The document discusses the filmmaker's opening sequence for a horror/action thriller. They chose to represent the main characters (a young girl and male kidnapper) through stereotypes to make the genre recognizable to audiences. The young girl is portrayed as helpless and overpowered by the male, upholding stereotypes. Her appearance and reactions closely match the actress in the film "Taken." The male kidnapper is kept anonymous through dark clothing and not showing his face, also stereotypical of a "bad guy." Research showed audiences relate to and expect these types of stereotypes in openings to build tension and engage viewers.

1. For my horror/ action thriller opening sequence I represent different social groups,
overall I chose to represent them both (actors) stereotypically and by doing this I
hoped that my audience would be able to recognise what genre of film it is as well as
easily relate to it.
My first actress was the young girl who was getting kidnapped, she was
represented as a everyday, average young woman who is oblivious to
what happened around her and demands that she is aware of dangers
and that she can do things on her own. As well as this during films
females tend to stereotypically seem weaker than the males, that they
need to be rescued and helped. As a result of this I chose to uphold
stereotype and have the young girl taken by surprise and had been over
powered by a male.
I represented the male who kidnapped the
young girl stereotypically as well. Stereotypical
traits of a male in a film is either saving the
young girl who needs help and saves the day
(hero archetype) or a ‘bad guy’ who is evil and
seeks maybe revenge and acting out in a violent
way is a stereotype.

2. Maggie Grace who plays ‘Kim’ in Taken
Relating Maggie Grace to my main character
in my opening sequence in terms of
appearance is easy to see that they are very
similar. I took some screen shots from my film
and Taken, looking at them both they have
blonde hair, pale skin, dressed in average/
everyday clothes, relatively the same age and
pretty.
The girl in my film upholds stereotype of woman being over
powered by men, slightly weaker then men, not being able to
fight back/ weak. Just the same as during the film ‘Taken’
actress Maggie Grace who plays Kim gets taken by males and is
unable to fight back.

3. Looking at actions of the
stereotypical female in danger,
they are scared and worried as
they don’t know what to do or
what is going to happen.
An example of this is during the
film Taken the actress of Kim is
hiding, you can see she is
looking at what is happening
and calling for help. Her facial
expressions show that she is
flustered and frightened.
Comparing her to the actress in
my film you can see that she
also has the same facial
expressions during the opening
sequence and also is looking
behind her in fear as she
realises she may be being
followed.
They are both also helpless,
there is nothing they can do as
they know that they are going
to be over powered by the male
about to attack them.

4. From my questionnaires/ research I found that females
like the fact that they are able to relate to the storyline/
actors during films that they watch. Because of this it
made me more convinced to follow stereotypes of
young females instead of challenging them.
Also from looking at my questionnaire, I gathered
that for the audience to clearly recognise what
type of genre my film is going to be, they
stereotypically expect the setting to either be
dark/ a woodland area / somewhere scary. So, for
this reason I looked at existing films and how they
introduced the settings using a mixture of wide
shots and editing techniques which I feel that I
included in my own opening well.
Keeping the location an everyday setting
was important to represent these
stereotypes. I also wanted to keep it
simple and easy to access in case I
needed to rerecord and I think for these
reasons my location worked perfectly.

5. For the males representations during my film
opening, comparing to the males who kidnap
Kim during Taken there is similar resemblance
again. Some techniques that I had researched
included for the opening sequence was that the
bad guy is not usually recognisable or clearly
seen. I chose to use this technique during my
film opening because I felt that it helped add to
tension building and make the audience watch
further into my film (which is something I found
out from my questionnaires. I chose to do this
by not focusing the camera on the male when
behind the girl, above is a clear example that I
have circled, another example is not having his
face clear by using the darkness or cutting it out
completely. For me I think this went really well
and ran smoothly throughout my film opening.

6. For his costume I chose to keep
it all black. Again, this is also a
stereotypical representation of
a ‘bad guy’ in a horror/ action
movie. Dark clothing is basic
and it don’t give anything away
about the character other than
the fact that he may be up to
something bad. Also he has he
is hood up which is a
stereotypically associated with
gangs. As I was also trying to
keep the back guy anonymous,
using an all black outfit helped
this by blending him in with
the lighting slightly more
making it harder to see him. By
using these techniques it
helped build tension during my
film opening, which hopefully
is another element that made
the audience want to watch on
further.

7. Overall, I feel that I have created a stereotypically tense film opening. I done this by
upholding stereotypes of males and females and also the surroundings that they was
found in, costumes, appearance as well as the props (such as car). Portraying young
females as helpless and dependent on males actions as well as males as evil and
violent. I feel that I was successful in terms of entertaining the audience and using
two main social groups exploring stereotypes that the target audience may feel that
they could compare themselves or others with or even the opposite and disagree
with stereotypes making it interesting.