Opening Sequence Evaluation Q2

Q2. How does your opening sequence represent particular social groups?

Representation is to portray someone or something in a particular way through their costume, props, body language, facial expressions and dialogue. It tells the audience what the certain character is like and about personality. Whether or not the audience want to follow the characters actions or create their own interpretations and stereotypical views is up to them.

Throughout our film we have created 3 main characters. The main character is Nicholas who is an abusing and cheating boyfriend towards his girlfriend. He abused his girlfriend so much that he murdered their unborn baby of which the girlfriend was carrying for 9 months. Another character is Sarah. She plays Nicholas’ girlfriend. Also, her father Jonathon who is out to seek revenge on his daughters ex boyfriend for abusing her so much that they lost their baby.

There were many ways in which we tried to represent Nicholas in a particular way. For example his costume. He was wearing a grey and black hoodie with black combat trousers and black trainers. From this the audience would have been able to connote that he was a mysterious character who kept himself to himself as he was dressed in all black. Also, he looked stereotypically like a typical teenager by wearing typical teenage boys’ clothes. This was simple yet effective. Also, the way in which we first introduced Nicholas was through a close up of a picture. This would have immediately caught the audience’s attention as close ups usually signify that the audience feel a bond with the character as it is invading their personal space. They are also commonly used to show a characters true feelings and build a relationship with the audience. Therefore by the first shot of him being a close up is immediately questioning the audiences mind. The audience will immediately want to know who this character is and what his relevance to the narrative is. It will also tell them that he must be a significant character as he has been introduced in a very personal way. A hobby Nicholas possesses is ‘MC’ing’. This is when a singer/artist raps his lyrics instead of singing them. In today’s society it is highly common for teenage boys to ‘MC’. When they ‘MC’ they are said to be letting out their true feelings and attitudes about certain things usually of which took place in their past. Therefore by showing a close up of Nicholas the audience are shown a representation of his true feelings and attitudes by being introduced to him in a particular way. He therefore represents a particular social group by being able to be linked with a mass amount of teens in today’s society.

There were also many ways in which we tried to represent Sarah in a particular way. For example, the only time she was introduced in the opening sequence was through a close up of a picture. By doing this the audience were able to connote a true representation of who she was and her particular body language would have told the audience what kind of character she was as they were also shown her attitudes. Also, this would have told the audience that she played a significant role in the narrative as she was one of the few characters who were actually shown. By Sarah being a teenager and pregnant she represented a particular social group. As we are aware in today’s society the number of teenage pregnancies has risen massively. Therefore the audience would have been able to connote that Sarah plays this role, thus representing teen pregnancies.

There were also many ways in which we tried to represent Jonathon in a particular way. For example, the only time he was introduced in the opening sequence was through a close up of pictures. One picture was him with his daughter Sarah and the other was of a mug shot on a poster which read ‘If you see this man call 999’. This would have made the audience think he was a violent man due to his immediate link with the police. It would have also portrayed him as a protective character due to the length he is going through to get revenge for his daughters upset.

When choosing our cast members our job wasn’t particularly hard as we only needed to cast one member. One person in particular was very keen to play the role of Nicholas so we thought it would be best if he played it. As he was a member of our group he knew the narrative very well which was an advantage as it meant we saved time on explaining the narrative to another member. Also the fact that he knew other traits of the character as he took part in inventing them. We knew he was reliable and dedicated as we knew his personality and how much he enjoyed media studies. When we were deciding what we needed out of our cast member we knew good acting skills was definitely one of the factors that played a huge role. Although our cast member was good at acting our group benefitted as no acting apart from laying down was needed.

When directing our cast member we had to make sure his actions were staying true to the representations of our character. As our cast member was also a member of our group we made sure that we all agreed on the decisions we were making about the actions of the character. In order to do this we had to make preparations beforehand and discussed what traits of Nicholas we wanted to portray to the audience in order to represent him in a particular way.

Heena