In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of

real media products?By Owen Edobor

Character & Costume

• The main characters of our short film Tom & Jerry, were inspired by comedy duos such as Del Boy & Rodney, who star in the British sitcom ‘Only fools and horses’.

• Our characters mimic the characteristics of the TV series duo;-Rodney=Jerry: Dopey, submissive-Del Boy=Tom: Dominant, assertive

• This relationship dynamic was found to be common in comedies, allowing us take ideas from these full length films, adapt and then incorporate them into our short length film.

• Along with ‘Only fools and horses’ we had other film inspirations such as White Chicks, 21 & 22 jump street, Ride along, Starsky & Hutch, Bad boys, Lets be cops, The heat and Rush Hour.

• Although all these films have similarities of cop themes there are some aspects of the full lengthen films that had to be adapted to suit our needs. For example these are the ages and occupation of our cast. Due to having a younger cast we decided to use school children between the ages of 14-15.

Narrative

• The narrative of our short film challenged the stereotypical outcomes that audiences may have predicted, such as Tom & Jerry (the two main characters) to get in trouble for searching the head teaches office without permission.

• We attempted to build up tension through our film by the use of editing and sound. Aiming to indulge the audience into our short film ,we hoped to make the audience question the ending of the film and not make it predictable.

• In ‘21 jump street’ the objective was to find suspects that were unknown, which we adapted in ‘Down To the Crumb’ as our main characters conducted individual interviews for their suspects.

Camera Work• The Camera shots used in our short

film was inspired by many action scenes found in action, thriller and comedy full length films such as ‘Rush Hour’ and ‘Ride Along’.

• During stages of planning we found that due to location and set we had to change the angle of the shot, still portraying the same idea and message as seen in the full length films but with a slight change in their body language.

• A slow motion scene from ‘21 Jump street’ was recreated during production however when it came to editing we identified issues with the filming of the scene, not allowing the smooth, slick and comedic effect the full lengthen film executed.

Location & Set

• The location and set of our short film followed the narrative of our film in order to maintain logical causality.

• Although we originally made the decision of our location and set during research and planning of location Recce, there were still films such as ‘21 jump street’ that had conventions that our film obtained.

• Our film challenged various forms and conventions of media products as often it is found that there is more than one location used however our film changes this as it is shot in one location and is based over one school day.

SoundOrigin• In the film ‘Bad Boys’ and ‘Bad Boys II’ the song "Bad Boys"

was a song by the Jamaican reggae band Inner Circle in 1987. • "The Pink Panther Theme” is an instrumental composition

by Henry Mancini written as the theme for the 1963 film The Pink Panther.

The films ‘Bad Boys’ and ‘Bad Boys II’ had a song that was effective, relevant and catchy. Originally we liked the “Bad Boys” song however the message it portrayed did not fit in with our film Narrative so we decided to search for either a song that fitted the narrative of our film or a neutral song that would work well. So due this we found “The Pink Panther Theme” which was an instrumental which worked well with the investigation scenes in film. Originally when we still had our slow motion scene we had a song titled ‘Sound Of Da Police’ which was an urban, upbeat song and was highly relevant to the narrative of our film, however due to the removal of that scene, the song was also removed.

• Overall forms and conventions of real media products were met, especially in the promotion of our film.

• On the left side is the film poster to our short film ‘Down To The Crumb’.

• On the right is a film poster to a full length real media product. Our poster matches many aspects of the real media products and the compatibility continues various aspects of our film that have been discussed in this presentation.

Promotion