The document summarizes how the social groups of victims of domestic violence, a violent spouse, and an unsupportive mother are represented in the media product. For each group, it describes the typical personality traits and how they were incorporated into the characters Sam, Darren, and Christine respectively. It also discusses the inspirations for the mise-en-scene of each character, citing influences from films such as Sin City, Kill Bill, Titanic, and TV shows like Gossip Girl.

1. Evaluation two
• How does your media product represent particular social groups?

2. What is a social group?
 A social group is a collection of people who interact with each other and
share similar characteristics and a sense of unity.
 The social groups that we represented in our opening were:
 Victims of domestic violence
 A violent spouse
 An unsupportive mother

3. How do you represent those who have appeared in your film?
A victim of domestic violence:
 Sam is represented in the social group of ‘victims of domestic violence.’
People who are victims are usually represented as weak and vulnerable.
Typical personality traits of someone who is a victim of this type of abuse
may include being fearful of their partner’s temper, trying to avoid any
type of conflicts, having poor self esteem and taking the blame for the
abuse. We wanted to try and incorporate all of these personality traits in
our character of Sam as we wanted her to be a believable and relatable
character in our thriller; if our thriller is believable it will be more tense and
suspenseful which are both common themes of a thriller. In our opening
we also made sure that Sam was portrayed as an average girl next door to
draw attention to how she is a normal girl finding herself in an
extraordinary situation.
Sam’s Personality traits:
•Weak
•Vulnerable
•Average girl next door
•Sensitive
•Self conscious

4. Sam
Inspiration for mise en scene:
 Lighting is a key part of mise en scene in any film but when it came to the footage of Sam running
away from her home we decided to use low key lighting with a dark toned sepia effect as it set a
gloomy and mischievous atmosphere to the opening instantly. Our inspiration for this sepia toned
footage came from the opening scene of face off which is also has a sepia effect on it; the sepia
colour foreshadows the gloomy and upsetting events to come.
 Another major element of mise en scene is hair and makeup; our inspiration for Sam’s hair and
makeup came from the character of Rachel in girl on the train. Rachel is an alcoholic and is really
suffering recovering, in a similar way our character Sam is also suffering from her own problems.
Both of these characters have major problems in their life and the least of their worries is what they
look like, based upon this we had Sam’s hair tied up and very basic makeup to draw attention to
the fact that she is having a tough time.
 One of the props Sam has in the opening of our thriller is a ring. The inspiration of using a ring
came from a real life documentary that I watched with a similar story to our opening. I thought that
if the inspiration came from a true story then the tension will build even more than before and the
opening will be more believable and dramatic.
• We got our inspiration for Sam’s character from Julia Robert’s character
Laura Burney in the film ‘Sleeping with the Enemy’ who fakes her own
death in attempt to get away from her violent husband. In a similar way, in
our opening Sam is also attempting to get away from her abusive and
violent husband Darren which is one of the reasons for her going on the
run. Laura’s character
The sepia colouring of both our opening and Face Off’s
Sam and Rachel’s basic/no makeup and basic hair
The use of the ring in our opening

5. How do you represent those who have appeared in your film?
A violent spouse:
 Darren is represented in the social group of ‘a violent spouse’ in
our thriller opening. People who are violent and abusive in real life
are seen as powerful and dominant people which means that we
wanted our character of Darren to be exactly the same as this.
Typical personality traits of a violent spouse usually are very
dependent on their victims for power, easily angered or have other
extreme emotional swings and may be controlling. Again, all of
these personality traits we wanted to include for the character of
Darren as we want the best outcome that we can possibly have for
our opening,
Darren’s Personality traits:
•Manipulative
•Dominant
•Powerful
•Selfish
•Angry
•Violent

6. Darren
• We got our inspiration for Darren’s character from the
character of Jackie Boy in the film Sin City. Jackie Boy is a
typical tough ‘lad’ character who is violent towards the
character of Shellie and tries to manipulate her. His
personality is exactly what we wanted for the character of
Darren; furthermore in one scene in Sin City Jackie Boy hits
Shellie around the face which showed his power and
violent ways and this is why we included Darren hitting
Sam around the face in our opening.
Inspiration for mise en scene:
 Inspiration for Darren’s hair also came from the character of Jackie Boy in sin city as it looks scruffy and
like a typical ‘bad boy’ character; we wanted Darren to look like he is care free in his appearance to draw
attention to what he is saying and his actions rather than his appearance. We also took costume
inspiration from Jackie Boy as he wears all black which connotes death and danger which is exactly what
we wanted for our character of Darren, we wanted him to come across as intimidating and as a threat.
 One of the props that Darren used was a knife and we took our inspiration for this prop from Kill Bill as
when we watched this the use of a knife was shocking to us and this is what we wanted for our opening,
it was important to us that we also created this shock factor to build tension and a sense of mystery to
our opening so that it was thrilling to our audience.
 The lighting we used for our character of Darren was black and white, we took this inspiration from Sin
City as it creates a gloomy, dark atmosphere which is exactly what we wanted from the presence of
Darren’s character.
Our inspiration for Darren’s hair, costume and lighting came from
this specific scene with Jackie Boy in the film Sin City.
Our inspiration for the use of a knife as the villains Prop
came from a fight scene in the film Kill Bill.

7. How do you represent those who have appeared in your film?
An unsupportive parent:
 Christine is represented in the social group of ‘unsupportive parents’ in our
thriller opening. People who are said to be unsupportive parents are said
to usually be emotionally unstable and unsupportive to their children
which is how we wanted the character of Christine to be towards Sam.
Typical personality traits of an unsupportive parent is that they don’t know
to deal with their own emotions, they like to be the centre of attention,
they have little/no empathy, they don’t care to listen to their children and
they can put a lot of pressure onto their children. We wanted all of these
traits to be incorporated into the character of Christine so that the
audience would feel empathy towards the character of Sam.
Christine’s Personality traits:
•Unsupportive
•Uncaring
•Selfish
•Vain
•Snobby
•Manipulative

8. Christine
• We got our inspiration for Christine’s character from Rose’s
mother, Ruth in Titanic. Ruth is described as rude, snobby
and selfish; she is the type of lady to turn down her nose at
her own daughter. This type of personality is exactly what
we wanted to incorporate into the character of Christine as
she always puts herself before her daughter and this is
what we wanted for the relationship between Christine and
Sam to draw empathy towards Sam and how lonely her
character really is.
Inspiration for mise en scene:
 Our inspiration for Christine's hair, makeup and costume in our opening came from the character of Lily
from the TV programme Gossip Girl, Lily always is very pristine in the way she dresses and presents
herself, sometimes this can come across as selfish- this is how we wanted Christine also to be presented
in our opening. Christine cares more about her appearance and herself above everything else.
 The lighting in the scenes with Christine’s character are all edited in a black and white effect; the use of
black and white in films emphasise that the footage is occurring in the past. The effect of using this
editing technique came from the opening of Casino Royale which is also set in the past which helps the
narrative become clearer and more tense when the audience are watching.
We got our inspiration for Christine’s hair, makeup and
costume from the character of Lily from Gossip Girl.
We got inspiration for the use of black and white to
highlight the past from the opening of Casino Royale.