Evaluation - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

When teenagers star in films, it is quite often that they have the sterotype representation. In films teenagers are usually the ones who are causing trouble, caos and haning around the streets, just because this is what the teenage generation are expected to be like. In my opening sequence,  I wanted my characters to look like normal teenagers, ones who do not cause trouble but just usual teenagers you seen on a day to day basis.

I did not want them to have the sterotype representation because that wasn't want I wanted to opening sequence to be about. To get this image for my characters, it was important on what costumes they wore and what they looked like. To do this, I looked at myself and others around me, and observed how they dress and how they acted. Many people I saw dressed casually, so I thought this was a good way to go and kept it simple. My characters wore very basic clothes such as plain T-shirts, jeans, Converse trainers and jackets, I chose these costumes because these are the type of clothes that I see teenagers around me wear, so by doing this I was keeping a true representation and realistic appearance. It was also a good way to show what time period that the film was set in as the clothes they were wearing were quite modern, so it looks like a new film.

The first picture is of a character from Paranormal Activitiy 4 and on the second is a image from my opening sequence, 'The Following'. The first image is a teenage girl from Paranormal Activity 4, as you can see she is just wearing basic clothing, just like i described earlier on. I chose this image because firstly I thought it was relevant to take an image from another horror film, and secondly I thought it was a very appropraite image because it shows the same representation of a normal teenager, just like I wanted. I also thought that choosing this character to compare with my characters was suitable as they play similar roles in their films, in paranormal activity, this girl plays the character that is being chased by the demon and is trying to get away, which is very similar to the roles that my characters play.

 The costumes in this image and the ones I chose for my opening sequence are very similar, they are both wearing basic tops with a jacket over the top, and normal jeans. Another similarity is that neither the characters in my opening sequence or the girl from Paranormal Activity are wearing lots of make-up, this is good because then they would older than the characters they are playing and would not suit the teenage role as well.

 The only difference is that the character from Paranormal Activity is wearing her hair up, where the characters in my opening sequence are wearing their hair down, however, it is still very obvious that she is an ordinary teenage girl.