Extra representation research- AGE

How are the elderly represented in media?

   Cultivation Theory coined by George Gerbner (1993) “mass media has impact on people and it is merely wholesalers of social roles in industrial societies. “They present a steady, repetitive, and compelling system of images and messages”.

After gender and ethnicity, age is the most obvious category under which we file people. Often age can withstand as a factor of television and film drama that allows a broader audience to view the drama.  By having a range of ages in a TV programme or film, there is a wider appeal. For example in EastEnders there is a huge array of ages so a very broad appeal…there is characters like Lauren Branning appealing to the rebellious teenage nature that many young teens and young adults adopt and then other, older characters like Dot Branning with her heavy religion and righteous, strong manner than can appeal to many older people alike. I think age of characters hints a lot about the intended audience…the majority of the characters in a drama like Hollyoaks for example are young, youthful adults and therefore it is targeted at a younger, fresher audience whereas a TV programme like the vicar of Dibley or Downtown Abbey reaches an older audience with the old-fashioned themes and subtle satire and comedy that only an older age range will understand. There is often a large emphasis in media towards youthfulness. There are many reasons why this is the case- and firstly because of the beauty youthfulness offers. Huge audiences can be drawn into a media creation merely by the appearance of it…so effective mise-en-scene with attractive youthful and new actors creates an automatic allure. Although my view is probably biased- I feel that females in particular enjoy having some form of attraction and youth in a programme… after all why would a girl watch batman if not for the expected young, attractive love interest teased in the trailer and film poster? Why would a girl watch fast and furious if not for the enduring physical attraction of Paul Walker and the expected plot b love path in the film? Why would a girl watch fast paced action drama Game of thrones if not for the young, enthralling presence of Jon snow? So, with all of these reasons to enjoy watching young, attractive and youthful actors...why are the elderly even included? I believe that the purpose of ageing actors creating a representation in TV and film is predominantly to create a contrast. A contrast between the young and the elderly, the old and the new, the modern and the historical. Without the elderly- TV and film have almost no context, no fictional history, no background. Comparing the young and the old is an important contrast relevant to everyday life. In addition I believe the elderly are represented and included to be people of knowledge, importance and intellect. They have lived long lives and are wise and informative. Many old people in media are portrayed as grandparents- loving and frail yet warm…without these sorts of characters how could an audience really relate to family and relationships. We often see old people represented as very nostalgic and almost ‘cute’ however the elderly often are used for the purpose of bringing out caring, selfless and dedicational qualities in others...the ones who look after or are related to them. The elderly can often be portrayed as mentally and physically tiered- so they’re presence alone is tiring however their nostalgic, thoughtful and vulnerable nature brings out all sorts of important purposes. And lastly evil…I believe that many old people can actually represent bitterness and an evil…possibly because they bring up key morals and beliefs from the past or even because this evil is just an exaggeration of social stereotypes of people holding stereotypes and prejudices that all old people are shallow, solemn, bitter and crippled. Finally, in my opinion An effective role of old people in media productions is to use the elderly in contrast with technological developments. Technology nowadays dominates our wold and often out smarts the elderly. Technology is often used as a battle force for the elderly- almost as if it’s the power of technology versus the power of history and nostalgic knowledge.

Influences on production (concept art)

These works of art acted as a concept of inspiration for our film making process because art is a visual form of expressionism and uses no typography or oral mechanisms and therefore the observers of the piece are left to their own interpretations and understanding of the artwork. This is particularly relevant to our film making process because we are choosing to have a a silent opening to our trailer, trying to create almost a phantoscope feel to our project. We also want to make our movie look very raw, and realistic yet not quite natural which is why these paintings by Nicola Samori had a significant appeal due to the realistic imagery yet dead chilling color choice and rawness. Nicola Samori scratches off the surface of dark intense paintings to unveil previous purposeful layers of work, making the peice display a sense of destruction and ruin- however also beauty in the artistic tenchnique. this ties in with our movie opening where the youth of the young girl is meant to connote positivity and happiness yet is twisted like these paintings and given a more warped connotation of horror and danger. We wanted to give our movie a macabre feel, alike to these expressive paintings. Also, Samori is said to create art forms like the ones above to reveal 'a true and hidden identity' much like the identities that remain enigmas in the begging of our film.

Initial ideas for shot types- high grade shots

A crash zoom is a sudden rapid zoom in on a subject..it is generally a typical horror movie cliche. We could have used this particular technique for the part of the scene where Robyn- our young female protagonist, sees the elderly woman in her ghostly form behind her in the mirror. This would hence make the scene more shocking and sudden however we may encounter filming barriers with this technique as this may have not been a large enough zoom radius for the camera shot& technique to appear effective.



A deep focus is another camera technique that we want to use in our trailer- especially because this camera shot focuses on different depths and levels in a scene and is useful to give multiple characters prevalence which is relevant to our film with only two key characters for the main two roles. For the deep focus technique we can use premier elements 'blur and zoom' to create a similar effect. we would use this camera technique when the young girl is sleeping and the elderly woman appears from behind the cupboard



A shallow focus  could be subtly used in our movie making process to show the emotional expression on the young girls face when she sees the ghost as it would draw audience attention only to her.  a shallow focus is similar to a close up because it only has one singular focus and detail on one thing.



A pull focus was a specific transition/effect we wanted to use for our film titles rather than in the actual movie...this is because a pull focus tends to be used more in sci-fi films to appear to be artificial and fantasy.



We tried to keep to the rule of thirds in our movie opening and direct the audience attention to the prominent thirds of the screen, especially in the in initial opening trailer scenes where the elderly woman is to the far right of the screen in the corner.


The only time we cleverly aimed to use the direct centre of the scene and grid of thirds was when the girl was filmed in the bathroom mirror after seeing the elderly woman's ghost behind her as this is the central pinnacle point of action which we want to have ultimate prominence.

Research and Planning Targets

Hollie - there is limited planning of your production here at this stage - I know it's been taking place. Evidence your time-management and the route to final production thoroughly!

Production influences

Storyboarding