MG: Question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

• In our piece our two characters are both male. Our protagonist is a white, teenage boy and is portrayed positively as he just seems like an ordinary boy, getting on with his day-to-day activities. He represents traditional male roles by having the courage to look round his house when he hears strange, suspicious noises.
• However, he could be seen as challenging social norms in the way that he is seen as very vulnerable, alone and almost weak as he is completely powerless in this isolated house whilst being watched by a man in a gasmask.
• This is emphasised with mise-en-scene: the way he comes into his room and the TV has lost signal, his window is open and the phone line has been cut dead. It is also shown with our end shot which is a tracking shot down the corridor which then turns a corner and sees the man with a gas mask in the house.
• This helplessness is similar to that in Paranormal Activity 2 (Williams, 2010) where the kitchen cabinets and cupboards all suddenly open simultaneously, on their own, making a huge clattering noise whilst the protagonist is sitting eating her breakfast. In our opening, this is also highlighted with the eerie soundtrack we have included, suggesting something bad is going to happen.

• On the other hand, our antagonist is an older man, but age, race and social status could be interpreted as anything the audience wants them to be as he is covered with a mask. He is portrayed negatively as he is disguised with a gasmask making him seem more brutal and threatening.
• The way he is a tall, male antagonist all dressed in black follows traditional conventions in horror films as male enemies always seem more aggressive and therefore more frightening than female enemies. For example, in Amityville Horror (Douglas, 2005), the antagonist in the opening is a male, here his face is shown but is partly covered with a beard and his eyes are almost demoniac making him very unapproachable and intimidating. We made our antagonist seem as threatening as possible by making him stand very still in each shot that he was in, making him seem committed and focused on watching the teenage boy. We also increased this by included heavy breathing over each of his POV shots.

• Our film opening reinforces traditional ideologies of terrifying, disguised, male antagonists. This is because each film which also includes this ideology, is very successful at alarming the audience due to the fact that they are unrecognisable, such as Scream 4 (Craven, 2011).
• It also reinforces the brave, male protagonist ideology in some ways, for example, trying to get to the bottom of the situation. However, we also wanted to show that boys can be seen as helpless and vulnerable as well as the traditional female ‘damsel in distress’ ideology. We did this by making our teenage boy protagonist frantic and worried at the same time as having quite a bit of courage.