media coursework.

1. HOW DOES YOUR FILM OPENING
REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL
GROUPS?
Key:
Katie
Iga
Christina

2. RESEARCH
• Through our research stage, we found out the typical social
groups that are commonly shown within the crime genre.
After research we have found that the three main
characters that typically presented in crime films are
detective, victim and a murderer. These have a set of
stereotypical conventions that help to give the audience an
expectation of different social groups that will appear in
crime films. We took in depth research to find out and
understand the common social groups used and how they
were conveyed within crime films to conform to the genre.

3. CRIME
Crime films usually consist of the following three types of
character:
• The ones who solve the crimes or delay existing crimes in
action(Detectives, forensic scientists, police officers, private eyes).
• James Bond in Skyfall is a conventional protagonist who stops
any potential threat to the city and country. His role is to
eliminate crimes from occurring; therefore this follows typical
conventions of this type of character. James Bond is a popular
fictional character with a professional feel; as he is always seen
wearing a suit and tie and is a capable being, his outfit gives the
feeling of a high status in within the social groups.

4. CRIME
The second type of conventional characters in a crime film are the ones
who commit the crimes (Murderers, criminals, thieves).
• ‘Neil is a skilled career criminal that is not looking to go back to prison.
He wants to find love and one last score, but can his other emotions be
controlled’. –Neil McCauley played by Robert De Niro in Heat. In this
film, this criminal aims to complete one last heist before retiring from
this kind of life. He is portrayed as dangerous and violent character
which makes the audience feel wary of his character. He is a capable
white man; this ethnicity is commonly shown throughout crime films,
and therefore is one of the conventions of crime films.

5. CRIME
The last main type of a conventional character in crime films are
the victims (The ones who are attacked, robbed, beaten up or
murdered).
• An example victim in any crime film always tends to follow a
certain set of characteristics:
• Vulnerable
• Weak
• Feminine/stereotypically more girly
• Higher class/ middle class

6. OUR OPENING SEQUENCE
• Within our opening sequence, we aimed to conform to
portray these social groups through our characters to the
typical conventions of a crime film. We included the three
characters which are synonymously used within the crime
genre and fitted them conventionally to ensure the social
groups can be easily identified by the audience. We have
represented these different social groups by the use of
actor choices, character development, costume and props
and narrative which will support through there
stereotypical link to convey the crime genre to the
audience.

7. OUR CHARACTERS: THE MURDERER
• The murderer is one of the three main characters that appears within our
opening sequence. The murderer is a transient character; he only appears a
couple times throughout the opening sequence and has limited screen time
to create enigmas around his character along with suspension and
anonymity, this effects the interest of the watching audience. Our film
opening represents the conventional social group of the murderer in a
variety of ways, for example the age and sex of the character is a young male
where in these demographic individuals are constantly recognised or
perceived to be associated with crime, violence and illegal activity. Our
choice of using a strong looking capable white male helped to represent the
idea of this social group for the audience. As this social group is more likely
to be involved in crime the use of a strong looking male suggests
connotations of dominance and power which aids the idea of superiority in
violent acts.

8. OUR CHARACTERS: THE MURDERER
• Due to him being a capable man, this also links to the idea of his abilities
being active for violence and therefore positions this actor in our
opening sequence as a murderer effectively. The social group of the
murderer is perceived to be low; he would most likely be in social grade
D-E according to the NRS social grading system. These particular social
groups associations are extended within our film opening through the
use of props and costume. The murderer is only shown within selective
extracts of the opening sequence, he is shown in different sections of his
body but you never get to see the whole body or the face. Part way
through he is shown washing the evidence of blood off his hands, this
helps to convey this lower social group and relate the idea of criminality
to the murderer. This is effective as it created enigmas for the audience
and presents some of the key conventions of the lower class.

9. OUR CHARACTERS: THE MURDERER
• For the audience this allows a clear representation of the murderer’s
social group having strong relations to illegal activity and the low life of
crime. This decreased amount of screen time to the other characters also
suggests that he is less important in social hierarchy. The murderer
character in our opening sequence is an archetype that is synonymous
with the crime genre; we decided to utilize this archetype to make genre
hints to the audience and convey typical characterisation of this
character. This made it easier for the audience to be able to determine
the social group of the murderer and realise he is of low class and status
and is involved in criminality and sorts.

10. OUR CHARACTERS: THE VICTIM
• We juxtaposed the murderers character to the victim, through a variety
of ways such as props, costume and their actions. The victim in a crime
film is usually the one that is murdered, robbed or attacked for example.
In most crimes is it a female person because a female represents
stereotypically a week, vulnerable person but mostly are Victims shown
often as weak vulnerable people and we wanted to conform to this
conventional theme of this in our victim. Our film opening represents
the particular social group of our female victim effectively and through a
use of methods. Gender is represented in the fact that our victim is
played by a female lead whose costume thoroughly conveys her as more
feminine and girly.

11. OUR CHARACTERS: THE VICTIM
• Typical stereotypes of blonde hair and ladylike accessories such as a
scarf are shown so the audience can see that this character is feminine
and ‘soft’. The conventional idea of females being more soft often
means that they are seen to be weak and vulnerable; this means that
using them as a victim in a crime film instantly makes the audience feel
empathy for them and can see them as a ‘weaker sex’ and can be
represented as an easy target. The fact that also our victim was played
by a younger adult also makes it seem as though she is in danger
instantly and more at risk, therefore the age of our lead female role
plays a vital part as it added extra vulnerability to our opening sequence.

12. OUR CHARACTERS: THE VICTIM
• These factors also help to portray the victim’s class; the use of costume and
the ethnicity of white origin make the audience feel as though she is a girl of
higher class and therefore represents her social group as higher. This helps
to portray her social group through a few factors and allows the audience to
see that she is a typical feminine stereotypical character who is completely
juxtaposed to the murderer’s character. Additionally her higher social group
is clearly represented in juxtaposition to the location; the main protagonist in
our opening sequence is found in these woods and is this young female
lead. She links to ideas of vulnerability and innocence and is juxtaposed to
the idea of the woods as a place full of danger and unease. This creates a
tone and atmosphere for the audience and helps to portray the genre of
crime. She stands out as she doesn’t look as though she fits in this setting
due to her looking more feminine and proper which makes it easy for the
audience to see how high class she belongs in.

13. OUR CHARACTERS: THE DETECTIVE
• Binary opposition is put in use with the protagonist character within our
opening sequence being the detective. The detectives social group is
represented within our opening sequence to portray him being a higher
class professional individual. The appearance of the detective is key to this as
it helps to convey ideas about the man and allows the audience to engage
with the character and understand his social group. The actor we got to play
the detective was a young white male whose costume we chose to be a suit
and tie. This showed that as a younger male he could be at the start of his
career path and the use of the suit implies that his career is professional and
that his job is according to the NRS social grading system above C1. This
gives a professional feel to this character and allows the audience to see that
he is of higher class and status and is directly compared opposite to the
murderer. His costume shows a high and serious status with makes look him
strong not only in a physical way.

14. OUR CHARACTERS: THE DETECTIVE
• The fact that he is also similar to the murderer in the fact that they are
both capable of ability means that he is also in a position where if
difficulties came to him he could use his physical attributes to sort them
out; this could link to his job in potential murder investigations. His
social group is also represented within our opening sequence by the use
of the narrative. The only narrative within our opening sequence consists
of a detective hearing spoken by this character; it helps to show the
detectives job and convey ideas about the profession in which he is in.
Also due to the actor having a deeper voice this additionally creates a
sense of masculinity and adds to this. The speech in our opening scene
was conventional at deterring his social class, as it has successfully
portrayed his high job role and therefore this gives indications to the
audience that he is of a higher status.

15. OUR CHARACTERS
• The murderer’s social group is also contrasted
to that of the female victim and the detective.
These two higher class individuals are seen to
be the hero’s and in distress whereas the
murderer is a typical manly, gritty individual
who does the ‘dirty work’, in this case literally
killing.

16. CONCLUSION OF REPRESENTATION
• Throughout the whole of our opening sequence, particular social groups
of our characters are represented mainly through the use of the mise-
en-scene. Costumes and props allowed the audience to understand the
demographic of the character and which social group they belonged to
along with the actor choices. The actor choices were effective, as we
have successfully portrayed their social status and class, if we did not
choose actors appropriately then characterisation and application of
conventions is a lot harder to get across to the audience. This allowed
good character engagement for the audience and due to particular
social groups being represented the audience were able to relate and
understand the characters within the opening sequence.