2. MAIN THEMES
For our film the most important themes are Gender and Age.
We chose these because of the unconventional lead role that we have in Yuri, not only
is she a female lead but she is also an 18 year old. During research its apparent
that female leads are few and far between in the sci-fi genre, and we felt it would
be good to show that it can be done and still convey the same amount of power
that the male leads do.
The young age of Yuri is also unconventional in our chosen genre, all other leads
looked at during our research were at least in their mid twenties. That’s why we
decided to make Yuri so young, so that she subverted the stereotype and showed
that younger people are capable of being heroes and saving the world just as
much as the adults are.

3. AGE
Even through the two minute glance through the keyhole there are some clear challenges of stereotypes
that are going on with many of the characters, but also there are some which do actually support
them.
Example number one lies with the main character Yuri, being only eighteen she is still considered to be
quite young and yet the army rely on her a lot because of her super power. And yet the stereotype is at
the same time supported with her when the other soldiers tell Yuri to stay behind and keep watch, a
more lowly job seeing as she is younger and more inexperience than them. She is trusted only with a
smaller gun than her male counterparts are, and through the over the shoulder shot we are able to see
how annoyed she is at being told to stay behind by her facial expression.
Sebastian Markov is also a high riser at such a young age, only twenty he is already a big peacemaker and
has commissioned nuclear weapons to be created which would be highly unusual for someone of his
age.
However the young age of the soldiers would support the stereotypes, this is due to the health factors that
they are simply more able to do the tough labour required. This is shown well through the pan and tilt
shots of the soldiers running during the opening.

4. GENDER
In the film Yuri’s character both supports and subverts the gender stereotypes,
which only makes her more relatable to the audience as this gives her
more of a Humanistic quality. All of the female soldiers, including Yuri, that
are shown in both the armies show that women being a part of such a
dangerous job is perfectly fine and normal. They are leading the charge up
the stairs in the tilt shot and they are running across the field in the pan
shot along with the men. But then through the low angle shot shown on
the right Yuri feels small compared to the two enemy soldiers, women are
considered to be weaker than men so she would therefore struggle to
deal with both of her assailants by herself.
The use of the two shot that shows both the male and female correspondent
sat at the news desk follows the stereotype as does the correspondent in
the field who is dressed in more professional looking clothing which is
shown in both the mid shot of the reporter and later on the canted angle.
The office worker is arguably conforming to the stereotype due to the
professional outfit that she is wearing, seen both through the zoom and
long shot and then later on the close up. Although the more boyish cut of
her hair could mean that she subverting is subverting the stereotype.
The scientist that is pictured shaking hands with Markov is a woman, which is
subverting the stereotype as normally it is men that are pictured. Although
we didn’t have a close up but rather just stuck with the two shot as we
didn’t feel that it was something to make a big deal out of. The fact that
we also chose to support the typical stereotype that the villains are
predominantly male was so that he would be the opposite to the female
hero Yuri.

5. SEXUALITY
As the sexuality of the characters is irrelevant to the plot we didn’t focus on this
during the film, neither is it a normal convention of science-fiction films to focus
mainly on romance plots. This is why we instead decided to focus on the power
element of the plot.
However, a small romance sub-plot could have been a possibility for later on in the
film, as long as it didn’t take attention away from the main plot.

6. CLASS
Sebastian Markov is shown to have put quite a bit of money into his image and also
into gaining the reputation he has. This is shown particularly well when he is
shown to be wearing a suit whilst meeting one of his employees. But however the
fact that we decided to simply show Markov through a two shot shows that he is
important enough to have a close view of his face but at this point we don’t want
to give away too quickly that he is in fact that he is the villain so don’t have it as a
close up.
Everyone else in the film is of a lower class as they all work for someone else, many
actually working for the bad guy whereas he only works for himself. This is evident
from the costumes, the soldiers have their kit, the scientist in her lab coat and
the office worker in appropriate clothing.

7. DISABILITY
The fast paced cuts between the two groups of soldiers show their great level of
fitness, which means that they aren’t limited in their ability to do tough physical
work. Something which is required of soldiers.
One of the enemy soldiers is shown to be
unintelligent, demonstrated during the two shot
of him and his partner of the stairs. He laughs
at something Yuri says, which he shouldn’t
have done as that is breaking his tough
façade. He is elbowed roughly in the side by
his partner, which shows how much of a slip up he has made and how often this
happens to her.

8. ETHNICITY
We decided that for our film the bad guys would be Russians, with Sebastian Markov
the world respected peacemaker as their leader. As Markov tricks the entire
world, including the hero country England we therefore imply that the Russians
are sneaky and manipulative.
Yuri plays on negative stereotypes when talking to the Russian soldiers, in her
dialogue she says to them “Then again you Russians aren’t ones to settle things
calmly” and “Don’t you guys drink the blood of your ancestors or something?” in
order to purposefully provoke them so she can distract them for long enough to
use her powers on them.