1) The document discusses the creation of characters for a psychological horror film opening called "Aura". It focuses on two main characters: Sam, a 17-year-old girl, and Stephen, a 9-year-old boy. 2) Sam is dressed casually in leggings, a cardigan, and vest top to appear realistic and relatable to a teenage audience. Stephen wears plain black trousers, a white shirt, and boots to seem unfamiliar and mysterious. 3) The characters were inspired by villains and victims from other psychological horror films like "The Ring", "The Omen", and "Orphan". Stephen especially resembles the villainous child character from "Orphan".

1. Emma Bradshaw- Media Evaluation Question 2
2.) How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Through watching various psychological horror openings we found that the victims and villains they
had created were not clear to the audience, making them feel disorientated and confused about the
characters they were watching. I also found out that most of the characters they had created were
mostly tormented or disturbed individuals that usually come back to revenge their victims.
Sometimes the victims would differ but a high percentage
of victims were either children or females. A good example
of this is from two psychological film openings I had
watched The OMEN and Orphan, but most psychological
horror films use children as the killer, with the victims
tending to be female. We then thought as a group this
could maybe have something to do with the fact mothers
are maternal and the female audiences watching would be
able to relate to the character in some way.
After having done this research we decided we really liked
the idea of having a villain and victim. However deciding
to not have the villain character clear to help create a
sense of tension and disorientated feel for the audience.
Our first of our two main characters we created for a
psychological film Aura was a 17 Year old Girl named Sam.
We wanted to make this character as realistic as possible
to help relate to the viewers and audience her age group,
thereby creating a sense of realism. We did this by
dressing our character in casual comfortable clothing which was slippers, leggings, a cardigan and a
black vest top. We also decide to have her hair up, out of her face. We decided to have this because
we decided the audience would be able to get a close look of the characters face, showing all of her
emotion, meaning she has no secrets that she need to hide referencing to the metaphor of her being
an open book. By dressing her in this way we thought this would help us represent and resemble
most teens, as we have dressed her for a homely comfort and not a fashionably feel. In our film
opening Aura we decided to present this character independent and mature, as she is home alone
but yet comfortable with her surroundings.
Our second character we created for our film opening
Aura was a 9 year old boy named Stephen. We decided
we didn’t want this character to be similar to any other
children of his age because we felt this could leave an air
of mystery and unfamiliarity to him, we done this by
choosing the character clothing to be mainly plain. He
wore black school trouser representing he was a school
child helping the audience know his age group and white
top with walking boots. We though the white top could
help represent the innocent and vulnerability side of this character. We also decided for him to wear

2. Emma Bradshaw- Media Evaluation Question 2
walking boots as we thought this represented his last moments at his death scene which is shown
with in the dream, we also decided for him to wear a white top as we thought this makes him
appear vulnerable and innocent. We also decided for him to wear a plain outfit to reflect that he
doesn’t know what has happened to him, this is very different to other children as stereo typically
dressed children normally where colourful clothing with messy hair. However he has some
resemblance to children of the dirty mud showed on his clothing with his messy hair resembling
some similarity to other children by him being interoperated as playful and youthful.
The two main characters we created were a villain and a victim, we decided to create this for
ourselves as from observing many horror films I and my group have realised that the majority of the
horror films use a classic villain and vulnerable victim. Whilst observing many films there where
three films that stood out from any others of the resemblance between our characters, this was ‘The
Ring’, ‘The Omen’ and ‘Orphan’.
We realised that the main character from Orphan (Ester)
was very similar to our villain from our horror film Aura
(Stephan). From the image to your right you can see she is
an ordinary child and would have some resemblance to
other kids by her looks, and would automatically presume
she was around the age nine which is the same as our
character Stephan. However by the way she has been
dressed is showing how she is very mature for her age and
not like other kids, as they would be presumably be dressed
in scruffy dirty, bright coloured un formal clothes. We also
done this to our character Stephen by him wearing a plain
outfit to reflect that he doesn’t know what has happened to
him, as this is also very different to other children as stereo
typically dressed children normally where colourful clothing with messy hair. You can also tell she is
different to other children by her body posture, how she is sitting up not slouched over and is
portraying her in a very sophisticated and serious way. This unsettles the viewers as stereotypically
this is not the way a child would behave therefore messing with the surroundings we have placed
them in. In this picture the lighting is high key as it is set in day time, this messes with the codes and
conventions making the viewers feel uneasy as this is portraying it could happen to anyone of us.
Before we actually started to create
our horror film opening we decided
it would be useful to collect up
information on what the audience
likes and dislikes about horror films,
so we decided to do an audience
research survey. We wanted to
know what preferences they
preferred on a main character and
from this image you can see that
they all preferred a male, child or

3. Emma Bradshaw- Media Evaluation Question 2
adult. This therefore helped us with coming up with our characters as at least now we now know our
horror film will be approved to a wider target audience.
The two characters we have featured within our horror opening are normally looking, nothing too
extreme or obscure about either of the appearances, making the resemblance to the audience even
more real which helps add the drone, tense atmosphere. So overall I believe I and my groups
Psychological Horror opening Aura represents a young, social group with the opening representing
this form the beginning to the end.