Evaluation - Question 2

We tried to reflect different things within our opening sequence whether they are obvious representations or more subtle. A representation of a particular social group that we tried to portray was the one of teenagers through our use of character and story:

CHARACTER

• Drunk
• White Female
• Taken shoes off
• Vulnerable
• Smudged Make-up
• Come home late from a party
• Teenager
• Naive
• Party Dress

This is very stereotypical behaviour from a teenager as people always think their lives revolve around going out partying and getting drunk. When conducting our audience research, the audience all successfully recognized that she had been out getting drunk and was a teenager, therefore showing a good representation. As the main point of our opening sequence is the fact that she has just got back from a night out it really draws on this point and emphasises the carelessness of being a teenager. We tried to make this a fairly obvious stereotype, as it would draw in the target audience if they knew that teenagers were involved in the storyline. We focussed more on the stereotypical qualities of our character rather than concentrating on making her an archetype. This is because as she is only involved in the first few minutes of the opening sequence and then she disappears we need to show the audience a lot about her within that short space of time and it was far easier to do this with a fairly conventional, one dimensional character, as we would never have the time to find out enough about her otherwise. The CU shots of her show that she is wearing black mascara and black eyeliner, which has all been smudged. There is something very stereotypical about a teenage girl wearing black make-up and it makes her seem like the average teenage girl. The fact it is smudged really connotes that she has had a very rough night as we would normally expect a teenager’s make-up to be perfect before they leave the house. The silver, short party dress that the character wears tells the audience that she likes to get dressed up and go out and party. It also shows that she likes to be noticed because it is the type of dress that people would stop and turn to look at you if you walked in somewhere. As our sequence progresses you can notice the fear and anxiousness that builds up within the character through her expressions and gestures. For example when there the door slams, the camera goes into a CU of her reaction to really emphasise to the audience just how scared she is. As more and more things begin to happen she begins to get more nervous and the audience begin to realise just how vulnerable and naïve she is. When she is walking up the stairs, the long shot shows that she is going into darkness, and also shows the audience just how slow and cautiously she is walking because of this, showing them that she is nervous. The shortness of her dress, smudged make up and the fact that she had been drunk show the vulnerability and the weakness she has. This also introduces the theme in our opening sequence of weak and strong that should be apparent throughout our film.