Evaluation Question 1IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

1

The name of our film is ‘Barcode’ which suits the Sci-fi genre as it’s futuristic and is the main theme for our opening, so we therefore chose to use it as a title. We lay the title out like this as it appears to be similar to the barcodes the characters have in our opening. To make the title more obvious, we then made it bold. The layout of the title for our media product is similar to the title for ‘The Matrix’ as the name appears a long side a list of numbers. We chose to do this as it would then be recognised as a Sci-fi, as that is typical of this genre.

2

The main location for our opening is in the character’s house, as many Sci-fi thrillers, such as ‘I am Number Four’, is set mostly in their house. However we also chose this location to film as it is modern and minimalist, which looked best for the type of film we were aiming to create.

3

The costumes are typical of our genre as the characters that play ‘the government’ are similar to the ‘Erudite’ characters in the film ‘Divergent’. In both films, these groups are superior to the majority which is made clear through the stereotypical use of dark suits and ties. We chose to do this as this supports conventions of many real media products. (For example The Hunger Games and The Host.)

4

This low angle shot is not a typical angle to use in a thriller, as the most commonly used shots would be a pan or close up. For example ‘The Host’ begins with a close up of the main character’s face. However we challenged this convention by intentionally not showing the character’s face straight away in an attempt to create an enigma almost immediately, by prolonging his introduction. The opening begins with longer shots lasting a few seconds until they gradually get shorter, making the pace of the opening faster as we switched between the main character and the government, adding suspense.

5

The editing fits the conventions of our genre as, for the flashbacks, we used a dissolve transition between the present time and the flashback to clarify to the audience the difference between the two time brackets. We also chose to place the first flashback after the character is looking in the mirror as it is typical in a thriller genre that the character is looking in the mirror to reflect their inner feelings and think about what it is they may have just done, or what they’re about to do.

6

The font we chose to use for the opening titles is a typical convention as it is similar to the font used in the opening titles in the thriller film ‘Taken’. We also decided to use this font as, out of the options we had, we felt it was the one that looked best for a Sci-fi thriller, as it is bold, simple, effective and similar to the font used in ‘Gravity.’

7

Clues to the narrative are set up in the opening as it is made clear that a group of superior characters are tracking down an outcast character, who is preparing to run away. This creates an enigma as the audience are left wondering if the government catch him, what will happen to him and why is he getting chased in the first place.

8

Our opening immediately introduces the main character with the first shot, however to begin with you only see the barcode on his arm and then him attempting to rub it off. This creates mystery and intrigue as the audience want to see what he looks like. From the opening, the audience can see that the main character has the capability of killing someone, but it is unclear why he’s done it which leaves the audience wanting to know.

9

The only special effect we used was making the flashbacks slow motion. We chose to do this as it emphasised ‘the killing’ scene, which is the main cause for him missing curfews, the reason why the government are after him and is the cause for the rest of the story throughout the film.