Representation of Social Groups Within our Film

Characters Included in the Film and the Social Groups they Represent.

Our group's opening sequence represents various different social groups such as gender, age, race, ethnicity and class. Our opening sequence shows a victimised woman as our main character, personally I don’t like the idea of showing women as the weaker more vulnerable sex as there is already much stigma on this particular subject but with the time and people we had that was how we had to cast it, as it is only the opening sequence audiences won't be able to bow what happens to the woman so for all they know she may become the strong character rather than a victim. We mainly show this character as a young, middle class, British woman but not much more can be suggested from our opening as we wanted to build an idea of mystery and tension and not necessarily tell the whole story. The room used to film in doesn’t give much idea of the character(s) either as it’s very simplistic allowing the audience come come up with their own ideas. In all not much information is given about our main character or other characters that will be used other than the fact we know the first character seen is the victim in the situation.

Construction of Ideas About Character(s) Through Mise en Scene, Camerawork, Editing and Sound.We created the idea of a victimised character through our use of camera angles, the high angle shots looking down on the character show the vulnerability and lack of power, furthermore we made sure the audience can see the distress and confusion of the character with the use of close up and medium shots of her facial reaction and bodily movements. We were also able to present the victimised character through the little narrative dialogue that we used, simply the line “Olivia. I’m here to help” tells the audience that she is in some sort of trouble or is weaker than the person helping her. Not much else gives an idea of the character as the montage scene doesn’t tell much about the characters other than small short flashbacks. There isn’t a strong portrayal of our character and the one given is very minimalistic and open to ideas of the audience.

The image shows one of the shots we used to create the feeling of lacking power for our main character.

Typical Character Representations of the Genre.

Our character representations are quite typical of our chosen psychological thriller genre. Nicole Kidman plays a similar character to our film in Before I Go To Sleep, she plays a victimised, woman with mental health issues. Both characters show dazed expressions as they and the audience at this point are unaware of what’s going on and what’s to come. The liable and defences looking characters both struggle with mental health issues and both films cover the struggles they face when being taken for granted because of these issues.

In cinema mental illness has often been depicted with an evil or monster type character. “Cinema's treatment of mental illness has been growing more sophisticated as well as more sympathetic.” Our film does not follow the idea of having a villainous character and their mental illness being the root of their motives but shows a mentally ill character first shown vulnerable but later becomes strong (unfortunately the opening only shows the character looking seeming weak).

Social Stereotypes in film and our Representation

In our film we have a character with mental health issues, reports of mental illness in film claim “depictions haven't moved on from the silent era, revealing that characters with a mental illness are either evil or simple, with nothing in between.” Our film instead shows a woman battling with her mental illness to save herself, when the film started the opening sequence shows her as a confused and vulnerable character and the audience at this point are not yet aware of her mental illness which is late explained.The audience are then able to come up with their own thoughts on how the story will unfold with a mentally ill character as the victim rather than the villain.

Villainous characters with mental illnesses in HollyWood (Donnie Darko and Split)

Overall Message and Representational Construct

Although our opening sequence doesn’t give much information to the audience on what’s going on, what’s going to happen or who the characters are, it still allows many ideas from the small suggestions given. Our opening sequence suggests that those with mental illnesses can sometimes be stepped on for other people's enjoyment or advantage, our film highlights this issue in a light way just in the opening sequence and allows the film open for interpretation from the viewers and gets them thinking.