Q2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Figure 1

In our film, we decided to play on the convention of female vulnerability as it is a popular theme within thriller films, and so using this could increase the amount of thriller conventions that we used. Our female character plays the protagonist who is a young, clean cut, female seen in figure 1. We chose to use his as females in most thriller films are seen as weak and fragile and therefore our film fit in with the genre much more than if it were a male.
This convention links to other films such as The Disappearance of Alive Creed as this film also has a young female who gets taken. and so reinforcing that it is a highly used convention of thriller film.

Figure 2

Gemma Arterton, who plays Alice creed, is similar looking to our character as they both look young and well suited for the role of someone who was vulnerable enough to be taken by people of the opposing side or morality. Seen in figure 2
Linking this to age representation makes it even more of a well used convention as younger characters are seen as more fragile and unable to look after themselves.

Figure 3

Figure 4

Young females are the targets of most thriller films and so get hurt along the way. In The Disappearance of Alice Creed, this is a common convention as she is constantly put in danger and is hurt. This convention is also shown within our thriller so as to make it like a real film that would be produced with the proper conventions. Seen in figure 4.

Figure 5

Our film, however does challenge stereotypes due the the fact that our antagonist does not have a clear gender. Usually, the "villain" is usually a male character due to their stereotype of being rough and dominant. However, we decided to make it unclear as to the antagonists gender to put across a message that anyone can be the villain in life- and that stereotypes do not matter as much as people think they do as they can easily be reinforced or knocked down, it just depends on what people see. We chose to utilise the factor of not seeing the antagonists face as much as possible so as to keep the mystery and moral there. Seen in figure 5.
Conventionally, though, the antagonist would usually be a man. For example Essex Boys, The Disappearance of Alice Creed, Layer Cake, Sin City, and The Third Man - this is five out of the seven films we have studied, showing that 71%  of the films studied use the stereotypical convention of a male villain.

Our film taps into the commonly used trait of the teen fear of abduction. This can be seen in films such as Abduction and The Disappearance of Alice Creed. The use of taking on the aspect of teen fear, exaggerates the realism of our production, and reinforcing the facts that it can happen anywhere, to anyone. This is a common fear to teens due to their vulnerability and lack of know how as to taking care of themselves in dark situations.