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

I think that generally, our film opening conforms to the conventions of real film openings since it establishes time, location, character and creates enigma. Firstly, time is established in our film opening through having a clock on the desk and more explicitly having a close-up on the clock as it ticks to the next minute (12:19pm). In this way, this conforms to the usual conventions of a film opening by establishing time. Near the end of the film opening, perhaps even more explicitly, we have typing appear on the screen ‘Sterling, March 6 2007’ thus, establishing location. However, location has already subtly been revealed through the mise-en-scene, for example, the placement of American sweets like ‘Hershey’ as well as American writers within the main character’s book collection e.g. Stephen King.

Similarly, our film opening conforms to conventions of real film openings by establishing character. Mise-en-scene makes a big contribution to revealing more about the main character as well as revealing him gradually. For example, the types of DVDs can been stereotypically seen as ‘nerdy’, with the set including ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Lord of the Rings’, this enabling the audience to learn about his character. With the room also being quite messy, with chocolate wrappers and marinating cereal bowls, it implies that the character is also the stereotypical teenager (one who would sleep through a whole day). Character is also established through his clothing, conforming to the stereotypical teenager with a black t-shirt, glasses and jeans. In conjunction with this, enigma is created through the audience only seeing parts of the main characters, and not seeing his whole face one shot. This serves to create a sense of the character wanting to remain anonymous as well as conforming to conventions of real film openings by not revealing everything in the opening scene.