Part 5- Presentation of social groups

In our film, we aimed to tackle the stereotype that young girls are careless with their virginity and fall pregnant due to them making reckless choices in life. We wanted to show that it is not always the girls fault, they are sometimes forced into things or in the worst scenarios, raped. Britain has the highest numbers of teenage pregnancy, and we wanted to show this in a new light which not many people think about when they see young people with babies on the street. I feel in most BSR films, the main teenage girl is usually a white 'chavy' character, for example in London to Brighton and Fish Tank, so we chose to challenge this stereotype and instead use a black girl. It is more unexpected from a black girl to fall pregnant and will most probably be judged more than a white girl would be, especially by the family as the culture usually have a stronger and stricter upbringing. Although, the social group of black boys normally represents the 'villain character', we did conform to this stereotype, although this was not done purposely, we chose actors who we thought would play the part well, and our first choice was Michael, not taking into consideration the stereotypical view that his colour presents.

A main way in which we represented particular social groups was by using a variety of camera shots and angles to portray their type of character. We represented Becca as 'The Lost Boy' archetype, we did this through using high angles on her, so she appears much smaller and younger highlighting her innocence and vulnerability, increasing the amount of empathy the audience feel for victims as a group. These angles help to emphasise the lack of power rape victims have, at 1:14 and 1:50, she is denoted in the same position during the rape and after, connoting her as not only weak and vulnerable during, but also later on, she still doesn't have the confidence or support that she needs to get by, the victim's have had the only piece of power they have over males taken away from them- their virginity.



In this shot, the placement of the camera is distant from the character with the background taking up a majority of the shot. This connotes the social group of young girls feeling isolated after rape, although it is not their fault, they feel alone and useless, like they are not able to tell anyone in case they are judged for it.

Although, the scissors are a prop only briefly denoted, they play a huge part in representing Becca's unstable character, just by being visible on the side, she is tempted to self harm. The scissors create suspense whether she is going to or not, but eventually gives in and takes them, they represent the psychological harm that young girls are left with after rape.

This contrasts with the rapist in our film, who is represented as the Weak but aggressive man, he is denoted through mainly low angles to highlight his power and dominance, this is especially exaggerated as he walks away from Becca down the alleyway at 1:37, supporting the stereotype that young black males are seen as the 'villain' character. We did not purposely conform to this stereotype, we chose actors who we thought would play the part well, and our first choice was Michael, not taking into consideration the stereotypical view that his colour presents.

At 1:15, there is a two shot denoting the rapist covering Becca's mouth as she goes to scream, the rapist is leant forward into her face as he is speaking to her, portraying his dominating character, we are able to see her scared expression. This shot connotes his weak but aggressive archetype as it reminds the audience that although he has power, he has this power through attacking a girl, someone younger, smaller and much more weaker than him. 

We used presented our opening sequence as a non-linear montage, we used parallel editing to cut between Becca taking a pregnancy test and flashbacks of the rape. I feel this is a much more exciting and interesting way to present our footage than just showing Becca being raped, then taking a pregnancy test. By cutting from each scene, the audience becomes more hooked and intrigued as to what is going to happen next. We tried our best to fit our shots to our music, this is especially noticeable at 1:47, as Becca notices the results on the pregnancy test, she drops the scissors, at the same time, the music begins to pick up in pace again. I feel this gives the audience hope that things will get back on track for Becca as she decides that self harming is not the way forward for her.

For our music, we used a slow acoustic guitar solo called 'Tomorrow'. Before filming, we had decided on using some sort of dub-step track as we thought this would express the aggression of the rape and fit the BSR genre well. But when editing, we tried a variety of sounds, and this was the one we found fitted our film best as it is soft, gentle and has a real emotional sound to it, increasing the representation of victims being vulnerable, and increasing the empathy felt for them.

 We filmed in an alley way- a real life, gritty location, stereotypically representing working class people living in poverty. These locations are relatable to our audience, as they are typical locations of Britain, without being emphasised too much, for example, although they are run down, the walls are not covered in grafitti as this is not common everywhere you go. We also challenged the stereotypical location of council estates, we filmed in an ordinary, small sized bedroom instead as we feel this is relatable to a much wider audience where as take Fish Tank for example, that is purely located in council states, which is not a fair representation of British people and can not be related to everyone.

We also chose to challenge the stereotypical use of costumes in BSR, in most films of this genre, the characters are seen wearing tracksuits, for example Ill Manors and  Kidulthood. We wanted to represent our characters more fairly by placing them in current, unbranded urban clothes which do not look too valuable, so that their poverty is not too exaggerated but at the same time no wealth is shown.  

Becca's costume also plays a part is representing her as a victim of rape, people often blame the girl for what they are wearing, for example if their dress is too short, or if they're caked in make up etc. We aimed to break this unfair representation of girls, we told our actress to wear a dress beyond knee length, minimum make up and a cardigan so that not too much skin is on show, breaking the representation of girls who dress 'slutty' will get what they asked for, this shows that it can happen to anyone, no matter how they are dressed.