Evaluation Activity

2
How does your media product represent a particular social
group?

Social Group: C1-E/Middle class, male/female.

During this stage of my evaluation, I am going to compare the similarities and
differences that a character from my production has with other characters from
real media products, such as established films.
Overview:
In the opening sequence of our media product, Escape features the main
character called John Royce as the protagonist. John is 17 years of age, and in
the 2-minute opening sequence we can see John waking up from a traumatic
injury, which had led to him being left in an underground subway. After, he
begins to get flashbacks, which make him aware of how he had got there and in
the flashbacks we can see that he was attacked by a psychopath and forced to
run till he had collapsed in the subway. Unfortunately, as he is trying to get up
the psychopath approaches him for the second time where there is ultimately no
escape for him.
Saw (2004)
The 2004 horror-crime film, Saw includes a character called Dr, Lawrence
Gordon as one of the main characters. Similarly to John, Lawrence they are
both innocent characters that act very alike and this is shown, as they both stay
calm in tense situations. Also, the characters are quite young (not same age),
which creates the image that they are being victimised because they are
defenceless young guys. This also allows our audience to relate to the characters
better because of the target audience we had picked. As a group, we had been
brainstorming ideas of what our production should be about and how the
protagonist should be played; when we thought about the film Saw and how the
characters were played it linked in well with our production. This is mainly due to
the innocence of both characters and not only does the characters have an
innocent look to them, but also the physical weakness as he is victimised in our
production just as the character is in Saw. Furthermore, in terms of costumes
both characters are portraying the character of a young man as they both
dressed casual as this represents their youth, as they tend to wear casual clothes
a lot of the time. Finally, the settings of both productions are similar as they are
both set in a concealed area (indoor/outdoor). The character in our production is
exploring an abandoned warehouse and the character in Saw is trapped in a
bathroom, although this can be said to be quite different, it is the idea that the
area is confined and that the ways to escape are difficult. These roles for both
characters make the production scarier and will scare the audience much easier.

Scream (1996)
The character that is in the film Scream and most sequels is Roger L.Jackson
who actually did the voice over for the film, as it wasnt revealed who actually
was behind the mask of ghost face. The character relates well with the
antagonist in our production because they both wear masks as a way to scare
the audience, but mainly to keep their identity a secret. As a group, we had
discussed that we wanted to create a character that was going to create a bad
impression when presented in their appearance, which helps to suggest the killer
inside of the antagonist. As I was the cinematographer I worked well with the
director and the cast to ensure that the costumes were realistic and resembling
what the director would like. Furthermore, in terms of costume, the character
that played ghost face wore a full black outfit, white mask and a large knife,
which connotes that the character is associated with death, evil and mystery as
the colour black is usually represented as a negative thing. In contrast, this
character ends up killing many victims, which symbolises the relentless
characteristics of the character, this again adds to the idea of death. Similarly,
our character who is the antagonist (played by Abubakar Akbari) also wears a full
black outfit with a white mask, however it is not as ghost-like as we wanted to
created a killer who is dressed more as a human figure, which represented what
he is like. Finally, both characters have similar scenes and roles in the
productions as this is shown when they are both important characters in the film
going out to murder people. The death of our protagonist is not shown and
therefore is a mystery in our opening sequence, however ghost face has been
shown to murder some people within the film.

Friday the 13th (1980)

The antagonist in this film was Jason Voorhees who was played by Ted White.
This is strongly contrasting to the antagonist in our production. This is first shown
with the use of costumes as both characters have masks that hide their identity,
which is a typical convention of the horror genre as to create a sense of
suspense. The film is centred on a dangerous killer that is on the loose, which is
similar with our production because of the constant flashbacks, creepy music and
the initial appearance of the psychopath. Our productions main intention was to
play with the audience emotions and make them feared, which would be the
same as for the film Friday the 13th because the genre used is horror. In terms of
costume, make-up and lighting, there is a clear similarity between the 2
productions. The lighting of both films are dark and gloomy to represent the
actions that are about to occur such as death and violence, which was used in
both productions to represent the genre. This allows the audience to relate to the
antagonist as they may have been in a situation like the ones in the productions
before. However, some differences that there were between the 2 productions
were the idea that our film had ended off in a complete cliff-hanger, which the
audience would continue to question as it the identity of the psychopath was
never revealed and in Friday the 13th there were many sequels that was later
released to explain the full story.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

This film was also another representation of the characters in our film. Robert
Englund played the role of Freddy Krueger and the protagonist was Nancy
Thompson who was played by Heather Langenkamp. In terms of age, both
characters are teenagers and they were very young (17 in our production and 16
in the film A nightmare on Elm Street), which allowed the audience to relate
well with the production as the target audience for our film was between 15 and
30. This had meant that the teenagers in both productions were aimed to be
represented as innocent and vulnerable as shown in both productions. The
character that is Nancy Thompson was shown to be similar to the protagonist in
our production (John Royce) as they were both victims and they both have a look
of an innocent character. However, there is a clear distinction as they are both
different genders, which could relate to how they react in certain situation, such
as when the killer appears one can be seen more worried than the other. In terms
of costumes, they both wore casual clothes as this represents the typical youth
of today. For the antagonists, they are both dressed in an outfit, which is quite
differential as the antagonist in our production is wearing a mask and full black
suit, whereas Freddy Krueger in the other film had no mask and outfit as it was
a casual jumper and trousers. Finally, in terms of the setting that the productions
are filmed in can be considered quite similar, as it is both filmed inside a
building. However, the scene in our production was on the stairs in a flat,
whereas in A Nightmare on Elm Street the scene was filmed in a bed and
bathroom. This shows that both characters that are the antagonist and
protagonist are similar and different due to different aspects of the film and how
it was produced.