Question two- How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Gender
Our media product represents women more than anything, as hard, unforgiving and drastic people. There is no male dominance in this film, it focuses on women in a single light. The use of the female role in this film is a contemporary representation of women, the girl becomes a femme fatale, who takes the position of a male role, like in many films the man is doing the dirty work, in this opening, the women has taken that role, becoming a femme fatale, like in Thelma and Louise.

This clip shows the femme fatale role being used. The camera angles, acting of the trucker (dum, foul-mouthed, greedy) add to the female being in control. 

It goes against the stereotypical representation of women as well as going against the thriller convention. We represented women in this way, mainly due to the rapid change in views of women in society, instead of having a patriarchal society that it used to be, the film challenges the ideas of that, therefore appealing to women, as it represents them in a modern ideology.
The fact that there is a lack of male dominance could be a progression in the representation of women in the film industry. We also used camera angles which made the killer look more dominating and powerful, like in the shots in Thelma and Louise. Example of the shot below.

The camera angle here shows the dominance the women have, the camera is low down,
behind them, effectively on their side and
they are casually sitting while the man is standing in a arrogant manner. 

Social Class
The group of friends are teenagers, but aren’t specifically seen as in a certain social group, like chavs, emo, Goth or other niche groups. This may be because us, who starred in the film, don’t belong to a social group, or the characters in the film, especially the killer, as it wouldn’t suit the characters characteristics. Or having a particular social group in the film wouldn’t have the same amount of impact on the audience as if the group of friends couldn’t be classed into a group.

Note the big jacket,
suggesting (one of many features of the jacket) their lack of fashion,
 significant for the lower class (no money to spend on clothes) 

On an individual level, we decided that the characters will be all at the same social class level. Although one way you could segregate them into social groups would be clothes being worn. Only the killer’s clothes stand out, wearing a large coat, with the hood up, possible suggesting she is a girl who keeps herself to herself and that she has no real fashion sense, which maybe seen lower class, if you were to critically analyse them.

We decided not to show any ethnic minorities or different ethnic backgrounds, as this subject is very sensitive and we weren’t confident enough in making this film containing ethnic minorities in case we offended anyone.

The representation of Britain is a pessimistic view, the use of dark lighting and suspicious activity adds to this sense of danger and a depressive outlook that the film reveals to the audience. Also the youth are seen as out of control, out of touch and "non-mainstream" compared to other views of contemporary Britain, as the youth have a dull and bleak future ahead of them, with the possibility of no job, no accommodation and no money.