AS Media Studies

Our product represents two social groups, the first being our convict, the man working for the mob. We aimed to make him come across as your typical mafia type, hence the dark suit, black gloves and cigar. This choice portrays his dark intentions, making him look menacing and giving the viewer the idea that this man is not someone you would want to cross. We also accomplished this dark ominous feeling by never truly revealing his face, while we see Jim (the man he shoots) face. We purposely never show the face of the killer, this dehumanises the character making the audience fear him as they can't see his emotion and as such the viewer cannot relate to him. This goes against the conventions of a gangster film as normally although they are criminals mafia types come accross having some warped sense of honour and wouldn't shy away from showing their face. Howevere being unable to see his face makes it impossible to tell how he feels about what he is doing, the only thing the audience have to go on is his movements and voice. These two components also make the character seem dark and ruthless, his movements our swift and without hesitation. His voice on the other hand is deep and rugged, it makes him sound mature and when he says "I made a deal with the devil Jimmy" the audience get a subtle hint that he isn't doing this because he particulaly wants to. Overall though we created an enigmatic but later to be tragic lead character, something we could not portray in just opening scene but that was the idea. To make him look like your typical hired gun, cold, efficent and enigmatic, so throughout the movie we could show his true nature.

A number of other elements helped to make the character instantly recognisable as a part of the mafia, one of these was the music choice. The soft orchestral tones are often associated with American gangster films. I choose the song at the beginning which is called March of a Black Dog and a Centipede specifically because while it's soft enough to go over the meeting and footsteps it also has a sinister undertone that creates a forboding mood. This helps tell the audience that something bad is going to happen, combined with the outward appearance of our gangster makes the audience very suspicious of his intentions.

The second social group our product represents is women, bearing in mind we had to represent her according to the time period of our film which is in and around the 1950's. In that time dressing in skimpy outfits was seen as obscure in public something socially unacceptable at the time. So in order to give our leading lady sex appeal we had to make her attire suit what would have been considered attractive. This is evident by the choice of her wearing high heels, an expensive coat and gloves. All of these create the image of a well dressed woman who would attract a man. The idea of having her wear legs bare also makes the woman have sex appeal as at the time this was the most acceptable way to show off a womans body in public. Her heels were integral to our representation of woman because not only did they give her that sexy sleak look we wanted but the highlighted red also gives the impression to the audience that she is important. This goes against the conventions of a typical gangster film where normally the female characters play a more supporting role to their male lead. However we felt this change would make the film more appealing to women.