Question 2 – How does your Media Product represent particular Social Groups?

Our Thriller Opening is a detective, murder-mystery sub-genre thriller, therefore we have a certain demographic to aim towards and meet. The age groups of people that would more-likely be watching our Thriller Opening are people aged in the ranges of 15 - 20 and 30 – 50. I have chosen the range 15 – 20 because I believe ‘if’ our Opening was to be made a full film, that it would be of a 15 certificate by the BBFC; but I have chosen the age of 20 as the upper boundary as normally people of age 20 – 30 do not have the time to watch TV shows and films as they are busy with work and etc. My main decision for choosing the age certificate 15 is because this Thriller is dark, contains mild violence and would possibly have a typical female murder scene, similar to Jagged Edge and Psycho, which would show sexual images that would be unsuitable for anyone younger than 15.

I have secondly chosen people of ages 30 – 50 as these are commonly the age of people to be watching Murder-Mystery type films. This age bracket includes House-Wives, who are among the most probable to watch Detective films, like; Sherlock and Luther (both are currently running on TV).

In our Thriller there are no females, therefore this film shows main conventions that it could be a Mafia film. Women appear in Mafia films as the typical housewife normally always wearing an apron and constantly cleaning or cooking food. But they mainly revolve around men. Two forms of men are shown, however, throughout our Opening: the powerful Detective, and the low-life Criminal.

These two men are in their late 30’s, this is because we didn’t want to make them old, and being in their 30’s means that  the audience can relate to the characters more, as they are mostly likely to be of the same sort of age.

As mentioned previously, our camera work was specifically designed to show the two characters in different ways. The Interrogator is meant to be shown as the source of power and justice, but at the same time he is to be shown in the darkness, almost like a shaded character. The Convict is meant to be shown as powerless and weak throughout the Opening. This is because he is bound to a chair by rope and he is under Interrogation by the Interrogator.