EDITED 30/03/2017: Question 2- How does your media product represent particular social groups?

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product is a British gangster style film, dominated by male actors, all of which represent a different group of people; we have an elder character who represents an older generation, a younger character which does vice versa and a character who is used to symbolise the vulnerable people in society. We don't necessarily highlight a protagonist and therefore we diminish this idea of hope for any of the characters, from the start, a negative ending is foreshadowed.

This shot shows the elder character to be hosting the shot essentially.

We look to reinforce the masculinity in crime and emphasise the stereotypes that ride adjacent to the crime world. Through mise en scene, we chose to not include female actors; this is to further present the crime world as masculine and feed upon the stereotypes that are already structured. All of the shots are dominated by a male character and follow the most masculine character. Through our camera skills, he appears more prominent than the other character. He is literally and metaphorically positioned higher than the other character. We also reinforced masculinity in crime through costume. The difference in costume between these two characters shows a contrast in their masculinity. We again reiterate this through the mise en scene in this shot. One character is sitting and the other is standing, making how they formalise themselves a representation of their masculinity. The whole opening is very gritty and very true to its British gangster origins shown through the quick and slightly messy cuts- this idea of males governing the gangster world is established in many other films. For example, in Alice Creed, the only two people we see in the opening are two men. Out of the three characters in the whole film, the two male characters are the criminals and the female the victim. This reinforces a masculinity in crime. They further develop this conflict for masculine power, by creating shots in which a conflict is apparent.

The boss is talking over the shot of the other character, showing his dominance
of the edit

Linking into this, our film represents an age hierarchy; not just the world of crime but also within society. However we did present this through a gang as a hierarchy as such within is almost always prevalent. Using a similar shot as we I did before, I can show how the older a man is, the more power he has. This use of age to represent power is quite popular within various other gangster thrillers. For example, in the film Love, Honour and Obey, the character played by Ray Winstone is an older character and his power and status has grown over time and he is where he is because of his age. Another example might be the film Snatch. The character "Bricktop" is always dominating the shot and we often follow what he is doing and what he is focusing on, through camera work and editing. The director, Guy Ritchie also has this character speak over shots of other people, to show his dominance over others.

 We are able to present this through masculinity as we did before as it shows how through crime and the gritty illegal world of Britain, people become hard and masculine. There's a social status that one must conform to to ensure their authoritative position in the gangland of Britain. We show this through the way the control that the boss has over the edit. We, for most of the scene focus on him and what he is doing as opposed to what the other character is doing, unless we focus on the reaction of that character. We, however made it clear that we were not trying to belittle the other character but instead highlight the difference in authority. We can refer back to the previous shot I used to represent masculinity as it shows the same levels of dominance. We also were able to capture the boss's dominance of the edit as we follow what he is doing when he hands out the money. By showing the movement of the scene to be following the movement of that character, we re-emphasise his importance and especially his importance over his colleagues. In this same shot we show the boss character to have a significant amount of money- money equals power and the thought that this character is more powerful because of money, nicely complements his power gained through age. The age difference and the power difference because of that is again shown in the shot where they both enter the cellar. The older man is leading, and this simple trick highlights their difference in authority and their difference in age- almost holding a metaphorical barrier between them.

Our films signifies the vulnerable and their susceptibility to crime and a derogatory lifestyle. We open the film with shots of him and shots that establish his surroundings. By doing so we can focus on the sort of lifestyle he lives before he is taken. He is proposed as a character that has nothing. In this shot ,we have positioned the camera floor level to bring the viewer to his level; by doing so we can capture his desperation and really allow the audience to see his vulnerability. We can thus capture the importance in the other character coming to help him out. The cuts are fairly slow and the camera lingers on the homeless character for quite a while. This emphasises his loneliness and his desperation. In a fairly subtle fashion, we were able to develop this desperation of the character by using a track which is actually named "Desperation". The track holds a foreboding tension to it as it gets louder as the pace builds up. By using this we can allow the audience to initially determine the outcome of this character. The irony of his desperation leading to his death is mirrored through the contrast in the soundtrack. The sound builds up until it suddenly plateaus and then it develops into a very quiet, almost eerie sound. I synchronised the edit withe the movement of the music; as it got faster, so did the edit. The cuts before the music plateaus are extremely quick, similarly, so is the music. However when the lights are turned on, the music plateaus; this synchronicity allows for the viewer to be more immersed into the vulnerable character's mind.. We see his desperation as the tension builds and we see his helplessness as atmosphere turns from tense to eerie. The big contrast in soundtrack from fast to slow and the big contrast in the speed of the edit, makes this character seem more vulnerable as he is held helpless in the shot. We also see a vulnerability within the other young character. His vulnerability in the criminal world, especially his vulnerability towards his boss, almost suggesting that youth are a vulnerable group in society. The boss dominates the shot in the shots between those two characters. This shows how despite having some authority, this character is still under a strict regime where he is somewhat just as vulnerable in terms of actual importance as the homeless man. Referring back to my previous shot, we see the power difference; we see the difference in masculinity and age and these all make the other character even more vulnerable. To conclude upon such a representation of vulnerability we decided to use a fairly gritty font. insert picture. This brings the audience to perceive the whole piece in this gritty manner. The demeanour of the whole opening negative and is used to forebode a bad ending for the characters. By creating this through visuals, we then enforce an idea that vulnerable people in society are more desperate for a happy ending but in reality that isn't the case.