Evaluation task 2

How have you represented your social group with Mise-en-scene, camera, sound and editing

In this essay I will be exploring how the Mise-en-Scene, camera, sound and editing were used to represent social groups in my thriller. More specifically gender and ethnicity. My opening scene contains themes of betrayal, crime and death so incorporating different aspects of my chosen social classes through mies-en-scene, camera, sound and editing was generally a challenge. 

For gender, we used the miss-en-scene to hide the characters gender through costumes. All characters wore masks and this was for two reasons. It fitted the scene and gave context to the scene as it made indications that they had robbed a bank. However we also used masks to hide the genders of the characters so at the end when the main character takes off her mask it’s almost a surprise and the fact that she's not a man shocks the audience. We deliberately waited to the end because we wanted the characters to be neutral so the audience wouldn't assume one is stronger or inferior than the other because of their gender. We also wanted to make this clear through the shots. 

We used the camera to show a neutral ground at the start and we achieved this by having many simple side on, shots on a tripod instead of using more complex shots like tracking shots or high angle shots that has implications that come with it. However then as soon as the main character takes off her mask, we cut to a low angle shot of her. This is to show she is a powerful woman which subverts the stereotype of woman being inferior to men. This is something we wanted to make clear. However she then goes to take her jumpsuit off to appear wearing a dress and carrying heels which is consequently adherent to the stereotype of woman wearing dresses and always looking nice. This again was something we conveyed through mis-en-scene. 

However, whilst our aim was to incorporate this stereotype, we still wanted to enforce that she was ruthless and still subverting the main stereotype of being girly and inferior to men. To get this across we used a non-diegetic soundtrack that I had produced. It plays throughout the scene and we wanted it to carry on playing to show that whilst she had changed her appearance on the outside she still has the same thoughts and feelings on the inside and we wanted to mirror her thoughts to the soundtrack. So when I produced the soundtrack, I envisioned what she would be thinking and attempted to put that into music. 

To help display further that her gender plays a big role in the film we edited the scene accordingly so that the shots would have a longer duration after she takes her mask off. As well as this being a way of letting the audience know that the climax is over but also to highlight further, that she is female and is subverting the stereotypes of a woman by being involved in crime. We made the duration of the shots long enough that it makes the audience feel slightly uncomfortable as the shots play on for a second too long which exaggerates our point even further. 

When it came to ethnicity, we used the black character to adhere to the stereotypes that prevail in our society reading black people. For example, he gets out the car and makes sure it’s clear before the others get out. We used a low angle shot to display that he could be seen as big and fearsome which adheres to the stereotype of black guys being scary. Also even being in the scene instantly adheres to the stereotype that black people steal. He is also the first person to die which again is adhering to the stereotypes of black people. 

In conclusion, I think there is a mix of both subverting and adhering stereotypes in our theiller and whilst we found it a challenge to show it through the 4 elements I believe we achieved them.