The document discusses how a media production group represented social groups in their short film. They chose to portray gangs and drug dealers between the ages of 16-17. They believed this would work well as they were familiar with the "drug game." They wanted to show that drugs can seriously harm people. They targeted their film towards audiences from socioeconomic classes E and D as those groups would likely live in gang-affected areas and have children similar in age to the characters. They portrayed the characters as "Chavs" and gang members who sell and do drugs and are violent towards each other. They used dark lighting, locations with graffiti, dark costumes, swear words and slang to represent this social group realistically.

1. HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT
REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL
GROUPS?
By Nick Gidley

2.  In the opening scene of Green Street we noticed that the film was
based on the stereotypes of football supporters (hooligans) which the
majority of people these days would class them as chavs. It showed in
the opening sequence that the football hooligans liked to fight other
supporters. This worked well because we had a beginning of a fight
scene in our film clip so we could relate to the Green Street film clip. Also
in the film clip which I analysed all of the football hooligans where white
men ranging from the age of 25 to 40. This was a problem for the actors
we used as we all where aged from 16 to 17. But in the other films that
our group evaluated the actors where aged 16 to 20 which means we
could have the age of actors.

3.  We chose to represent gangs and drug dealers because we believed
that it would work well as we knew a bit how the drug game works.
Also drugs is a bigger problem than people know about so we wanted
to put out the fact that a lot of people these day either do drugs or are
dealers. We wanted to show that if you get into drugs that it can end
up very bad by either damaging your body or getting beaten up
which is what we showed in our film. We chose social group E and D
from Socio-Economic Scale. We chose E and D to be the target
audience for our film because we believe that they would be able to
relate to the film the best compared to the other groups, this is
because group E is underworking class and group D is working class so
these groups would most likely living in areas that are gang related
areas (council houses or flats). Also these types of social groups tend to
have many children so most likely their children are similar ages to the
characters so their children will really be able to connect with the
characters.

4.  We represented the groups we chose to be ‘Chavs’ and Gangs
members that sell and take drugs. Also we represented them to
violent towards each other even though they are in the same position
as each other which connotes that they aren’t very sociable to many
people besides their other gang members.
 Lighting helped us to create the characters because we used
naturals lighting which made each character look dark and more
edgy which is what we wanted whereas if we had used high key
lighting it would have made the characters faces light up in a golden
sort of colour which would be used in a romantic film so it wouldn’t
have been suitable for our film.

5.  Camera angles and movements played a big part in getting the affect
that we want on each character which is shown in a dolly shot when you
see Glyn (Tyrone) meet with Joe (Tris) then chases him down the alley. We
wanted this shot because we thought it worked well and that it was
affective as it shows that gang members can be aggressive and violent
which this shot shows well. Also towards the begging of our film there is a
good dolly shot of Glyn walking towards the camera this shows that the
characters in our film are dark and mysterious which gives them the
complex side to them which is what we want.

6.  In our film we filmed when the light was darkening so it set the
mood better. Most of the colours in our set were dark and the
colours were oligochromatic (restricted colour palette). The
colour in our film helped create that unsureness in what is going
to happen so that worked well in the film clip. We believe that
this was effective because it did create the mood we was aiming
for but you could still see what was happening in the film. As
shown below in the photos.

7.  The music in our film had a good beat but it was also edgy which
connote the viewer to feel worried about what is going to
happen, this was perfect because that is what we wanted as we
knew that we was going to have the begging of a fight scene. If
our music in our film clip was stereotyped some could say that it
was ‘chavvy’ which then connects to our characters. The music
could be described as masculine which again relates back to
our actors as all the actors are male.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsJlQLypCSc&list=UUCjMwm
Rm1_h77dZEyOmkOoA

8.  The mise en scene in our film clip helped set the scene. The costumes we got
the actors to wear where mainly dark colours because that is what you
would see gang members wearing. We noticed that gangs wear dark
colours through the analysis of the opening sequences we did. Also the area
we used to film was perfect as it had graffiti which is associated with gangs
and chavs so the spot was perfect. Also near the graffiti was a long alley
which is what we want for the chase so the spot we used worked better
than we expected. Another way we represented the social group we did
was by the language we used, we used a few swear words as we noticed
they did in the gritty realism films we watched also we used slang which is
what gang members and chavs use in everyday conversations so we knew
we had to use slang. When exporting our film for some reason the picture
became extorted and didn’t look how we wanted it we have tried many
thing to try and export it the way it looks in the film editor but it hasn’t
seemed to have worked.
 In our film we used straight cuts to create continuous editing which creates
high levels of verisimilitude which is conventional in gritty realisms