sophisticated, which shows
they have had a good education and could not be considered
‘dumb’ this further illustrate their middle-class upbringing.
However Liz Dunn is different in some ways as she is slightly
crazy, however this may be due to the narrative as oppose to her.

5.  These characters both share a similar age of around 15 to
17 and they both seem to have problems which they suffer
from which does not appear so on the surface of their
characters and they appear to have different motives. Amy
is trying to survive, with the constant threat of the
mastermind always in the back of her mind while Hayley is
in some ways the antagonist who inflicts sadistic violence
upon others. This is a good example of challenging
stereotypes and conventions within Hard Candy and shows
that our production would be more relatable, but not as
original.
 Their clothing is also quite different as well with rebellion
being more apparent with Hayley while Amy’s conformity
is shown more clearly through her choice of clothing. This
is seen clearly as Hayley wears a hoodie, commonly
associated with rebellious behaviour while Amy wears
more typical and fashionable clothing.

6.  The character Sean was played by myself and is a lower-
middle class male character who lives by himself. The
stereotypical idea that the social group of young adult
tend to live by themselves and be fairly into fashion and
looks is portrayed by the character Sean. This is because it
is clear that he does not live with anyone from the
production and the fact that he has some fashionable
clothes, and styled hair suggests he is somewhat fashion
conscious. This is commonly associated with young adults
as they are out trying to make themselves something in
the world and so want to be fairly presentable and smart.
Also Sean’s laid back mannerisms and typical of those of a
male young adult, this is shown by the fact Sean is
watching sports in the first scene which is a fairly
common activity young males partake in.

7.  Both of these characters are male protagonists, and
represent how males are presented within the
Thriller Genre. Both of the characters follow a
narrative of seeking revenge and justice for wrongs
done against them, for example Liam Neeson is
seeking revenge against the men who kidnapped
his daughter and Sean played by myself is seeking
revenge for the murder of his girlfriend, Amy.

8.  Through the comparison of Amy to other similar female protagonists
within other thriller genre products, I can determine that Amy, although
she demonstrates some stereotypical middle-class and female attribute,
the short time which she is featured within the opening sequence does
not allow for a vast creation of her character and so stronger stereotypes
are limited by this. Amy is however stereotypical as she has many
aspects which a stereotypical teenage girl may have, such as a boyfriend
and fashion sense which will help the target audience to relate to her
more closely as she fits into some stereotypes.
 However, in my opinion I believe that in our production we have
accurately presented both the middle-class social group and the male
social group, this is useful as it helps us to relate to our target audience
of lower middle-class males, who are predominately in their teens. This
will have a positive effect as it helps our target audience to relate to the
production and will make it more enjoyable for them to view. When
showing these social groups we made them fairly stereotypical through
clothing, mannerisms and setting, for example Sean’s house was one in
which a middle class person may live. As well as Sean acting very much
like a male may be expected to which will help the viewer to relate to
him and root for his success.