Evaluation - Part Two

How does my media product represent particular social groups?
We only wondered about the costume of the main character, who was wearing black boots, tight white trousers and a shirt which was done up, but slightly rolled under to show off her stomach. This was an idea to give the character a sexual side to them, a very stereotypical view of women is that they are sexual objects, and are to be looked at, whilst we didn't use this view, as we didn't simply show her off, we only revealed to her belly slightly, we knew that it would draw in male viewers more if the main character had a slightly sexual element to them, however, the shirt isn't particularly feminine, giving off connotations that she isn't the typical girly girl, she is her own person and fairly normal teenager. It is a residual ideology that women should be a 'damsel in distress' and are less than men, they often were shown in peril, and saved from men, whilst our character will most likely be in distress, and quite clearly is in our opening, there is no male main character to save her, she is the main character, challenging these residual thoughts and making way for an emergent ideology that women are independent and don't need men all the time.
We filmed our work within the college, as it was the only real place that we could get lots of college students in, also the environment could be perfect for a chilling tale - if you're alone in college/school, a place usually brimming with life and excitement, so full of people, when you're alone in it, it suddenly seems very odd, and out of place, so as our main character walks down the corridor alone, it seems a bit odd, and you can see the worry in her eyes.
Everyone within our project was of a teenage, other than the cleaning ladies we used as extra's, the sudden appearance of two older character's was much more fearful than the others were as they were out of place, also, despite us looking down at them with the camera (or through the main character's eyes), it is seen that they are the in control, which is different, as usually those that are in control are above the other character, this is a dominant ideology as it is generally thought that the youth has a lot less power than the elder, which in this case, is very true as they are staff members and would have some level of control over the main character, this reinforces the dominant ideology, the fact they're on the floor, cleaning up the bins is a sense of realism to their occupation within the film.
The rest, however, are all teenagers, which, as it is a film for teenagers, is supposed to help bring out audience in, as the audience would be able to relate with the audience. Even the start, of having people stare at you can be related to, perhaps if one was to feel self concious, but it soon comes clear this is something more, but they would be able to understand the feeling of being stared at and watched and being judged.
We didn't actually think about it at the time, but we have only White British people within our film, it may show something about our ideology's that it's not important to have a mix of race, but at the time it didn't even cross our minds, it could be a dominant/residual ideology that the main character's of films are often white characters, and even more so, white males. We have, without thinking, reinforced part of this ideology, of having a white character as our main character, it shows something that we didn't even think about this.
The way our teenagers are made to look scary connotates what so many people think of teenagers nowadays, that we are scary, and that we could be coming to get them, a great deal of people think we're just a menace to society, and are all a lot darker than we actually are, this could be shown within our film, and is an idea we thought of before we began filming.