Evaluation (Part 5): How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our opening 2 minute sequence, we tried to give a stereotypical view of a young teenage girl getting ready to go out. But behind this, the main point that we were trying to get across to our audience is that she is being abused by her father.

Camera

Camera angles were important, to show the representation of how she is feeling and what we want the audience to think about the character. When molly is walking down the stairs, instead of the camera being at the bottom of the stairs pointing up, we did the opposite. At this point, it shows that she is very vulnerable, because in the story she could get caught by her father at any point, so she needs to be careful. By shooting her from a high angle, it gives a tense atmosphere that we wanted our audience to feel. This part of the opening was also filmed handheld, because we wanted the audience to feel like they were walking with her, to add the tense atmosphere. When the dad is shouting from the top of the stairs, the camera was at a low angle. This was to show that he has authority over her and to show his power. 

Mise-En-Scene

Our location for the opening sequence was a just an average working class house, because the character is a normal teenage girl, who leads a normal life, but with problems, this conforms to the conventions of British Social Realism. We also wanted to get across to our audience that these things can even happen in a normal environment, without anyone else knowing. The lighting at the beginning was quite bright, because we didn’t want to give away anything to the audience yet. So it was just like a teenager is getting ready to go out. When it showed the dad sleeping, the lighting on the room was darker, because we wanted to show that he was the antagonist. The climax of the opening sequence, when the dad finds out that molly is escaping; the lighting was quite low at this point. We wanted to represent that he is the one that is hurting molly. The costumes were meant to represent everyday working class people, which it did. So costume wasn’t much of a problem.

Sound

We mainly used diegetic sound, for example the radio. We used it as a sound bridge and was a hint to what our story was about. We also made a wild track, for when molly is outside. The only dialogue we had, was when the dad is talking, it shows his anger and his dominance over her. But at the beginning there was no dialogue, to build the tension.

Editing

There is mostly continuity editing, which is the main editing technique, we were meant to use. We used some jump cuts, when she is sorting out her room, to show that she is rushing and the time is passing. When she is applying make-up to her scars, it has been speeded up, to show that she has many scars. The part where she is tying her shoe laces has also been speeded up, to show that she is rushing to leave the house, so that she does not get caught.