Evaluation: PART FIVE - How the media product represents particular social groups [Working Class]

The production "Hit List" is a story about a young teen who faces loneliness and deems revenge on those around him. Being a person that is sick of others around him being successful whilst he isn't, he tends to be frustrated quite often. The opening sequence depicts him typing up a blog entry of his thoughts in which transforms into him aggressively about to meet up with someone in a park. 

In order to maintain the social group of working class, my partner and I had to focus on several different aspects. With all of these in mind, we were able to portray our chosen views much more successfully as it enabled the viewers to get a better idea of who our characters are. However, in terms of our opening sequence, there was only one character being represented with another one only being on screen for three seconds, in which we only saw his back. With this being said, this evaluation will mainly be about the main character, Zakir, played by Muhammad Rahman.

In terms of either contesting or following the stereotype of working class people, we aimed to do both throughout different scenes. During the more calm moments in the film, we aimed to contest the stereotype, whereas during the rougher scenes we followed through. This enabled us to make the character represent a teenager in Britain as many teenagers do not live the same side of life every moment they are alive.

CAMERA - Camera language is quite an important part of the filming process as it can depict someone's current mood. The camera techniques that were incorporated into my production were aspects such as close ups, mid shots, mono-pods, hand held, static movement and low angles.

Shots: The use of a close up was particularly apparent in both scenes, which was for similar reasons. In the first scene where the audience are just introduced to the entire production, they would have no clue who this character is or what he is feeling. As this is the case, we chose to incorporate a range of close ups, over the shoulder shots and mid shots so that both the facial and body expressions were connoted to the audience. With the close ups, they enabled the audience to get an understanding of what Zakir was thinking. With the furrowed brow (anger) and tilted head (upset), his emotions are represented through a range of camera shots. The social group represented here, frustrated teenage boys, is symbolized through the emotions shown from close up views.

So that we could present a form of secrecy, we made this character uncomfortably move around whilst typing. This was presented through the use of mid shots as these enabled both Zakir's thoughts as well as his actions to be represented. As it is quite clear that he is typing things out (as denoted through the wildcat and mise-en-scene) this type of shot helps connote a little more than that. This type of shot depicts the movement of his head and arms quite well, thus allowing this connotation to be noticed. I believe that this added to the enigmatic view that we aimed to create for the sequence as it exemplifies how he may have a secret. His social group is represented through the movements of his head and body.

Movement: In order to allow a rough lifestyle to be presented, my partner and I had to figure out ways to incorporate camera work so that this representation can be shown. We chose to use a mono-pod as well as hand held camera work whilst Zakir was moving. This enabled the fast paced action to be connoted as the movement was quite rough. From this the character can be presented as living quite a broken lifestyle as the rigidness of the shot connotes exactly that.

Something that the two of us wanted to represent in our film was the different atmospheres between either scene. The first scene, although it has connotations of anger in it, contains a more calming outlook to it. This is where the boy is sat down in a public building, plotting something without the knowledge of anyone around him as they all have no clue. This is represented through the static movement in terms of camera language. The next scene has a much different atmosphere; here the camera language is much more fast paced and rigid, with short shots, enabling the scene to take a much more angrier and hectic approach. This presents the representation of teenage boys as being extremely angry as the calm atmosphere is dominated by the less calmer approach displayed in the following scene.

Angles: Angles are very important in terms of representing the dominance of a character. My partner and I had taken this into great consideration during our production and, again, both scenes differ greatly from each other. The library scene contains straight on angles throughout, and one shot towards the end is slightly tilted down to hint at the dominance that will occur. Nonetheless, this scene is pretty much full of straight-on shots, connoting how at that current point he is not dominant nor is he weak, he is just an average person like everybody else... except with a dark secret.

In the next scene, again, there are shots where the camera is straight-on, but also other shots where the camera is at a low angle. This is used for the representation of dominance. As it is a moment where the character is supposed to portray anger that will make him seem powerful to the audience, having angles that are at either equal or lower levels than him leave the audience in a more vulnerable position, thus understanding  his newly found dominance. This enables them to also understand the social group of teenagers being quite aggressive and superior people as they are able to be portrayed in such a manner via the use of camera angles.

EDITING - In order to allow things like continuity and graphics to be apparent, editing comes in quite handily.

Continuity: The majority of my production requires the use of continuity as it is something that BSR films in general tend to need. This requirement is there because the films under this particular genre rely on portraying believeable issues so if continuity is not apparent then the verisimilitude may not work out very well. I incorporated continuity through places such as the moment in the park where Zakir is looking at the objects i.e. bench, tree and playground. As we wanted to connote this frustrated character desperately attempting to find a route of escape, we made him look at these objects and let the audience know that he was looking at them through the use of eyeline match. This was a very apt representation of his social group as it enabled him to become this weak character, thus exemplifying more sides to him other than the previously dominant one we saw.

Graphics: As the film would of had included a range of different people that helped to create it, we had to include a list of different roles at various different times. For example, we included the director, producer, musicians etc. From a range of the top to those that are paid less, there were many people incorporated. This was because typically, many BSR films like to incorporate many different people during their credits, i.e. the opening of "This Is England" has a lot of these graphics included. As our film is a very typical one of the BSR genre, following the steps of other BSR films was very essential as it was a guideline into what to do. Including these graphics in the beginning was quite useful as it allowed the people who worked in the production to have their name known, just like other films, as well as following the typical BSR conventions.

SOUND - A very important part of a film is the sound. In order to get an understanding of what is happening, the audience may require dialogue or if a particular atmosphere is needed, then a soundtrack may be utilized.

Dialogue: Although we did not incorporate any speech between two people, we did have dialogue. This was through a voiceover. We decided to use a voiceover as we wanted to establish the loneliness of our character and his personal frustration. The dialogue came in great use as it enabled us to exemplify this to our audience very well. As our character was particularly lonely, having this aspect allowed the character to exemplify his situation to the audience, which also allowed the narrative to be told with more ease.

Soundtrack: The soundtrack was also quite a useful tool as it allowed the atmosphere of both scenes to be portrayed correctly and compared quite strongly. By "comparison", this means that as the first scene only has a voiceover and a wildcat soundtrack, the scene can be portrayed as much calmer than the following scene.

MIS-EN-SCENE - Having a good use of this aspect enables the correct conntations of a particular genre to be exemplified. For the BSR genre, we needed to focus on costume, and location as these all had their own individual affects on the production as a whole.

Costume: In order to enable the character of Zakir to look like the working class teenager that was in the frustrated position that he was in, we chose to give him a very cheap, affordable and rough outlook. This enabled his social group of class and age to be represented as living exactly how they appear to be (rough lifestyle) as the costume in this scene is typically seen in those kinds of representations. This is seen in the BSR film "Fish Tank" with the character Mia who wears tracksuit bottoms, a hoodie and a cheap t shirt. This convention allowed her to be represented in the rough way that she was aimed to be in. With this being found out, we chose to incorporate these aspects in our own work so that the same connotation can be seen.

Location: In terms of location, we knew that we needed to incorporate a place that looks quite unkempt and common. We decided to choose a road that was quiet but not very posh as this would allow us to record without disruption and to emphasise on the loneliness of Zakir. The location was also able to connote the social group of class as it made the character to be seen as quite working class as the location was not particularly rich or sophisticated (it was more unkempt and common in a BSR society). This enabled the class representation to be connoted very successfully as we wanted the character to be presented as living quite a rough lifestyle, so focusing on including the conventions that make his class to be represented in this way (i.e. common location etc.) made the outlook come out exactly how we wanted. We obtained an idea for our location choices from Film 4 films such as "Nowhere Boy" as the streets were also quite common, quiet and unkempt, representing the same social group that we were representing. 

EXPRESSIONISM - As a method of connoting the correct atmosphere, expressionism can help out a lot. With aspects such as lighting and use of colour, it can be quite clear (or maybe enigmatic) to the audience what the atmosphere is meant to be.

Lighting: Lighting was used to a particular extent in this piece of work as we wanted to portray a typical representation of a British society. We thought about using a darker set of lighting to portray the mundane lifestyle of these working class citizens, but we felt that in order to showcase how typical their life is within the British culture, we should make use of the natural lighting as this did exactly that. The days that we filmed on were particularly average in terms of British weather, meaning that the weather was not too dull or too bright. This was what we wanted as it enabled filming to run smoothly as we did not have to worry about getting equipment wet, and it also allowed the production to be connoted as very typical, something we aimed to achieve over the entirety of the project. Also, as seen in the screenshot on the right, shadows were also incorporated to foreshadow the dark times that would occur in the film as it was a dark use of expressionism.

Colour: Colour was not a very important aspect of our production but it did help out in terms of connoting a particular theme to the audience. Again, as we wanted to make the film appear as particularly conventional, i.e. an average day in everyone's life, we chose to keep the colours neutral. This allowed the aspect of normality to be highlighted as the colours were not too bright or too dull. In terms of costume, the choices made all balanced out each other as there were things from a light coloured hoodie to a dark coloured pair of tracksuits. 

This normality created by both uses of expressionism highlights how typical the social group of working class is in a British society. Those that are within this class type are seen throughout a lot of Britain.

ICONOGRAPHY - This was a great way to emphasise on just how stereotypical the character Zakir was of his working class background. With a few iconic pieces of clothing such as glasses and a hoody, iconography has been incorporated into the production.

Glasses: In order to make Zakir look quite intelligent and harmless so that his thoughts would come across as quite shocking and powerful, we included this iconic piece of jewellery that is particularly referenced with smart people. This also allowed his working class background to have more than one side to it; usually when people are working class, they are stereotyped to be quite unintelligent. However, we decided to include his glasses in it so that his social group would not follow the stereotype throughout the entirety of the film.

Hoody: This piece of costume was very useful as we wanted to make the working class background of the character follow the stereotype of being a part of a rough lifestyle. Throughout the film, this piece of costume is only used during the scenes where the characters are in rough situations or where they are exemplifying their cheap lifestyle.


ANCHORAGE - As a film that aimed to connote the message of how violence is never a positive thing to get involved into, we incorporated a few things that we aimed to include throughout the entirety of the film. However, within our opening sequence, we needed to include some form of anchorage that connoted our themes of violence and poverty, so we incorporated it into our production.

Violence: This was a very important theme that we wanted to incorporate into our production as it is something that can be seen throughout the entirety of it. The way that this was anchored into our opening sequence was through the voiceover in the library and the angry facial expressions in the park. The voiceover hinted at violence where the character said that "...no matter what anyone says [...] I'm doing something about it". Although the audience are not spoonfed what this actually means, it is really there to enigmatically hint at the theme of violence. This allowed his representation of working class to be seen as quite mysterious as nobody was quite sure as to what he meant by this quote as they are only left with their imagination. With the facial expressions, these are also quite enigmatic as well as hinting at violence. Again, they also allow this class to be seen as quite mysterious as the audience are left with their imagination to wonder what the character is going to do.

Poverty: This is a theme that is seen in a lot of BSR films, as well as ours. This is also something that is stereotypically referred to those of a working class background. We anchored this theme lightly throughout our opening sequence as it was not a very big theme in our production so we did not want it to be the sole theme within our project. The way that it was incorporated was through the library scene where the laptop shows the percentage charge of the laptop. This was purposefully incorporated as it can express how Zakir lives a lifestyle where he may have limited access to electricity. As he is in a public place with a laptop that is almost out of battery, the audience can possible understand how his household may not be able to afford the bills, so therefore representing his class as not exactly being the richest in the world.

Overall, I would like to say that my partner and I have incorporated the representation of the working class background in two different lights; both following the stereotype that they have a negative lifestyle and contesting it by connoting how their lifestyle is not as bad as some make it out to be. This is done through all of the methods mentioned such as anchorage, mise-en-scene, iconography, sound and many more. This enables the work to be very unique as it shows more than one side of a typical British social realist lifestyle.