Evaluation Question 2: How Does Your Opening Sequence Represent Particular Social Groups?

 

The key characters in our film are the Mother who is the main character, the mothers baby who passed away "Abigail" and the police officer known as "Mark Davis".

 

 The Mother - Will be a female actress. Her role in the film is the mother who has lost her child Abigail. The loss of her child causes the mother to becoming psychotic and having an obsession with everything to do with children. Which leads her to kidnap another child and eventually gets her in trouble at the end and arrested by the police officer "Mark Davis".  The mother looks like this:

 

 

 

 

 Abigail - Abigail will be a female child actress around 9 months old. Her role in the movie is simply to be in a cot, cry and be babied by the mother and made a huge fuss of to show us how much that the baby meant to her and so you can feel the mother daughter connection. Abigail looked like this:

 

 

 

 

 Mark Davis (Police Officer) - A 32 year old male actor who's main role in the movie is the detective on the case on catching the mother who has kidnapped someone's baby. He eventually catches the mother and arrests her and gives the baby back to the original parents. We feel the police officer will look like this : 

 

 Analysis of Each Character and Technical Aspects

 

 The Mother - Appearance : The picture above is how our character looks with hay like hair sticking out everywhere to show the audience that she doesn't look after herself and also it symbolises craziness. So the simple aspect of hair can give off a lot of ideas about the mother as soon as you see her. She also appears pale as the pale skin would show that she doesn't wear make-up so she doesn't take pride in her appearance, also the combination of pale skin and hay like hair gives off a very uneasy feeling about the character as both together symbolise craziness and also gives us off the feeling that she doesn't look after herself which gives the audience an unsettling feeling about the mother. She also wore dark clothing to give off an idea that she is miserable and sad as well as the dark colours symbolise sadness. It would also be typical clothing that most people wear.

 Behaviour : Her behaviour was psychotic, almost like one with schizophrenia as she acts like everyone is against her and that she is a social outcast. As a person on her own, her house is covered in babies objects, which shows her obsession with children and also gives off a creepy feeling to the audience as she is surrounded by stuff you would only expect a little child to have. She also doesn't look after herself or wash and clean which is represented in her house as it is all messy which also represents her personality as she doesn't care about anything but the child which leads to a expressionless uncaring personality.

Camera : Whilst the mother is on camera the style will drastically change, there will be a lot of close ups to make the audience feel uneasy as it feels like you are getting to know her straight away without any introduction.

 Sound : In some scenes the mother will be put on screen with the sound of screams and baby laughter but her main tune was an eerie version of ‘Humpty Dumpty’ the nursery rhyme. We chose this soundtrack in particular is because the breaking of the egg in the song represents the breaking of the mothers heart; and how it cannot ever be put back together again. Also the nursery rhyme tune makes gives off a creepy feeling as music boxes are common things to use in thrillers as they give off creepy feelings so the use of the humpty dumpty tune will really give off a creepy feel.

 Editing and Mise En Scene : We kept the editing with a mother fairly slow to keep the eeriness and strangeness of the mother prolonging so the audience will have that creepy feeling for a longer amount of time and is likely to keep inside the audience's head. The setting was predominately in a children’s room but also on the outside world to show the other families and the housing from the outside but most was set in the child’s room to show the creepiness of the mother. We also had her in very dark dull clothing to show that she is sad and miserable.

 Abigail : Appearance : The appearance of the baby will be very simple, it was a 9 month year old baby girl with blue eyes, behaving as normal babies do so.

 Behaviour : The babies behaviour will be simple to a baby, it will giggle, will cry and play around just like an everyday normal baby girl.

 Camera : The camera on the baby will be very natural with the shots being straight and having long shots of the baby so you can see everything of the baby.

 Sound : We will have the baby giggling and laughing but we will also have the humpty dumpty tune which represents her as a baby as it is a typical nursery rhyme sung to children.

Editing and Mise En Scene : All should appear natural and normal like it’s a normal life of a baby so it shows the baby thinking that everything is normal and everything with the baby happening is normal.

 

 

Mark Davis (Police Man) : Appearance : The policeman will appear in uniform like a normal uniform and have a very serious expression face which represents his personality as he will be very serious. He will be of white British ethnicity and short army like hair style to show leadership and strength.

 

 

 Behaviour : The behaviour of the policeman will be always serious and will always be on the case and on the job without any break of character on his job, you will never see anything but the policeman being serious on the job.

 

Camera : There will be a lot of older the shoulder shots due to police interviewing, but there will also be a lot of pan shots whilst the policeman will be on the run trying to find the mother.

 

Sounds : There will be a lot of dramatic tension building music in the scenes where he is on the run looking for the mother to build up the tension before he gets her.

 

Editing and Mise En Scene : The editing will be slow motion during a chase when he is close to catching her to make it a lot more dramatic and the costume will follow a simple police uniform.

 

 

 

Comparisons Of Characters From Our Film To Other Films

 

The mother is similar to May from the movie May as she has just lost it and is a complete psychopath as you can see from this video clip

 

 



The baby Abigail is similar to a lot of movie babies as they just lay there cry and laugh but don't have much major input in terms of dialogue or behaviour. One it is like is hunter in paranormal activity as he is seen as innocent as Abigail is.

 

 

 

The Policeman Mark Davis is similar to the inspector in inspector calls as he is very serious and on the job to find out what is happening and how to sort it out. As you can see in this video from 8:27 onwards

 

 

 

 We chose our cast by selecting someone we felt looked like she would suit the role as our actress did. We first asked her if she would be willing to act for us and after she said yes we went through her lines with her and made sure she would be 100% committed to the cause so our product could be as good as it possibly could be.

We directed our actress to just really go for it and don't hold back in any of the acting so it could have the best end product, in which we think she did as we think our actress performed very well. We made her do a lot of the shots many times and made sure they were the best they could be.