Question Two

Joshua Liam Whincup

Evaluation - Question 2

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

Our media product focussed on a few social groups. The main social group is off course the gang crime element which is a huge problem in today’s society. The gang crime factors also link towards knife crime which is also featured within the project. There is also the social group that relate to ‘Nikki’s’ sexuality, with our main character only have one female friend she over the course of the film grows stronger feelings for her and shows subtle hints of her being a lesbian.

Characters similar to Nikki, and also in her position are Skins character, Emily, who is a teenager at college, who come from a good home however is facing the struggle of being a lesbian. Also Kidulthood’s character, Katie, who is a young teenager attending college. She is bullied at school and eventually hands herself, she lacks love and friends and feels isolated due to where she lives because of all the gang, knife crime and violence. This is some more information on our character within our opening sequence:
 

Race – Black

Origin – Jamaican/British

Age – Sixteen

Occupation – Student attending college

Sexuality – The characters sexuality is not clear within the film due to the subtle hints that she is a lesbian due to her only female friend, Sam. However it is not revealed within the film so her sexuality remains her mystery due to her committing suicide before it is revealed.

Hobbies – Spends the majority of her time alone due to her father leaving home, her brother dying while she was young and her mother’s drinking problem. She usually studies because she is determined to live a better life in the future and she is determined to make something of herself.

Sam – Sam is Nikki’s best friend however they do not spend as much time together as they would like. Sam is the only person who has ever cared, loved or ever even took interest in Nikki and her life. Due to Sam’s actions we understand that she and Nikki may have secret feelings for each other however this is extremely subtle and does not reveal itself.

Nikki – It is clear that Nikki has many problems; her mother is addicted to alcohol, Nikki herself has many problems due to her bullying issues and her lack of love in her life. Her older brother and main role model past away in a gang related crime and her father left her and her mother while she was still young.

Some other information on other characters:

The Mother:

Race – Black

Origin – Jamaican/British

Age – Forty Nine

Sexuality – Straight

Occupation – Unemployed due to her refusing to attend work after her husband leaving her and her son’s death.

Mother – Within the film the mother’s name is not revealed, we did this due to how Nikki feels towards her mother, so by presenting her as nameless it shows that she is invisible to Nikki and she loathes her. Alcoholic, Nikki’s mother is an alcoholic due to her son’s death and the lack of love in her life, she no longer has ambition In life.

Sam:

Race – Black

Origin – African/British

Age – Sixteen

Sexuality – Straight, however due to Nikki’s ‘feelings’ for towards her we do see glimmers that Sam may in fact feel the same however Sam has a boyfriend, Danny.

Occupation – Student attending college

Sam – As a whole Sam comes across as bubbly, confident and extremely appealing. Sam is quite a popular girl in school and is in a relationship with gang member, Danny. She however meet Nikki in class and at first spoke to her through pity, however this soon changed as their relationship grew and they become extremely close, Sam cares, loves and sticks up for Nikki best she can however this is hard living in an area such as where they live and her boyfriend being a gang member.

Bullies:

Race – Black, White and Asian

Age – Ranging from fifteen to eighteen

Reasons for their actions – The bullies within the film are all gang members that come from extremely bad homes, with alcoholic, drugs taken parents and guardians who beat them. These gang members pick on Nikki while in school due to her being quite, these gang members are bitter due to their home lives and the lives they live so their behaviour is inhuman and they choice to abuse Nikki due to her brother’s death.

Setting and Location
Our setting for our opening sequence we decided to put our main character, Nikki, in a house. The house we decided to locate the opening sequence was quite large and luxurious. We did this to show the story of Nikki, that before the death of her brother her mother was doing fine and she has a good job and they was planning on leaving the terrible area they lived in. We wanted to show that the family had money, another reason for Nikki to be bullied, and that the family did not belong in this area. We wanted to also show the contrast of her home and when she stepped outside and how dangerous her area was.

Overall I believe that our film’s opening sequence involved and represented many social groups, and portrayed them well and I believe that the story we decided to portray could appeal to many people of that age group especially in the area of Barking and Dagenham.

Cast:

We started by looking over the story, and realised we wanted to have a female as the main character because we wanted to go against the codes and conventions of the genre. We decided to cast Deborah Oyelade to play Nikki, we decided to cast Deborah due to her appearance, we also had another female member in our cast and crew however her physical appearance did not match the appearance we wanted for the character Nikki. We also choice Deborah due to her previous work in modelling, so the experience of being around cameras and professionally working in a field that you would have to altar your body language and facial expression to portray your emotions showed that Deborah would be more than capable of become the character. Also Deborah is extremely confident and is always eager to perform well and is very reliable to turn up on time.