R+P Post 4: Representations of social groups in our opening sequence

Since our film will be set on a University campus, one of the focal social groups we will be representing is the students.

Students are usually portrayed in most films as being very casual, not particularly high class with a part time job and low wages.

However, since the term 'student' encompasses a huge variety of people there is usually a break down in the social groups, e.g: the nerds, the popular people, the sporty people, the gaming community and so on.

For example, in the film 'Superbad' the two main characters Seth and Evans are nerds who get an invite to a party thrown by someone popular in exchange for them providing the alcohol. Here we have the nerds being stereotypically represented as unpopular and they're basically being used by the popular kids.

Another influence we have used is not a film but an American sitcom called 'Big Bang Theory'. This sitcom is based around four male friends who are all pretty much nerds but as the series and episodes progress they all get girlfriends (apart from Raj) and we really get to know them for who they are as a person and they gain audience empathy as the episodes progress. This is similar to what we wish to achieve in our film.


In our opening sequence our main character falls in the category of being a nerd and also being a part of the gaming community. In the beginning he is represented in a really negative way as he really can't do anything right and he's reached the age of 19 without ever dating a girl, which to many people seems crazy. However, as the story develops the audience really get an insight into his personality as opposed to what he looks like on the outside.

We really want to emphasise the fact that he's a nerd by the costumes that he will be wearing. We have chosen for him to wear round geeky glasses, really bad unfashionable clothes e.g. a floral shirt or 3/4 length trousers in the winter.

For example, in the 'Inbetweeners' film there are also four friends who are geeks and desperate to get into the 'cool' group and be accepted by everyone. However, this isn't always the case as throughout the film we see them trying and failing. The way they dress (shorts, football shirt, print shirt) is also emphasising that they're a social outcast and nerdy. This is what we wish to achieve with our film as well.