This document discusses how a media product represents social groups through its characters. It analyzes stills from films to inspire the design of characters in its own horror film about a group of college students. The main character, Taylor, is portrayed as fashionable and the focus of attention. His friend Sam acts as his follower and seeks to gain status by bullying weaker students. The film aims to appeal to teenage and young adult audiences who will relate to the characters' lives as students and their activities like house parties.

1. How does your media product
represent particular social groups?
Here we recognise instantly that these two
images are couples. The way they are both
portrayed is to show that they both are
comfortable with being in each others
company as we recognise their by the body
language towards each other. The character
Taylor is pictured with his supposed
girlfriend as in the film a clip is shown of
herself and Taylor cutting too and from each
other, this shows that there may be a
relationship between the two. We used this
image here to grasp the factor of the mise
en scene of which a couple can be shown.

2. This is a recognisable shot of a character from the
film Friday the 13th, We at Expert productions
gained an inspiration from this character for the
total use of mise en scene within costume as we see
the character in old tatty, dirty clothes to signify it
was uncommon to see this type of outfit everyday
which signifies that it is out of the ordinary and
focuses our attention. Adapting this idea we decide
to include a costume clothing which would cover
the characters whole body to keep the audience
guessing as to why this is. The fact this character is
holding a large lethal weapon gave us the idea to
also use a lethal weapon of some sort blade or
blunt however based around this character we
decided that the best common choice of murder
weapon which would be found in a household is a
knife. The representation of a common household
knife is that it can be used and picked up by anyone
who deems to use it. The use of a mask represents
the security to fact that the character is looking to
hide their identity, this makes the character much of
a concern and interesting as it keeps the audience’s
attention focused guessing as to what happens next

3. The first character we see is Shea Le Bouf a famous character for
his extensive roles played in the variations of films. We recognise
this character for being a character who part may be part of an
institution, the typicality of this characters clothing portrays that
he goes to a school, possibly a college as we can identify by a
ruck sack on his shoulders and the costume he is wearing. Based
around this image gained an insight to style the main character
of our movie to have the dress sense of being ‘idie’. To try and
capture this aspect we gave Taylor a bobble hat, chequered
jumper and a denim jacket. This allows the audience to see that
our character is fashion conscious and different in his style by
wearing this clothing it allows his to stand out. Our main
character Taylor we see on screen for most of the shots and
footage which was caught this is to show he is a focus of
attention from being one of the main characters he has the most
screen time. Both of these medium close up shots are to show
the audience the characters appearance whilst also capturing
their facial expressions and body language at the same time. This
allows us to put together a picture as to what the character may
be like and what stereotypical person in society they may be.

4. Social Audience group
Our target audience is aimed specifically at the young adult audience who are above the age of
15 and over. This Is because our film will contain scenes of bloody violence. We have decided
to choose this age range as it is proven that the teenage audience is more likely to be
interested in horror at one point or another weather it be horror book, playing a game or
watching a horror film. We recognise that teenagers would be the most interested within our
horror film ‘History was yesterday’ in particularly, as from the opening scenes of the film we
display footage of classrooms with students being talked to by their teacher, students walking
through their college gate onto campus to gain the atmosphere of community. Young adult
teenagers who go to college or university can relate for the fact that their lives and the lives of
the characters identified in the film are not so different, similar in many ways. We gained
inspiration from the film Friday the 13th, where also there is are teenage victims alike to our
film. In comparison to Friday the 13th we identified that teenagers could relate to this film
more so than any other age range, as this is what life is like when you are a teenager, to go out
or meet up in a group and do things you couldn’t necessarily do when you are at home. From
this we came to the conclusion to adapt our film to consisting of a group/meeting of friend at a
house party –(to which the teenage audience can also relate their lives to).

5. This is a still photograph of Sam within a classroom
talking to Taylor his best friend about bullying Kai.
Sam is The type of character who is a suck up to his
successor Taylor, we look to give the audience the
impression that this character wants to Taylor’s first
answer when he looks for help, to run his errands
and do the dirty work. Sam is a character who had
jealousy to the fact Taylor is the popular one out of
the pair however would never dare show this emotion as it would make him
look vulnerable and weak. In hiding these emotions, Sam is the one who takes
his anger of jealousy out on pupils who are weaker in personality and self
belief than himself, picking on them inflicting pain physically, mentally and
emotionally however is blind to see how evil he Is himself until it comes back
around to greet him at his deathbed. Sam will do anything to become the
same level in hierarchy as Taylor, picking on others to give himself power and
feel big. There is more to this character than it may seem and more story
being the film than you think, after the opening at some point in the film we
would then carry out the task of portraying this characters back story by the
use of including a flashback of where it all began, when Taylor and Sam first
became friends, to where they are now within our story.