Evaliation Question No.1 In what ways does your Media Product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our Main Task did not really fit into one type, or a specific Film genre; it fits into several types of Genre. It is crossing many genres such as Action, science fiction, a little bit of Horror and Thriller even though it was not meant to have a Horror or Thriller Genre in it. Action Genre is shown through many ways for example; through the type of songs which we used in it, the non-diagetic sounds and songs are fast paced, this is effective because it builds up the adrenaline and creates an action mood. The action side is also shown through the way the characters acts in the 2^nd scene, the way Scott Parker falls down and starts banging the ground with he’s hands gives a clue that there might be some violence in the film.  Another  reason why our film comes across as an action film is because of the narration by Scott Parker in the 2^nd scene he says “I Must Defeat Steven” this shows that there will be some kind of a fight or a battle between some of the characters and therefore it is an action film. 

The styles and fonts of the title sequence also helps to create it into an action film this is because, The title (BROKEN BONDS) is animated, the title smashes in to pieces which also supports the idea of violence and this was achieved greatly with the non-digetic sound used on the title and even without watching the film, the title itself Broken-Bonds all ready suggests that there is going to be some kind of rampage in the film. In order to follow the typical Action convention we had to make sure the characters are dressed in black, because that is the typical clothing of an actor in an action film. We also made sure we choose the right type of actor due to their physical appearance. An action film requires a tall, big and pretty strong looking Actors and that is exactly the type of people we choose to act in our film. However we pushed the Boundaries of the convention in some aspects, the music we choose was a bit like an urban type of music which will fit more into an urban film, and it didn’t fully fit into any of our chosen Genres. 

Science fiction also is a very important Genre in our film; it is represented through the characteristics of the characters. An example is in the first Scene when Zion Vanishes, this represents Sci-fi because it is not the kind of thing which you would expect to see in real life and also vanishing/ teleporting is associated with supernatural powers which are definitely not seen in everyday life. In the next scene Sci-fi is also represented by Zion when he penetrates Scott Parker with Enormous Powers and energy, Humans do not have powers like that, so therefore it is fiction. In order to achieve this genre we had to learn tutorials on how to use after effects in order to create these types of effect, e.g. teleporting. This follows a typical Sci-fi genre because sometimes in Sci-fi films you see something or someone doing crazy, unusual things that wouldn’t happen in real life. So in order to achieve this Genre we had to follow the typical way and therefore the Sci-fi genre in our film does not challenge the convention.

Even though we did not originally plan to add Thriller/Horror genre into our film; our film fell into these two genres as well as action and Science-fiction. Horror is shown in some ways an example of how it is portrayed is through the Dark coloured  background, the dark background signifies something scary and misty about to happen and the fact that is was recorded at night also helps to portray this because night is usually associated with ghosts, death, demons and evil beings. This idea is backed up by the mise en scene because the two characters are dressed in all black clothing, the colour black is mysterious, evoking and creates a sense of potential and many possibilities. The  empty, sort of outside a church background ties to the idea of Good vs. evil because of the great contrast between how the characters are dressed all Black (Demons) and the church (purity), and this brings out the horror genre. The horror Genre is also achieved through the editing, for example the white flash, there is also a great contrast between white and the background colour, this effect speeds up the audience’s reaction and leaves them confused of what to expect next and this also creates the thriller genre. The way some parts of the film was shot contributed to the Horror and Thriller genre for example; the Hand Held-circular motion recording. This is because the circular motion recording confuses the audience and makes it looks like something is going to jump out from the background and attack the character, therefore this creates a sense of fear. The mise en scene e.g, Clothing and Background fits the conventions of a typical Horror and Thriller film but the boundaries is pushed by the sounds used because horror film usually have low, quiet and slow music in the background compare to our film which has a loud fast music in the background so therefore it doesn’t follow the conventions of a Horror or a thriller film.

To conclude, I think some parts in our film follows the typical media conventions for example the mise en scene, but it also challenges the typical conventions in some ways, mostly because of the sounds and music used. Overall I think it Challenges the Media Conventions more than it follows it and I also think it will affect the distribution of our film in a positive way, this is because I think our film is unique, new and original therefore it will sell a lot because nowadays the same ideas are repeated in different films and doing something different will definitely catch the audiences attentions.