a2 media evaluation q1

1. Media evaluation question 1
Q1) In what way does your product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions in real
media products?
My short film based on social realistconcepts conforms to certain media forms and conventions found
in real media products. The use offragmented narrative structure in the opening scenes was chosen by
us as a tool to engage the audience from the getgo, by featuring a pinnacle scene in the opening ofthe
production and applying some editing skills we were able to create a tense opening that caught
audience attention. The scene consisted ofthe main character George experiencing a momentof
insanity fuelled by his recently developed anxiety thatwas chopped into a lotof short and snappy
montage clips and placed together to show his head is all over the place. This was accompanied by a
high-pitched sound effectthat creates an eerie tension until it builds up then is followed into the
beginning ofthe story, thus engaging audiences before the actual narrative begins. This piece generally
follows Todorov’s narrative structure theory however we also challenged aspects ofthis theory through
presenting the ‘tip of the iceberg’ (around the recognition stage ofthe theory) momentout ofcontext
before presenting the original equilibrium. The choice to apply Todorov’s theory , which initially we did
not wish to follow it in fear the narrative becoming too cliché,was made because we feltthat the short
film did notshow the narrative clearly enough to engage audiences throughoutand therefore placed the
theory to presenta clearer story structure. The film also follows Claude Levi-Strauss’ narrative ideas of
binary opposites,with focus on good and evil as the key opposite in this piece, showing the constant
conflict between them throughout and also the drift ofGeorge in-between the opposites.We chose to
use this theory of opposites in our production because itengages the audience throughoutby people’s
fascination of being third party to a form of conflictthus increasing the likelihood ofretained interest
from audiences.
We also conformed to media conventions in order to sustain a more natural continuity through use of
match on action, which is a technique that frequently occurs in our production e.g.the morning scenes.
This continuity technique was chosen because itcreates more differentiation in scenes thus retaining
audience attention and is also an easy way of showing journeys. However, in the opening scene we did
not conform to match on action techniques because we wanted to attempt a scrambled montage of
clips, the majority of clips coming from the same scene visually representGeorges psychotic episode.
In addition to this, the 180-degree rule was also broken to disruptcontinuity because we feltthat a
disruption to this would representhow the effect ofdrugs played on Georges mind in the scene.