Script for Directors Commentary Evaluation Question 2 By Whole Group

How Does 'Concealed' Represent Particular Social Groups?

Ollie: Hi! Today me, Sophie, Sam and Esme have gathered to discuss representation of social groups in our new film opening: 'Concealed'. Sophie we'll start with you.

Sophie: The only social group really shown in our sequence is teenagers. All of our main characters fall into this group. The fact that we don't have any adult main characters, supports the ideology that teenagers isolate themselves from adults and the two lead quite separate lives. 

Esme: Also indicating that teenagers like to keep things to themselves and keep their lives quite private from their parents or any adults for that matter.

Sam: Teenagers are represented as quite threatening too. Damien is a prime example of how society views teenagers. Like they're dangerous and violent. 

Sophie: In terms of gender, predominantly people view society as very patriarchal.

Ollie: We really wanted to take advantage of this dominant ideology. So we make sure we really communicated this hierarchy. The plot alone supports it. 

Sam: Laura Mulvey believed that women are often objectified in the media, Anastasia's role supports this idea. Due to the fact that she would be classed as 'The Princess'. 

Esme: Propp's character theory identifies the different roles that are often given to characters. The fact that Anastasia holds the princess role it supports the conventions of women being objectified by men. 

Ollie: Both the male characters are fighting for her to be theirs. Like she is a prize. 

Sophie: We also used a high angle shot when Anastasia and Damien are first shown together on screen to show that he is in control of her. He possesses dominance.

Sam: Dylan is the one to save Anastasia so it makes females out to be incapable of looking after themselves and like they need a man to protect them.

Ollie: To make Anastasia seem like a conventional teenage girl, we dressed her in a very westernized costume and she fits in with today's fashion trends, as you can see in the last reverse zoom shot she is wears popular brands like Adidas. We decided to follow the idea then teenagers are quite often seen as homogenous.

Esme: It shows that like most teenagers or like the stereotypical teenager, she wants to fit in by wearing the latest fashion and wearing well known brands.

Sophie: Also in the zoom shot of Anastasia in bed you can see that the first thing she does when she wakes up is go on her phone. Like its the most important thing for her to do when she wakes up.

Sam: It supports the ideology of teenagers being consumed by technology and social media.

Ollie: We used two over the shoulder shots of Anastasia looking in the mirror, which supported the idea that teenagers are obsessed with their appearence and that they are vain.

Esme: We dressed Damien in all dark colours to show the audience that he is the antagonist.

Sam: As his identity isn't revealed we didn't really do much else to represent him in a certain way other than using different shots and angles.

Sophie: In the wide shot angle of him and Anastasia walking down the street he looks a lot bigger than her, which shows his dominance.

Ollie: We also created this show of dominance in the over the shoulder, high angle shot of him looking at Anastasia. He again looks a lot bigger than her.

Esme: In the POV shot, half of his body isn't in it which could suggest to the audience that he is in a different world to Anastasia or conventional teenagers.

Sam: Which foreshadows to the audience that he keeps himself to himself, it is only until later on in the plot that the audience would find out that he suffers with the psychological disease: Schizophrenia.

Sophie: We wanted to represent Anastasia as a conventional teenage character so that the audience can relate to her and connect with her. They will be able to understand her so much more and may even see qualities they possess in her.

Ollie: It is a key factor in creating a likeable character, which we wanted in her because she is the main character. They will be able to empathise with her a whole lot more because if they like her they will begin to feel everything she feels and will begin to want her to return to her normal life.

Esme: Damien is made to be an unconventional character because it will bring more shock to him, which we wanted the audience to feel. It will make the wait for the revealing of his identity highly tense.

Sophie: The audience will feel shocked at the fact that a young boy could be capable of such things. Usually adult males are used as the antagonist.

Sam: It just really emphasises how much power and dominance he has, because he is only young but still manages to do everything that he does.

Ollie: And that is how our media product represents particular social groups, thankyou for listening! 

     

Costume Changes

In the scene of Anastasia in Dylan's attic we decided to chose a different costume to the outfit in the scene of the 'equilibrium' to make it very clear to the audience that when the flash forward of the disruption is shown, it is on a different day to the following scene shown of Anastasia being okay and happy. We chose the costume to be light colours to again show the audience that dispite all the blood, dirt and briuses on her, she is the good character and not the bad. It is also a modern and fashionable outfit. 

White shoes to show that she is a good character and to connote her purity and innocence. The colour white gives this impression because people often match white with angelic symbols and we really wanted Anastasia to have this 'good girl' reputation. They are also a branded shoe (Adidas). Showing this brand on our character will really appeal to our primary audience because it is a very popular and modern brand, which a lot of teenagers/young adults wear or like. It will help us appeal to the 'Mainstreamer' group, as according to Young and Rubicam's audience classification system; the mainstreamers enjoy value for money and fitting in with everyone else. This is often through things like wearing well known brands, which is what Anastasia is doing herself. Therefore allowing the audience to connect with her because they will feel like they are like her because she is wearing the same shoe/brand as them. It supports the Colonist theory because of the fact that she is wearing western fashion and a brand that is popular in western countries.

Make-up

We used eyeshadow and a grey contour powder to create bruises on my forehead and near my mouth. We wanted to show the audience how much danger Anastasia is in and that she is severely hurt. The bruises show them that is they aren't fresh injuries and that they were inflicted on her some time ago. So it shows them that the Antagonist has kept her locked up for a long period of time. It also shows that Damien is very violent and shows them that he is an angry and aggressive person.

We bought fake blood to use. We used this for the deep wounds on her leg and stomach. Also dripping from her head, eyebrow and ears. The look of the fresh blood suggests to the audience that they are fresh wounds, unlike the bruises. We needed to establish that Damien is constantly hurting her and is nearly always violent. The audience can be 100% clear from this that the injuries were not just a one off thing, the antagonists aggressiveness and violence is a consistant thing.

The 'Concealed' Title Sequence

Psychotic Productions Company Logo

This is our final title sequence for 'Psychotic Productions'. We used LiveType to make it.

Costumes and Props By Ollie Clark

Scene 1:

In the Attic

Characters- Anastasia and Damien

COSTUMES:

*Anastasia

White top, Jeans, trainers

-We have elected to use the white top because white symbolises purity and innocence and that is the way we want to present Anastasia in order for the audience to sympathise with her and her situation.

-We chose to dress her in jeans because it is important that we convey to the audience how normal she is and how well she kept up with teenage fashion. Our audience would assume from this that she is someone they can relate too and she seems like a realistic character.

-In addition we have put her in trainers in the interest of comfort to our actor but also because it will keep her in tune with current teenage attire.

*Damien

Black t-shirt, black hoodie, black gilet, black tracksuit bottoms and black trainers

-The theme of black in the whole of his costume suggests he has a dark personality and also a desire to keep his identity hidden from the girl for as long as possible. Also black is associated with gothic people and so this gives him a certain gothic side to his personality as well as adding an intimidating feel.

-Hoodies are associated with teenagers and especially troublesome teenagers so therefore we have elected to follow the dominant ideology and dress him in a hoodie as the antagonist.

-Tracksuit bottoms are seen as casual attire so this will enforce the fact that he feels relaxed when in control and in an environment he knows.

PROPS:

*Damien will have a knife to make himself seem more intimidating and has to be seen with a weapon to show he is a truly dangerous and mentally challenged antagonist.

*Rugged old chair for Anastasia to be tied to make the scene seem more realistic.

*Some form of rope or tape to tie her to the chair because the audience has to see that it would be difficult to escape.

*Typical cellar stuff such as old pictures, old books and other things that aren't used.

Scene 2:

In her bedroom

Characters- Anastasia

COSTUMES:

*Anastasia

Grey top, jeans and trainers

-The idea behind this whole costume is to enforce the fact that she is keeping up with the fashion, feels comfortable and portrays a slightly innocent character.

PROPS:

*Damien will have a newspaper to make it look like he is occupied when in fact it is just a disguise and he is actually peering round the side and trying to look at Anastasia.

Location Recce

The attic is the main location of our film. We love the whole look of the attic. There are so many different elements that make it the perfect set for our opening sequence. Referring to Barthes Code Theory, the attic will leave the audience with plenty of semantic codes. These our vital considering the first thing the audience will see is Anastasia in the attic.

They will need some clues as to what is going on, even if they cannot make complete sense of it all. The dirty and broken floor boards will tell the audience that Anastasia is in a bad place and she is in danger because the connotations of dirtiness and broken objects are that things are not right.

 There are also cobwebs all over the windows and in the broken floorboards, which will give the audience a sense of fear, due to the association of cobwebs to spiders. An animal in which many people fear. It also gives the impression that the attic has been untouched for a very long time and that it is not usually used or visited by people, giving the hint that Anastasia is being kept away from others.













We will also have a scene of Anastasia in her bedroom. This will be to show the audience that the scene in the attic was a flash forward to the 'disruption' and that the film will now return to the 'equilibrium' and will now follow Todorov's narrative theory, whereby the plot is set out in the following order:

• Equilibrium
• Disruption
• Resolution 
• New equilibrium

The location that we have chosen for Anastasia's bedroom is my actual bedroom. We felt this was the perfect place to do it as my bedroom is predominantly covered in light colours. The walls and carpet are a very light grey. All the furniture is white. Having a lot of light colours, especially white, signifies Anastasia's purity and innocence. It shows the audience that she is a good character, which needs to be established following the first scene because she is very dirty and heart. She is also in a dark and dirty location so some of the audience may misinterpret her as what Propp would refer to as the 'Antagonist' because these are usually the connotions associated to a bad character. The second location will reassure the audience as to the fact that she is a good character and present her as another character role from Propp's character theory: the 'Prince/Prize' because they will see how she was in trouble in the first scene and in the second scene they will see that she is actually a innocent and desired character. We provided the text from Dylan our protagonist as an action code, to hint to the character that he is her rescuer and that she is desired by the male characters. There are also big mirrors to give the audience the impression that she takes care in her appearence and cares about how she looks to others. There are also cosmetics lying around her room such as: makeup, perfumes etc. These again show the audience how she take care of her appearence. Suggesting to the audience that she could be quite a popular girl in school, as often teenagers who are classed as popular are often stereotypically labelled as being vain and egotistic. 

There will then be a very short moment when you see Anastasia and Damien walking down the street outside. This was the road that I live down. There are lots of trees down my road and as it is winter they are all bare of leaves which really helped give that eerie affect. It is also a fairly quiet road so there was no by passers, which really helped hint to the audience that Damien was going to keep Anastasia away from the rest of the world and that very soon she would only have his company. 

All these locations were either near my house or in my house so they were extremely easy to access and there was no trouble in finding the ideal place. 

There was so members of the public that interfered whilst filming the scene outside, therefore we did not have to ask anyone for permission to film there or ask people to avoid the shot. However when filming in my house, my family were often very loud and it was heard to film and not get the sound of them talking etc. in the shot, especially my 4 year-old niece who kept crying and interrupting our filming. However luckily we didn't want to include any usual dialogue or sounds and we edited in all non-diegetic and diegetic sounds afterwards. 

The only way to get in to my attic is by a very shaky and unstable ladder, which was quite dangerous especially when taking things like lamps and the camera equipment up and down. To overcome this the boys went up first and then me and Sophie handed up anything we needed to take up and followed up after them. We also had to be very careful where we stood because there were nails on the floor and some of the floorboards we broken. We used the nails to our advantage and included it in our opening sequence as a prop. However there was not really anything particular that we could do with the broken floorboards, we just ensured that we avoided standing near them or in them. We also included shots of these in the opening sequence to really emphasise how much danger Anastasia is in.

Story Board

Communicating Our Genre By Ollie Clark

What genre signifiers will we include?


In our opening sequence we will include genre signifiers such as blood and wounds on Anastasia's face. You would only conventionally see a high volume of blood and deep cut wounds in genres such as action, psychological thrillers and thrillers, therefore blood being demonstrated through extreme close ups and normal close up shots already breaks it down for the audience. The audience could also suggest hat if somebody has blood all round her face and is unable to get out of the situation then somebody has put her there, which the audience could then infer that they might have been some sort of psycho. According to Rick Altman's genre theory, all films contain semantic and syntactic elements. This opening shot strongly supports this theory because as well as being visual to all the blood and deep cut wounds, the use of close up shots connote that she is in grief as well. People might also enjoy the repetition of blood in psychological thrillers, therefore want to watch more. This links to Steve Neales genre theory that audience might enjoy repetition of conventions in genres and would want to see more.

We will also communicate our genre to the audience by using taboo language when the character is in distress. This is extremely common in horrors and psychological thrillers because the idea is so the dialect expresses the main characters level of distress, frustration and anxiousness. This is seen most famously in classics such as Saw where he shouts 'someone help me' in an extremely high pitched voice. As Saw is a horror film, this supports Roberts Stams theory as some people may argue it is a hybrid of genres rather than just a psychological thriller. However it could also challenge his theory because, dialect of distress is also seen in other genres such as action and thrillers and not just horrors.

The use of camera shots and angles will connote that the films genre is a psychological thriller by showing close ups of the girls facial expression to signify she had been psychologically effected. Her beautiful face and long shots of her tied up to a pole in a basement suggests that a psycho is obsessed over her, therefore took matters into their own hands and locked her up all for themselves. The audience may be able to infer that this psycho may be somebody who is obsessive and unable to control themselves. This challenges Robert Stams theory because no film contains a obsessive psycho other than films of the genre 'psychological thriller'. These inferences give the audience a clear understanding of the genre as they have been demonstrated in the opening sequence. Camera shots and angles are also key in contributing the genre because they help the audience understand the daunting atmosphere Anastasia is in. For example the over the shoulder establishing shots connote that the atmosphere is conventional to a thriller, a psychological thriller or a horror film.

All the elements of a psychological thriller such as high amounts of blood, a psycho villain, a princess and prize and a protagonist all thrown into one film contribute to the film being able to push the boundaries of the genre, which supports Steve Neale's genre theory as his idea is that genre is always evolving through a cycle of events. Therefore our film, concealed, pushes the psychological thriller boundaries because all the key concepts take the genre to the next level.

Finally, the use of non-diagetic sounds and music will communicate the genre of our film. The use of high pitched music to work together with dark lighting of the mise-en-scene and pan camera shots create a daunting atmosphere to the audience, and could also help them come to the conclusion that Anastasia is psychologically effected by this as the music could have links and annotations on to how she is feeling.

How Are We Going To Engage Our Audience?

Our story line is non-linear, as it starts with the disruption. When looking at Todorov's narrative structure usually films follow the structure of:

• Equilibrium 
• Disruption 
• Resolution 
• New Equilibrium 

Therefore our story will immediately grab the audiences attention because it is not what they are used to. They are immediately thrown into the deep end and this will engage them because they will try to figure out what is going on and why it is not following the usual structure of a film.

The hidden identity of the antagonist will also highly engage the audience. It is very clear from the costume and the angles that the antagonist is shown in that he is a bad character rather than a good character. However they do not see his face or have any hints as to who he is. It will encourage them to keep watching because they would've seen Anastasia and what is happening to her, however they will not know who is doing it or why they're doing it. So they will keep watching so that they can get the answers to their questions, it will also give them a sense of pleasure because as the film progresses they would get more action codes to give them an idea of the antagonist's identity, so they will start making their own predictions. If they predict the right identity then they we'll start to feel clever and will provide them with that sense of achievement, which according to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs will give them a boost in 'Self-Esteem'.

The main character: Anastasia was purposely constructed to fit in with our target audience, we really wanted to create a likable and relatible character that the audience can connect with and build a relationship with. We used close-ups and extreme close-ups to really emphasise how she is feeling to position the audience to connect with her emotions and feel a large amount of sympathy for her. As the audience are  given the chance to connect with Anastasia within the first minute of the film they will instantly start to build a relationship with her character, causing them to want to watch more because they can see in the beginning that she is in trouble and they will want to know that she ends up happy in order to gain a sense of catharsis.

Evaluation of Inner Evil (AS Media Opening Sequence)

Good

• Varied choice of shots
• close-ups
• medium shots
• birds-eye view
• shallow focus
• long shot
• loose shot
• over the shoulder shot
• hand held shot
• Good use of editing techniques
• jump cuts
• non-continuity editing
• visual effects
• Mis-en-Scene
• the protagonist is wearing light colours and the antagonist is wearing dark colours to signify good and bad.
• unsaturated colours in the flashbacks.

Bad

• It is unclear what is happening in the opening.
• There are some points when the sound sounds slightly fuzzy.