Discuss the ways in which Primeval constructs the representation of Gender

Camera shots, angles, movement and composition:

• Locating to the barn, the camera starts out reversing between two shots, we clearly see closer independent shots of the women in the coat so audience members can seek further into her personal facial expressions, however, when we meet with the facial expressions of the male character, the shot is angled at a lower angle and further away to highlight more superior dominating stereotypical behaviour. Camera angles play a huge contribution to giving characters correct status, for example, at the beginning of the sequence the women is at a higher level on the digger and differently the man is at a lower level to show the women holds the power and we are positioned to look at both characters through that perspective.

• Similarly, when the man is running away from the creature, the camera is purposely positioned at a low angle looking up at the creature to make it look bigger and stronger than the man, this gives an unusual impression that the man is weak and more inferior. However, Abby is located to be stronger than both the characters as she confidently holds the higher status from the camera being at a low angle in the frame. All the different cameras give us an insight into representations of gender. Examples of this are when we are looking at the man from a higher angle looking down at him; we could argue his representation of gender is not traditional as he is positioned to be powerless and vulnerable. However, the woman is always positioned from a low angle looking up, conveying to the audience the connation’s of power, underlining unconventional representation.

• Differently, when the woman in the coat is lying on the floor later in the clip, it shifts the common status to show she’s weak as the male characters are looking down at her as well as the camera is. Comparing the two women, we clearly see Abby is strong, powerful and conveys an unconventional representation of gender, where as the lady in the coat is weak and the camera looks down on her giving us ideas she holds a traditional representation of gender. Abby is also purposely the only women working with the men, showing four men and one women almost representing female positions. The composition of all the characters standing in the frame together, allows audience members to seek males having traditional status. For instance, the man with the gun trying to save the women in the coat is positioned right at the front of shot and everyone else is gathered behind him, suggesting he is the natural leader and a good attribute for the male traditional representation of gender.

Sound:

• Firstly, when Abby is positioned on the digger, we are met with the strong use of pleonastic mechanical sounds of the digger to build immediate tension; this also highlights how big and dangerous the machine is and the loud struggle. Audience members normally associate male characters to be approaching the difficult, dangerous job. The effective use of diegetic sound of linguistic dialogue quoting “Abby, stop stop” indicates he is pressuring the female character to do all the work, which audience members are not typically used to and also from his high pitched vocal tones this suggests he is in a sate of panic and fear. We are secondly forced to listen to a loud, heavy sound track to highlight how dominant and alarming the creature is, this helps the audience to understand the difficult problem the women has to sort out.

• The women with the coat is in danger so the music is at a very fast pace to build the tension and this is also seen through the mans protective normal body language, this could highlight she is a damsel in distress. We hear Abby quote “are you okay” her low pitch and slow pace can similarly be related to a male’s voice. Similarly, when the weak man is running away from the creature, he’s repeatedly using diegetic sound to scream ‘Abby’ which highlights consistent fear and dismay from a man almost suggesting he needs help the way he’s delivering his line and not the women. One could argue he’s pushing her forward and he’s trying to hide behind her back in a sense.

Mise en Scene:

• Through the effective use of costumes and appearance, we usually associate women to have long hair, maybe wearing excess of makeup and commonly caring about their appearance. Although, Abby in the first scene does is completely opposite as she has short hair, is wearing a black leather jacket and looks very similar to the man in the drama. Abby also shows no aspects of elegant behaviour through her gestures and body language, instead we are forced to see her strong man like behaviour. However, the female character falling into the haystack has her hair elegantly up, wearing makeup, wearing a smart coat and boots and her body language is shown to be delicate and smaller actions. She also immediately quotes when she gets up “My best coat” this portrays to audience members she cares most about her appearance, highlighting this is her main priority, so she is a typical representation of a traditional female character by caring more about her personal problems instead of caring about others.

• When the man is running away from the creature, he runs to a prop including a long rope of stairs, this prop helps to show his clever thoughts of running to a higher level although the creature manages to catch up. Also, Abby arrives with a big gun suggesting no fear of props and similarly in the barn scene, Abby is standing with the male characters holding a gun; the use of the prop shows her strong, brave male behaviour representing her as having traditional attributes to a male character. By using three expensive cars as props it highlights the upper class appearance of the characters and their man like belongings.

Editing

• At the beginning of the scene, small short cuts were shown and not a lot was happening but it increasingly sped up when the character was chasing the man conveying he was frightened and the pace picked up. There was also slow motion as the lady fell highlighting the fact she was weaker and needed rescuing and it was slow when the man arrived to save her reinforcing gender roles.