This document discusses the representation of different social groups in a film through costume design. It provides details on the costumes designed for 5 characters: James the drug addict, Chris the loan shark, Luke the innocent bystander, and Lewis the drug dealer. For each character, the document explains the colors, styles and accessories chosen for the costume and how they help convey the character's personality and role to the audience. The costumes are meant to send visual cues about traits like wealth, innocence, death, and to clearly identify antagonist vs protagonist roles.

1. By Lewis Manning

2.  Our film includes a very particular set of
social groups; in this PowerPoint I will talk
about how each character is illustrated and
why; I will also talk about why I have included
them in my opening sequence and how I
would like the audience to react to each of
the characters within my piece.
 I will also talk about cultural signifiers such
as hairstyles, clothing and how that impacts
them as a individual and how my audience
could take a perception on them.

3.  The representation of social groups in our film is
vital into making the audience understand who
and what the character is and does within the
film. The first way we wanted to represent them
was the use of costume and the setting which the
character is seen most in which will then give the
audience more of an idea of what each character
is like. An example of this is the Innocent
bystander (Luke) when he is walking; we can see
that the character is wearing a blue jacket which
blue has connotations of innocence and
happiness and with the black trousers
representing death. This will then make our idea
of Luke being innocent transfer to the audience
and successfully apply our conventions.

4. James (Drug Addict)
Within our film we can see that there are many
different social groups involved with each other.
I wanted to make this character seem very lad
back about everything, and as he is a drug
addict, he doesn't take life very seriously. We
wanted the audience to know straight away
what he is. The first way we decided to do this
was the costume of the character, we wanted it
to seem to the audience that James did not
spend too much money on clothing and
appearance as he spends most of his money on
Drugs. We wanted to take a bad perception on
the character at first and then realise after he
gets in trouble with the loan shark and killing
an innocent bystander that when the drugs are
not involved with him, he changes personality,
this would then change their view of him from
antagonist to protagonist.
We also used the colour black to represent the
character as a death character; as you can see
from the picture we dressed the character in all
black clothes, we did this because we wanted
the audience to realise the death that the
character brings to everyone and the way the
character is killing himself with drugs he is
taking.
We also made his hair quite unstyled to show
that the character depends on drugs to do
anything so throughout the film he is quite laid
back appearance wise to show the audience
that he cant live without drugs
Black coat and jeans
representing sadness
and death
Unstyled hair showing
he relies on drugs to
live his normal
lifestyle.

5.  Chris (Loan Shark)
For this character we wanted to make it very
obvious towards the audience, the wealth
that the character has and also wanted to
make sure that the audience knew that he
was antagonist. We showed this with the
voice; in the first scene we see Chris holding
a knife towards James’s neck, with a very
deep and angry tone of voice, so by using
sound we can get the audience to realise
that the character is the antagonist.
We also decided to use two colours with the
costume of this character; the first reason
for this was to explain to the audience that
the character had two personality's against
him; white being happy, innocent and black
being death and authority as well as power.
This would then make the character seem
very two-faced in a way that they did not
know when each personality was going to be
applied. We wanted the audience to realise
that the character can be friendly and
innocent if you don’t betray him or humiliate
him, but if you do, then the death
personality kicks in.
Also we used quite a formal costume to
show the wealth that the character has, so
by wearing a shirt and trousers in his normal
day to day life, the audience can see that the
character has a lot of money to throw
around and shows that’s why he is in the
Loan shark business.
Black and white
showing that the
character has two
personality's.
Designer bag
showing wealth.

6.  Luke (Innocent bystander)
This character within our film only
shows up for about 30 seconds but has
a vital part in the film. Luke gets run
over by James as he is not concentrating
on the road. We made sure that the
costume would fit the film and would fit
his character. First of all we did some
research on what most people wear
when travelling into town, we see the
outcome and decided the costume. We
made Luke wear hoody and chinos
because we wanted him to fit in as
normal member of the public, we
wanted the target audience to know that
he was just a random man In the public,
so by wearing the same as everyone else
the audience could understand, his
cultural background. We also used the
colour blue to show the innocence that
the bystander had when being hit by the
car showing that the character didn’t
deserve to die just because of James’
character not concentrating on the road.
This also puts across the message we
wanted to put across about road safety.
Blue showing
innocence
Grey showing
dull death,
depression.

7.  Lewis (Drug dealer)
 For this character we wanted to
make the audience feel angry on
what he is doing. We made this
character the antagonist because
we wanted the audience to feel like
the reason why James is addicted to
drugs is because of him and also
the reason why the innocent
bystander is dead is because of him
selling drugs to James while he is
driving. We decided to make the
character look quite a laid back
character that is trying to fit into
the crowd because he doesn't want
to get caught by the police selling
drugs. We also made the character
were a red jumper to show the
blood that the character has got on
his hands and also the death he
carry's with him due to the selling
of the drugs. Casual jacket;
fitting into
crowd
Red = blood