Main Task - Evaluation Q2

Q2 How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The aim was to direct the movie towards a more generalised section of the public, rather than one social or age group. Although the film is intended to be certified as 15, we do not wish to only cater to a young teen market. The girl running is of ethnic origin, it does seem typical to have the victim to be female. However, the opening is wholly action, and of someone in fear, which we hope will draw the audience in. The ethnicity of the girl is Asian, because we wanted to steer clear of the archetypal blonde in danger, instead a young East Asian girl is what the audience will see first. Although media entertainment is moving towards marketing films with South East Asian actors, the horror genre internationally does lack this.

The hooded villain could be male or even could be female, although the ending will reveal that the villain is male. We felt it would be better not to lead straight away with his identity or gender. But rather it remained a mystery. Although today there are films where the villain is now represented as female, which could add to a story twist or enhance the reaction of the audience; for this movie, Paranoia, we felt that the reverse in roles was not necessary. But rather the overall story and the impact of the scenes, that are to contain danger elements of violence and gore.

We are aware that we chose to use a female character from the offset as the victim, and this does not essentially contradict or challenge the horror genre. She is typically running away from danger but to no avail, she is being chased and admittedly we are aware that all the audience hear is her feminine scream. However, our aim was never to challenge the gender role, but rather create a movie where the action and creating the sense of horror were more important than us challenging the stereo-type. Although alternately, we chose a female who is not essentially a white, blonde female, with magazine cover appeal. But rather someone that would not typically stand out, but an individual who we would see in day to day life, and pass us by in the street. The opening sequence, where she is running through the park, we chose to use dull colours for her clothes; she is not your typical brightly coloured young girl. She is a young woman, not someone in her teens, and we wanted to represent this. The clothes are fairly fashionable by today’s standards, but we chose items, that also had an eighties look. As the character in the opening shots, is actually the young protagonists mother, if the audience were to place the time line, she would have been a young woman approximately 20-25 years ago, therefore the eighties. We wanted to create the look of someone who was not your typical airhead, but someone real and not a Hollywood actress with perfect teeth, or airbrushed. The person running could be anyone, someone you meet in the street. This use of this actor and character is to create the sense of reality, and to bring the sense of danger much closer to home for the audience. Thus we believe that by the use of the character having a more realistic look, and her being killed, has nothing to do with her being a perfect, desirable individual, but it is more about something deeper than that, it questions that it is not the victims fault by any means; but rather the attacker and the person committing the crime is really to blame. We hoped that this would appeal to a larger audience because of the far more realistic approach to murder and that violence is often not perpetrated by the victim, whether directly or indirectly.