EVALUATION 2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our opening sequence, containing a wide variation in characters and actors, manages to represent social groups in a particular way through the way we planned and produced our sequence.

A social group that features heavily in our film is the ‘computer nerd’. With our protagonist, a young, white male, we attempted to create the typical computer nerd through his outfit, which is casual and practical. His glasses, which we see him adjusting to draw the audience's attention to them, are iconographic to his character. He has ruffled messy hair, providing the connotation that is a laid back teenager that has little interest in his appearance.

The protagonist is also characterised through his bedroom setting. The items on his desk, such as an old Gameboy colour, two computer monitors, gaming merchandise and piles of tangled wires help to solidify this image, along with the movie and gaming posters plastered all over his walls. We made our protagonist such a stereotype in order to then subvert the very same stereotype we have enforced with our other characters.

The other hackers we see on webcam are all very ordinary looking people, of both genders and a variety of races.

Although all of our actors are in their late teens, some could pass for older or younger due to the lack of specification. This is to show that, all though there are real people who fit the ‘computer nerd’ stereotype, there are so many more who do not.

The film attempts to include such a variety of characters and actors that it's appeal is as wide as possible, with every viewer finding someone that they can relate to.

The actor we chose for the boss hacker has a very strong, clear voice, which is essential for his large speaking part.The boss hacker, wearing a 'tough' leather jacket and speaking in a very confident tone, also subverts this stereotype. He is not a typical introverted computer nerd, but in fact very extroverted and commanding - very admirable qualities. This makes his attack all the more shocking when he has been set up as such a strong role model. The contrast between the boss hacker and our protagonist enforce the stereotype even further by showing two sides of the spectrum.