Q2
How does your opening sequence represent particular social groups?



The main characters in our film are George and Michelle. George is a lonely geek and obsessed with Michelle. Michelle is a popular girl who is pretty and has the good looking boyfriend. This shows the main codes and conventions of thriller movies following the characteristics of the usual characters in thriller movies about stalker.


George:
We represent George as lonely and obsessive by using dark colours for his costume. Such as black trainers and trousers, these colours have the connotations of a dark person, death, and evil, wrongness, scary and secretive which relates to our character (George). His costume also represents his lonely and unpopular side as black is not a popular colour. For example it’s the sort of colour that outcasts would wear like Goths to show that they are different from the rest left out and abandoned.

He is wearing trousers which suggest that his sexuality is male. Also the fact that he is of black ethnicity allows us to easily use a representation of badness due to the stereotypical role of his race..

George takes up most of the frame in shots. Which suggest that our character is alone. Also the audience cannot see all of the setting when he’s inside the house which shows off his secretive and hidden behaviour. When George is outside he’s body language changes as if he becomes scared and afraid. Suggesting that he does not like the outside nor being in contact with people. In the shot where the phone drops it drops to the top right hand corner of the frame next to his right leg this giving the impression that our character always thinks he’s right and never wrong.

The lighting is not low key lighting that would usually be used for antagonists; however we had high key lighting to contradict the fact that he is wearing a black costume. As if to suggest that he is trying to justify he’s action and likes to think of himself as a protagonist.

The same characteristics can be found in James Foley’s perfect stranger character miles as he is also always wearing dark colours. James Foley used a small room for the setting of miles’s obsessed room with props such as stickers, pictures and dolls. The loneliness is shown because when he is on the camera because he takes up most of the frame. Miles’s character is mostly put under low key lighting to show that his is an antagonist as in the picture where half of his face is shun by the light and left side darkened with a shadow, to suggest that he has two different faces to him like a split personality. These are the same characteristics we tried to incorporate in our main character George.

Michelle:
We represent Michelle as the pretty and popular girl that George is obsessed with. This is represented well as we do not show Michelle in the whole of the opening sequence which challenges and manipulates the audience’s thoughts of what she looks like and why we have not shown her in the sequence.

Michelle has the same characteristics as Rowena’s character in perfect stranger being the popular pretty girl that miles’ wants to be with. In the picture we see that her hair is tied back and her left eye brow is raised slightly to suggest that she is confident as she also has a smirk on her face and her cheek bones are high as if to suggest that she is smiling.
The earring that she is wearing with her neck strapped dress suggests that she is glamorous. Also the fact that she is wearing minimal jewellery shows of her physical appearance which compliments her body language as her back is upright as if to suggest she is powerful with her arms slanted to the left and her left shoulder raised higher that her right to suggest that she uses her sex appeal to get what she wants. In this way we have portrayed Michelle in our storyline as she would have the same behaviour and hair and make- up as Rowena.

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi847249689/

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1015021849/