G321 - Evaluation - Question 2

How does your media project represent particular social groups?

Quinn Wakely

The type of person we wanted to representate through our character Quinn was a higher-middle classed young woman who has had an excellent start in life. We wanted to target a person who isn't troubled by money problems or has relationship issues so therefore wouldn't seem to be effected by psychological issues. By using a female who has a stable life and then throwing her into the horror of having mental problems will make the movie much more effective and horrific towards our target audience. Someone who leads such a great life and doesn't have any noticeable problems makes it scary when we find out she is struck with minor bi-polar and paranoia, making the audience believe you're never safe from developing psychological problems.

Character

Quinn Wakely is our main character in our short movie. She is a young woman who has just left the comfort of university and has been thrown straight into a busy life with a stressful job. She has a nice house payed off by her parents which she shares with her fiance. Altogether she is quite well off and well cared for considering today's economical issues. She is in her early twenties.

She is very considerate and realises her place over people; she does not look down on other people however she finds is difficult to relate to them. She tries to be charitable and being a nurse gives her the opportunity to give back to society.

What we do not realise until a fair way into the plot is that Quinn Wakely has mild bi-polar, however no one aware of this whilst she was in the comfort of her parents. How that she has moved into her own house and is dealing with her own problems we start to see her illness slowly infect her weakening personality. This is shown clearly later on in the plot, when her dark side shows through. She does not realise she has this illness but her fiance is worried books an appointment with a psychiatrist, she ignores this and unconsciously runs away from the troubled half of her mind. It is hard for her to deal with stress, and being under a high pressure job does not help this.

Quinn Wakely's relationship with her fiance is very loving, but does often put herself before him as she believes in the traditional values of women ('Prince Charming' and the 'Damsel in Distress').

During the first couple of clips, I wanted Quinn to come across as mysterious and blank. However I also wanted to show that underneath all that, there is a colossal

Costume

During our short film we dressed Quinn Wakely very appropriately, making her look like she fits in to the mental institute perfectly. We based Quinn's outfit on a straight jacket as this was the classic mental institute clothing. The colours of the clothes she wore were very simple, just like the walls of the room. We also kept the amount she was wearing limited, anything that wasn't needed wasn't added and therefore we only dressed the character in a plain white vest and some plain white trousers. The reason we didn't decide to go with a straight jacket is because Quinn isn't quite that insane - yet. The straight jacket gave off the feeling that's she's dangerous but no one actually knows at this point. Also by using a straight jacket would mean giving her character away right into the start of the film which mean it we couldn't make twists in the plot as effective later on. We chose these simple items of clothing to show how normal and plain the institute wanted Quinn to be, perhaps trying to make her feel normal and more sane than she actually was. On another note, her clothes blended in well with the background wall colour which was also white. She had bare feet and wore no earring, necklaces or bracelets as we didn't want to give much about the character away to begin with, you catch more on what she'd usually wear later on in the two minute opening. It also shows no sign of materialistic items, which contrasts completely with the pre-institutionalised character.

During the second half to our film opening we get flashbacks and memories fading in, and you get the opportunity to see what she would wear on a normal day. This consisted of some black skinny jeans, a leather jacket with a casual shirt underneath and some heeled boots. What she wears is smart, yet very casual for Quinn which shows that she is well off compared to most people out there. You also find that the running and stumbling around whilst wearing these perhaps expensive clothes is quite odd, giving off the impression that she does have something wrong with her.

Makeup

In the institute scene Quinn wears no makeup as she has no way of getting any whilst being contained in the area. As Quinn wears no makeup we are able to match this to the clothes she wears which are plain and blank. The clothes, background and makeup all go well together because they're all blank and normal, the institute want their clients to feel normal and get treated from their illness and throwing the client into somewhere so horrifically boring contrasts with the clients illness. A final point would be that because she is in an institute not having the makeup is also a metaphor for being washed clean of her bi-polar personality.

During the scene where Quinn wears her casual clothes you don't really see what makeup she wears as everything is so fast pased, also we never get to see a close up shot during that part of the two minute opening therefore the audience cannot tell what makeup she is wearing at that part of the movie.

Body language

The body language of Quinn is quite misleading during the mental institute scene where she does not move even an inch of her body, giving the impression she is quite settled and at peace. This could also give a completely opposite impression that she does not fit in to her surrounding and is scared stiff. The final impression could be that she has completely lost her mind and is a huge trance. As everything around her is moving she is completely still and lost within her mind. The impression we tried MOST to get across was the third one, her being completely lost in her mind in a huge daze. This is because we want Quinn to be as mysterious as possible and to give away only tiny fragments of her personality to begin with.

However, thought she does not move during this scene her body position is quite unusual, and shows that something is wrong with her. She is sat upright and looks uncomfortable in her surrounding like she shouldn't be there. It looks alsmot like she's in an invisible straight jacket, her shoulders show this by being square and straight. Her hand is in a twisted position which makes it clear that something here is not right with her character. Sudden movements of the eyes confirm this as they dart around the room looking over to each wall of the institution. if we pair this to her slight twitching then we can start to get a clear picture that Quinn isn't her normal self.

During the second part of the two minute opening Quinn's body language is packed with much more action as she is running through a forest with very fast paced movement. It's not clear what she's running for, all we know is that she's in a hurry. We see her take brief pauses to catch her breath, she seems to be wanting to get somewhere quickly, or perhaps run away from something quickly. We don't know for sure which leads the audience to ask questions right away. We used fast body movement for Quinn during this scene to show that her character profile is completely different to how she's acting now, showing a great change in personality which could suggest that something isn't right with her.

Facial expressions

Quinn's facial expressions are vital to making our film very effective as for the first half of the two minute opening most of the footage contains her, and focus mainly on her facial expressions. The majority of her facial expressions are blank like she's in a trance, she does not look happy or unhappy, she doesn't look scared or relaxed, her expression is simply blank which is why it's so effective. We put in her facial expression as blank because that way we can show that something is perhaps a little wrong with her, and she isn't acting at all like her normal self. Her face comes across as slightly creepy due to how blank it is and how she is staring into nothing whilst being lost in her own mind. Another reason we used this was to get the audience thinking and asking questions to themselves to why Quinn a supposedly quiet and innocent girl would be acting strange like this.

During the forest clips you don't see much of her face, and when you do it's her being exhausted from the running. We obviously showed this to make the running scenes more realistic because if she wasn't taking breaks and breathing quite heavily during each break it wouldn't have as much effect. It would also be very strange for a nurse such as Quinn to be good at running and not get tired easily, so this added to the realism.

During the section where we bombarded the audience with many clips of different scenes to add confusion, there are a many of her laughing and sobbing that take place in the institution and an unknown place. By adding clips of her laughing and sobbing in this unknown place adds more confusion to the first two minutes, the entire first half of the opening consisted of her with a blank expression, not once moving a muscle or giving off any facial expressions. However now she is must more obvious with her expression giving the audience a sinister laugh while seconds later giving them an innocent sob. This shows her emotions are everywhere during this scene and will get the audience asking themselves things like 'what has happened to cause this mix up of emotions?'. We added in the laughing because she has done something that she is happy with, in an evil way of course. We used used plenty of laughing to hint to the audience that she's slightly insane, the sobbing contrast well with this as it shows her sane side and her seeing what she's just done come to reality.

Using camera shots and editing to add to the representation

When it came to using camera shots to help add to Quinn's character representation we didn't use much as it wasn't needed. However what we did use did add great effect, for example the shots of Quinn sitting down staring into the camera with a blank expression whilst nothing else was going on in the scene was a great effect and was definitely the creepy effect we were looking for Quinn to create. Another shot type we used were the high and low angle shots, to begin with Quinn was looking up to inspector giving us the impression that she's vulnerable. However when the inspector kneels down and starts pleading with her, she doesn't seem as vulnerable as she is now looking down to the inspector which is a good effect and shows change in the characters.

With the forest scene not much is seen of Quinn in great detail, everything is much more fast pased, we do discover that she's in a hurry and have shown this by her running quickly through a forest. The way we placed the camera showed how deep she was into the forest, coming across streams and steep banks which she would stumble on whilst running the whole time, showing nothing was stopping her from achieving her current goal.

When it came to editing we didn't add in anything as it wasn't needed. Our filming gave off the effect we wanted perfectly and neither of us felt the need to edit something that was already perfect.

The Inspector

The type of person we wanted representate through our character 'The inspector' was a middle ages man who is very loyal and passionate about the things he does in life. He is down-trodden and is going through a bit of a mid-life crisis, he doesn't have too much worries and doesn't have much family either. People are always putting him down yet he still tries his best to do his job properly, but his nice side often finds a way of appearing during the wrong moments. By using a middle aged man who wasn't too great at his job to fit the role of the Inspector would be interesting as he has to interview and deal with something he has no control over and will find very hard to handle causing him too look bad and to create some stress for him.

Character


The inspector wears formal clothing which consists of some smart trousers, a grey blazer, a smart tie and some appropriate shoes. You wouldn't think right away that he's an inspector because of this, the grey woollen blazer can throw you off track. As I've already said, he's a little bit of an outcast to the rest of the people he works with and therefor dresses slightly differently and doesn't appear as up to scratch as some of his colleagues might do.

By giving his this type of clothing we can show the audience that he's different to what most inspectors are really like, and that he may very well have a soft side which plays a part in the two minute opening. The clothes that he wears may come across as quite boring to the audience leading them to believe he's not too exciting with his life and leads the same old routine everyday and wearing the same smart clothes.

Makeup

During the clips where the inspector was seen during the two minute opening, at no point do you see him with any makeup, hair gel or any beauty products that cause his appearance to change from his normal self. Primarily, an middle aged inspector such as himself doesn't care about looking good as he knows people will still think the same of him either way, he also isn't comfortable with wearing something like hair gel as that isn't him at all. He is shy and keeps his thoughts and appearance to himself which. Therefore by not wearing anything like this at all can reflect to the audience that he's a shy inspector who keeps to himself and doesn't without realising, reflects his personality because of this.

Body Language

Inspector Hodges is a middle class man who has been working as an inspector for quite a long time. Although he has years of experience under his belt he has never become the successful inspector he dreamt to be and is down-trodden and has been pushed around quite a bit. Not much people have respect for him yet he's always trying his best to impress and do the best job he can.

The Inspector is quite passionate about his job and the people around him, he has devoted many years of his life working as a failed inspector. Over the years he has never thought about giving up in the slightest, he is determined to do well. The Inspector can also be quite sincere, and always trying to improve himself.

The doesn't have much relations with people as he doesn't have many friends even though he values the people who work with and around him. He also has very little family which means he is less distracted from his work as an inspector which improves his drive to do well and someday become successful.

Costume

The Inspectors body language isn't really meant to show much about the character, but then again not much can be shown about the character through his body language. The body language that is shown by the inspector is very similar to his personality which can be quite shy, especially when he's nervous. During the clip where we talks to Quinn his body language is shown as nervous and prepared, he is standing up without slouching and his body is turned directly facing Quinn.

 After talking to her for a few seconds he gives in and kneels down closer to her whilst trying to get some answers, this is also where the Inspectors softer side emerges. You see him become a little softer with his actions and tries to maintain contact with Quinn although this fails due to him being nervous. Eventually he reaches in his pocket and grabs a photo and shows it to Quinn with perhaps a little more confidence than he has currently shown. We used shy body language to add to the inspectors character because we thought that we didn't reveal enough using the other aspects. We thought by making his body movements steady and nervous we could show the audience more about the inspectors character.

Facial expression

Once the inspector stops talking you catch his eyes wondering around the room due to him feeling nervous and unsure of what's going to happen. After another second or two he gives and and talks to Quinn face to face, he tries to maintain eye contact but struggles and often drifts left and right avoiding looking at her. The Inspector never shows if he is happy or sad during his clips, but speaks with a positive attitude and you'll see a very slight glimpse or two of him cracking a little smile after every sentence or two just to reassure himself about the current situation.

We added in the small facial expressions done by the inspector to get the audience to understand this character a little more as we thought we didn't develop this character as much as we developed Quinn. By adding in these small but crucial facial expression done by the inspector the audience would catch small glimpses of his personality, and along with body language and makeup could combine to give you a bigger image on the inspector and what all these show of him as a character.

Using camera shots and editing to add to the representation

When filming the inspector we used varied shots of him to catch different aspects of his character. The first shot you see of him is a very low angle where you see the bottom half of his legs and his shoes. Other shots are one of the side/back of his head facing Quinn whilst standing next to the nurse, Mid shots of the inspector from Quinn's point of view and close up shots of the inspector talking to Quinn. We decided to used many varied shots in the first scene to capture a great amount of information about the inspectors body language and facial expressions. We also filmed over the shoulder shots to make it seem like there was some form of conversation going on in the clips where the inspector talks and Quinn gives no response.

When we were editing the clips with the inspector in we chose to focus on certain parts of his body, for example his face, his legs or his arm. The reason why we did this was to show the audience different features and characteristics about the inspector as he was perhaps the weaker character out of the two and was also a much more uncommon character in general. We focuses greatly on his facial expressions and his body movement, making sure we focused on both of these at least once.

The Inspectors facial expressions don't give away much to begin with as he faces Quinn and explains to her what's happening and how anything she says will be put into a statement.