Evaluation Q2 Samuel Storey Evans

Evaluation Q2

2.How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The 3 characters shown in the opening to Dream State belong to 2 different social groups. We have the protagonist Carl who is a working class man, you can tell this from the way he dresses and the house he lives in, for example he dresses smartly, he wears jeans with leather shoes and a shirt typical clothes of the working class average man. He also lives in a nice house that would typically be too expensive for lower class but not nice enough for upper class people. Carl's social class and status are also shown through the way he is portrayed by the camera angles, the camera is never very close to his face this is because his character is not an aggressive character and close ups of people tend to make the audience feel as though that character is aggressive and dangerous, and that's not how we want the audience to view Carl, Carl is kind and brave, he is only aggressive when he absolutely has to be. Also he is mostly shown in a mid shot style this is so the viewers/audience can fully see his attire and can see his mannerisms, to give them a good idea of his social class, and his mental state. 

Carl is portrayed as brave and kind both of these traits are traits you would expect to see from a police officer, like Carl. His kindness is shown through his willingness to return the package immediately after receiving it. His bravery is shown through the way in which he handled being kidnapped, although he was shaken up by the whole thing he showed bravery in the face of danger and stayed much calmer than your average man, showing the audience that he is brave and has most likely dealt with a lot of life threatening situations, which will match his characters profession later on in the film as police officers need these traits. We wanted to portray Carl in this way as we didn't want to make him any different from other stereotypical police officers, as the story of dream state is quite complex, and making the characters back story's too complex would have made the film harder to follow and would have risked losing the viewers attention. 

The other two characters are the antagonists of the story and are represented only through camera work and mise en scene, They are shown to belong to most likely the lower class. This is shown through there clothing and mannerisms for example they both are wearing hoodies, hoodies are stereotypically warn by lower class criminals, and so the audience make this assumption, this assumption is then strongly reinforced by the actions of the two characters as they kidnap and attempt to kill the protagonist. As well as this the camera work is closer to the faces of the antagonists and they are often shown to be in the way of the camera and therefore blocking the audiences view of whats going on, this is to reflect the ignorance and aggression of the two antagonists so the audience knows without a doubt what kind of people the antagonists are.