Evaluation Q1:In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media product?

A short film is basically an original idea that has a running time of usually less than an hour. Short films can however vary from a few minutes (like my film only lasting just over two minutes) to lasting up to a long period of time, on average short films last up to ten minutes, the films I looked at for planning lasted approximately 7 minutes, the duration of my short film was considerably less than this, however lasting this short amount of time does meet the needs of a short film.

All short films have things with other meanings, perhaps things that fall under the idea that they have a hidden meaning or several different meaning that can be confusing for the audience members or even just things that have a purpose. An example of this in my film would be the idea of the shadows, this hidden meaning is also the idea of hell but this isn’t very clear to someone who has just walked into seeing this film blind, this however is later explained by the main character and the ‘twist’ the story takes. All short films as well have enigma codes (questions to be un answered ) which are then answered later on by action codes. Again this happens in my film with the question of ‘what is the power the main character is on about?’

Genre is also a hard thing to classify as generally short films only have one theme running throughout, my main theme for my film is the concept of bullying and the main area is a school, therefore giving it the classification of a drama. Emotions of fear and anger are explored as well as the feelings of love and obsession in correlation to the cards, the main character clearly feels for his cards as they get ripped up and the obsession with them is that in every scene he is with them. The idea of the drama is that although the film shows aspects of sci-fi it explores mainly the idea that the character is living an everyday life and shows some realism in doing so, it is only the brief flashes of some scene which causes this genre to differentiate from the norms of the drama genre and enter the realms of sci-fi by offering surreal things to happen alongside these everyday occurrences.

Props where used as well but only in small amounts, the cards played a large role of supporting the main character and the cards also corresponded to his power and how balance can be restored. These cards required little to no input to propel the story along and it is only at the end of the story where the other two characters are scene in the cards where effort was needed, the key role keeps the idea of power in balance, the pictures on these cards also hold relevance in the last scene of the film as they hold the pictures of the other characters.

Clips from YouTube where also used in the film, specifically parts of the anime where used to emphasis the points used in the film. This is important as it suggests that the mythology and the history behind the game aimed at children is actually real. This is the pivotal point for the film and the way the story rotates around this idea as well as the twist, the twist however is slightly predictable but at the same time is sinister and allows people to feel sorry for perhaps the characters who where made out to be the bad characters, this is all reinforced by the selected clips, some of these clips are also repeated alongside some of the voices allowing the scenes to flow and to add emphasis onto these clips so they don’t just seem random occurrences.

The story line to the film is slightly confusing; there is a lack of depth however it is still easy enough for the audience to understand that the film is aimed around the idea of bullying and vengeance. There could of been more things added to the film in order to explore this idea further however this could of also had the effect of making all the other random clips seem pointless as the characters could of become to developed.

The twist is confusing and somewhat miss able, It is easier to look at the twist in the film when you look through it several times, the idea that the main character is bullied is the main theme, however this idea gradually builds up into the idea that he will eventually gain the vengeance he so desires with the main character issuing threats, at this point this idea is developed and the bully then gains the fate so desired however he is not the only one, being trapped inside the cards alongside the 3^rd character is the main twist as this isn’t expected, this is a main convention of a short film, all or most short films have an unexpected twist at some point although not all the time are they as obvious as the twist in my film, a prime example being the black button, early on it is determined there will be but it’s not until the end do you realise enough about the main characters to see the twist.