Essay Question 1

How does your opening sequence represent particular social groups?

Interesting and entertaining characters are extremely important in helping to create a good film that captures the audiences interest, in our film and specifically our opening scene we focus on two main characters the "protagonist" who is the undercover cop/detective and the "antagonist" who is the nursery teacher.

The Undercover cop/ Detective - Protagonist

The undercover cop is a young, intelligent man who has been informed of some strange things that are happening at Sunny House Nursery, he sets out to investigate but encounters the nursery teacher, the film will follow the undercover cops psychological battle with the unidentified nursery teacher as he tries to discover the truth behind Sunny House Nursery.

We want to portray the undercover cop as a confident, smart man able to utilize his skills to track and follow the nursery teacher. He has an air of confidence that makes people feel safe, so, we want to show him as a tall, handsome man who is clearly motivated towards achieving his goals.  In terms of personality, we want to show the undercover cop as a quiet person who is actually extremely kind and positive as a person, however he always remains serious and focused.

We are going to use different technical aspects that will help us to represent the character in this way:

Mise en scene- His attire is one of the the ways that will help us to portray the character, he will wear a long coat with a jumper underneath along with trousers or jeans as well as a cap that helps him to hide his face allowing him to be incognito as an undercover cop.

Camera shots- We will use mostly mid or long shots in bright light when showing the cop because we want the audience to be able to see every little detail about him, this will help the audience to understand the character better.

Sound and Editing- The cops voice will be deep, slow and steady that helps to show his composed nature, he will also be represented by more faster paced music that plays to the characters role as a cop.
The editing will be paced normally to show that the cop is person who is in control of the situation.

One character the undercover cop reminds me of is John Blake, a character from the film "The Dark Knight Rises". In the film John is a cop promoted to detective who uses his instinct and intelligence to warn of the incoming danger to the city of Gotham, he remains calm and is motivated in everything he does even when the city becomes locked down by the villain of the film Bane. I think that John Blake is exactly how we want to represent our undercover cop, a character who is seen as noble and admired.

The Nursery Teacher - Antagonist

The Nursery Teacher appears to be a cheerful and kind person but masks his true intentions to everyone, in the film we see that he is actually an extremely lonely, quiet person who is isolated from society. He is extremely intelligent but is twisted and sinister and is the only teacher at the Sunny House Nursery.
We want to portray the Nursery Teacher as silent, composed man who looks like an average guy, although the audience is given an insight into the nursery teachers true personality, his true intentions and background are not revealed surrounding him in mystery making him an even suspicious but interesting character.

We are going to use different technical aspects that will help us to represent the character in this way:

Mise en scene- The nursery teacher will be wearing trousers and a shirt, this is to show the simplicity of the character making him look more like an average person who you would not expect to be malevolent. One of the main props that he posses is a creepy child's doll that he regularly and unusually smells providing him with pleasure.

Camera shots- When showing his face we only want to show extreme close ups of certain parts of the face not showing his whole face throughout the film, there will also be only a few shots of his whole body, all of this will help to add to the sense of mystery. 

Sound and Editing- The nursery teacher will be mostly silent throughout the film, there may however be moments where you can hear the teacher laugh evilly or mumble under his breath. The editing will also be slow paced using close up shots that are long in duration, the close up shots may make the audience feel uncomfortable because they are not used to being so close to a character which they are not familiar with.

One character that reminds of the Nursery Teacher is Dexter Morgan from the crime, drama TV show Dexter, this is because both characters are hiding their true personality from everyone they know, we also want to show the nursery teacher as intelligent as Dexter. However, one thing that is drastically different from both of the characters is that Dexter's goals are revealed to the audience whilst the nursery teachers are not. We believe that Dexter is a good character to base the nursery teacher off of because they share so many similar attributes that we want to convey in our film.