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

In our opening sequence the representation of social groups was obviously shown through the characters and actors involved. Both were male actors between 16-20. By choosing actors in this age and gender we hoped to follow conventions of Film Noir (e.g. young detective who is tricked by a clever Femme Fatale) and bring across common characters to the audience that they can relate with. For instance working men would know that with a job like being a detective he would stay up late at night working with high levels of stress, giving the character a human feel.

We chose two white, middle class actors to play our characters;
Jon - the Detective (19)
Andrew - the Villain (17)

Both actors are meant to be slightly older than their real age but as it was a student film we could not hire professional actors. In my blog on the group page "Character Comparisons" I showed characters similar to our detective and villain. Both Harrison Ford and Bruce Willis shown in that post would have been suitable (at a younger age) to play the parts in our film and because they have both been in similar style films before, the audience would feel confident going to see our film, knowing that they would suit the roles (Bruce Willis - Sin City, Harrison Ford - Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)).

By choosing working class we have represented the majority of the population of Britain which represents fairly an archetypal image, also by choosing to have them white (most detectives in typical Film Noir are white working class males, like Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) in Double Indemnity).

For a more in depth look at Jon's character "The Detective", there is a blog on the group page which can be found here;
The Detective