Question 2- How does your media product represent particular social groups?

How does your media product

represent particular

social groups?

We used Pearl and Deans website to break down our target audience into categorize which include age, class and gender. If we were to break down out target audience, we would have around 60% being ABC1 and 40% being C2DE. Our target audience would be in the bracket of ‘esteem seekers’ and ‘stivers’, these are the people who strive to have the latest trends but don’t get them first. Esteem seekers are acquisitive and materialistic and aspire to what they see are symbols of success, including things and experiences. Strivers attach importance to image and status, as a mean of enabling acceptance by their peer group, at the same time holding onto traditional values. We decided for our target audience to be like this because we wanted our film to interest a broad amount of people, not self actualizers and innovators which only cover a small proportion of the population. Similarly, disconnected, traditionalists and contented conformers would not be suitable to watch out film because it is too mainstream for them. Even though our film is classed as an indie thriller, it would still appear to a vast majority of people because it includes humour and romantic aspects but our main target age range would be around the ages of 12-18 years old.

In our opening title sequence we have used particular shots to represent our social group accurately. We start our title sequence with an establishing shot which allows the audience to get a grasp on the mis-en-scene. As you can see from the image, our mis-en-scene shows a typical, middle-class, teenage girls bedroom. This is shown by the use of the colour purple which gives connotations of a youthful female, the warm natural lighting and the fairy lights which convey to the audience that the young girl is feminine and finally the clean, spotless bedroom suggeststhat the young girl likes to be independent, organised and particular in the way her bedroom is kept. This immediately allows the target audience to be able to relate to the main actor and find the mis-en-scene convincing. That characters personality is established through the use of quick, short cuts which implies that the main character is clumsy. The idea that the girl has overslept and is therefore in a rush to get to school also amplifies her awkwardness. The audience can empathise with the young girl due to the use of high angles, mid-shots and close up shots. The high angle exhibits the girl to be vulnerable and innocent and the mid and close up shots really allow the audience to get a sense of her emotions due to the clarity of her facial expressions making the audience empathise with the character because they can relate to similar experiences but, also they sympathise with her innocence. This elicits humour but also represents our social group.

As you can see from the previous images, we have used numerous transitions and colours for our titles which corresponds to our ‘esteem seeker’ audience as it matches their fun and trendy characters. We wanted out titles to look quirky to match our main character and our genre, an Indie Thriller. Because of our audience being typically of a young age (12-18), their concentration maybe more likely to be distracted so we wanted to keep them gripped and wanting to watch more which was helped by the use of unusual transitions and colours. Not only does it keep our audience entertained but it also makes our opening sequence to be perceived as professional and of a high standard.

To fit the traits of an Indie Thriller title sequence we have included an upbeat sound track which runs alongside our title sequence. We also have a fun but simple mis-en-scene to fulfil the indie expectations also, humour is featured throughout and finally there is a change in the main characters life, which in our case is her changing from a ‘geek’ to ‘chic’. An example of us meeting the required conventions of an Indie Thriller is when the young girl accidently has a shower with her socks on which creates humour as typically, many people of our target audience would have done a similar act before, making them able to relate to the character. Another example of when comedy is used in our film is when the young girl goes to the toilet, this ordinary task is made humorous by the silencing of our non-diegetic sound track with the replacement of our diegetic sound of the girl going to the toilet. This contrast in an upbeat sound to a quiet, awkward sound creates humour. Similarly, the contrast in short, quick cuts to slow and long cuts not only creates humour but it also changes the dimensions of out title sequence, maintaining our audiences’ attention. Our target audience will enjoy the humorous aspects of our title sequence because our research shows that our specific target audience prefer the comedy aspects in films.

Our minimal script focuses on the confrontational dialect between the two siblings which is relatable to the audience as it is a stereo typical relationship of a middle class family. Their conversation makes the audience sympathise with the younger sister but also makes the audience laugh because the brother refers to the sister as looking like ‘King Kong’ due to her unusual looking furry jacket which matches her geeky personality. Her geeky personality is then heightened by her response; “practicality is a must” adding to the humour and entertainment.Both of the siblings emotions are highlighted due to the shot-reverse-shot scene. We used a high angle shot over the brothers shoulder to portray his sister views as small and worthless in comparison to the low angle shot over the sisters shoulder to portray the brother as powerful and intimidating. By this being the only bit of conversational dialect in a title sequence, it highlights the importance of this scene as it add humour to the product but it also educated the audience that it is a family orientated film. Furthermore, this scene is a significant part of the product because it gives an insight to the audience of the characters relationship, making them feeling more emotionally invested, increasing the likelihood of them wanting to carry on watching the whole film.

Our story arc fits the purpose of an Indie Thriller as our film ‘Geek to Chic’ is about a girl called Megan who doesn't fit in with anyone at school but is naive to the fact that she is considered a ‘Geek’ because, she is so focused on making it into the world of journalism. At the age of 16 she is told to get some work experience for a school project so, she goes to an interview for a fashion magazine and gets offered a job. As her life gets turned around she begins to wear clothes straight off the catwalk and parties with A list celebrities. Megan turns into the girl that everyone wants to be. Our plot follows the typical conventions of an Indie Thriller and it will be enjoyed by our target audience because they will be intrigued to find out how this immediate geeky girls turns into a chic character.