We tried to challenge the stereotypical idea of what social class experience social problems. Many other films which are about dysfunctional families and domestic violence are about working class people e.g. This is England whereas our film would be about middle class people. Some people compared our introduction to This is England in which one of the characters, Lol is abused. The house shown in the introduction probably suggests what social group is being represented. We challenged stereotypical ideas because we wanted to suggest that domestic abuse could affect anyone.
The introduction only shows one character, Amber a 17-year-old girl. She is represented as being quite vulnerable which is typical of a lot of tv programmes and films. We noticed that in other films and tv programmes high angle shots are used to make people look vulnerable so we included some in our film. For example Matilda includes lots of high angle shots of Matilda because she is a vulnerable character.
There is a part in our opening when Amber is walking down the stairs which we filmed from above. We used the same shot of her in the bath twice, the first is reversed so it shows her going underwater and the second is the original so it shows her sitting up after being underwater. These shots make Amber look vulnerable because she is naked.
This is similar to the painting of Ophelia in water by John Everett Millais.
Our introduction also challenges how young people are portrayed in films because they are often represented negatively with aggressive and threatening characters. The character Amber is supposed to be the victim which is the opposite of most other media products. I played Amber because apparently I look fragile so the audience wouldn’t think of Amber as being an intimidating teenager. Amber has a nice friendly group of friends which is different from many other films about teenage girls for example Mean Girls.
In this respect our film is similar to Attack the Block because the group prove that they are good people really by saving everyone else from the aliens. It is different from this film because initially the characters are portrayed negatively because they threaten a woman whereas in Amber young people would be portrayed positively throughout the film.
In Kidulthood young people are represented negatively because they are involved with drugs and violence. All the characters in this film dress like stereotypical ‘chavs’. In Amber, Amber and all of her friends would dress individually which challenges the thought that all young people are the same. Amber wears feminine clothing in the introduction which emphasises the idea that she is vulnerable.
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