How does your opening sequence represent particular social groups?

Before we casted and began to create the film of “Being Annie” we held cast auditions by putting up posters around school, talking to students who were interested in drama and getting any suggestions of committed media students who would be interested in taking part in a media project. We thought this would be a good idea as they as media and drama students would understand how serious our project was to us, for the drama students it would simply be the fact that they themselves as committed drama students would want to in our film represent themselves as being professional in this role of Annie as well as keeping themselves professional in their drama careers. Similarly, the media students would understand the value of being a media student and the stress and importance that cast plays within the film. On auditioning the students we gave them a monologue and also decided to ask them a series of questions the aim of this was to see them acting as well as them in their natural state. As a result we wanted to see how girls naturally acted like the shy and timid Annie therefore suiting the role. After deliberating as a team we chose Lilly Samson who although she was not the best actor stage wise he looks and personality resembled what we thought Annie would be like.

With in our story, Annie takes the form of a lower class girl who is trapped by her Aunt Velma’s wicked clasp which prevents Annie from any social mobility. Aunt Velma herself is of a lower class and we would like to portray that she dotes this out on her niece Annie all the time, causing Annie to fell unwanted and unloved. There are also characters of a higher social class such as the hero of the story Brad Cruise who if we see the characters on a ladder of social mobility is placed at the top and Annie at the background. Although we do not see Brad Cruise in our opening sequence he is of a higher social group to Annie as he goes up in a rather wealthy family and has started his own musical career, like many other films this sticks to the codes and conventions of a fairytale where two people of a different social class fall in love, which is frowned upon my the public however, together they over come the stereotype and the two character have a long and fulfilled life together.

Social classes are present in our opening sequence this is shown through out set in which Annie lives in a rather minimal set, which is shown through the bedroom we created. Her social class is also shown through the fact that she is left isolated in her room with no one for comfort, if she was of a higher more popular social group she would be possibly surrounded by friends or on the phone and her dress sense, style of talk, body language would be different. Where as, in “Being Annie” her facial expression is melancholy, her body language is negative and as for her speech there is none that shows the she does not find comfort in public speaking.