How does your media product represent particular social

groups?

The Dark Elves

The reason for this is black has the connotations of evil and mischief. It sets the characters out as being the antagonist (after all they are planning the eradication of human kind). It helps the audience identify the plot easier through the association that the antagonist is nearly always dressed in black.

Black is also associated with mystery, a fitting assumption about mythical creatures, which hopefully intrigues the audience and makes them continue to watch the film

The leather on the other hand creates a sense of danger as until very recently leather was associated with rebellious behaviour and punk. Therefore it links with the action genre as it suggests the characters will get into some kind of trouble, most likely a fight. And leather is common in many action films for that reason.

All characters are in black and leather

All the elves wear black clothing and some sort of leather to create a negative representation of the elves.

All characters had elf ears (even though you can’t see Doroneth’s under her hair). This is to show that the character’s are not human and to add to the fantasy element, As the ears were a pinkish colour you could see they were

made out of plastic. So in order to make them look more realistic each ear was coated with foundation that matched the skin colour of the actor wearing the ears.

DaerisDaeris is the main antagonist of the movie. She like all others is dressed in black, however we wanted to her to be dressed in black from head to toe, hence the black wig. It just represents that she is fully the “dark character”.

The props she has are a hidden dagger and 2 swords. The hidden dagger is supposed to reveal to the audience that she is sly and will even resolve to using “dirty” methods to fight and archive her goals. As that makes he seem unhonourable this could actually cause the audience to dislike her and add to her villain persona. The hidden blade was actually inspired by the game Assassin's Creed. The additional twin blades make the audience think she is a dangerous character as she carries so many weapons.

Daeris’ character is mostly represented by her dialogue. Calling Drauk a “fool” shows she hates when people disagree with her opinion and could show she is controlling which could make the audience dislike her. Even when she is wounded she still commands Doroneth to “hurry” with the healing which suggests she is used to giving orders and therefore if high in the elf hierarchy.

However she thanks Doroneth for the healing which shows she respects her underlings. This could make the audience actually sympathise with her and made them wonder is she is fully the villain of the story or if she has another side. This idea is actually backed up when I used a close up to see her facial expression when she explains killing humans is the only way for elves to survive, as when she says this she looks sad. This could make the audience intrigue in the movie as they would want to know the truth.

DraukDrauk is first seen running away which could make the audience concerned with his fate as the backwards tracking makes it obvious he is being chased.. And the fact that he would rather run away than fight could suggest he is really passive which could make the audience like him more or make them think he’s a coward.

We can also use Drauk’s dialogue to find out a lot about him. For example he raises his voice when he says he “won’t be part of this slaughter”. As this shows outrage at such thing it shows he has high morals and therefore fits the hero character. This could make the audience like the character more as they won’t see him as a threat and therefore possibly sympathise with him as he might share similar views.

Another thing that labels him as a hero is the fact is he is willing to fight his own to “save thousands”. Also the low angle of him and the fact that he defeated Daeris in first fight shows that he is strong which is another characteristic of a hero character.

However in my opinion Drauk’s most important shoot is the pan of his leather coat being thrown away. This is because him taking off his leather coat shows the audience he is no longer part of Daeris’ group, and because he now looks different from them it shows he has different views.

The fact that he doesn’t even look where it goes shows he is disappointed with the group’s views and it actually could psychologically make the audience dislike Daeris and Doroneth because they would unintentionally mimic the actor’s emotions.

Overall The aim of those little often contradicting hints to the personality of each character was to show that no one is poorly a villain or a hero.

This is why Drauk was running away at first as he felt fear, he wasn’t brave like the hero stereotypically is and faced the threat head on, so he decided to try to avoid fights. However when confronted he didn’t back down proving his strength.

Daeris is the one who is supposed to be really dedicated to her work and/or the welfare of her kind, That’s why she seems dangerous and cold as she does what she is told without regrets.

However she herself doesn’t seem to agree with killing humans based on her expression in the close up.

Overall we wanted to let the audience decide whether the antagonist is a villain or perhaps a victim. Or if the hero can scared or is he just a coward.

If were to continue the movie we would have concentrated on what sort of Daeris’ and Drauk’s life was like in the past and make a whole subplot based on who they really are.

StereotypesWe actually went against the stereotypes of elves. They are stereotypically

supposed to be wise, all-knowing, powerful, immortal and purely good. Our elves act more like humans. They are not all good and peaceful as they are trying to kill

each other, and yet neither elf is purely good or evil. We wanted to make elves more realistic, give them fears and weaknesses as they are living creatures. However we did show them as being strong and be able to wield magic which actually follows the stereotype, however that was more for the sake of having

entertaining fight scenes than to follow a stereotype.

We didn’t follow the gender stereotype of men being stronger physically and women weaker. Instead both the male and female characters fought and were

shown as being equal in skill. The reason why we didn’t follow the stereotype for that as elves are not humans so their gender might not differ in strength and also

because I think that’s a silly stereotype.