This document discusses how the student's film "Switch" uses, develops, and challenges conventions of real media products in its genre of action comedy. Some conventions it follows include using a balance of comedy and action inspired by films like "Rush Hour" and "Snatch." It challenges conventions by making the main characters less unintelligent than in films like "Dumb and Dumber" and by having the film be silent rather than using dialogue. Overall, the film draws from conventions of genres like action, comedy and crime but adapts them for its comedic tone and silent format.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
By Sharon Uyinmwen
Our film is the genre of action comedy based around the lives of a comical
duo , Frank and Charlie trying to get money to buy a car. In order for the genre to be
clear to audiences we followed the conventions of other action comedies such as ‘Rush
Hour’ and ‘Snatch’ by using the right balance of action combined with comedy, and
kept the comical/ slapstick element of film consistent throughout. By doing this we knew
the specific target audience we were trying to attract. The
idea of the titles in the
opening sequence was inspired by the titles used in Snatch.
In order to develop this convention we used a frame hold to pause the shot and
then added a black and white effect. This differs from ‘Snatch’ as they use
colour filters but we felt the black and white would be better for the world of our
film. We added more depth to our titles rather than having just basic titles by using
the forms of font styles of our genre type of films. We used a bold font with a
solid red to stand out and captivate the eyes of the audience, it also compliments
the black and white screen hold effect that we had appear at the same time as
the title appeared.
Our two main protagonists were inspired by the likes of Del boy and Rodney from the
TV sitcom, ‘Only Fools and Horses’. We used the elements of having an on screen
chemistry to help engage the audience into the film. We used the idea of having both
characters as unintelligent individuals that feed of off each others energy and company.
We used the conventions even more by using the character Frank, played by Ashley
Walker to have a similar build to Del boy, short and slightly wide, despite him being
shorter than Charlie he is still played the leader to the twosome, which is much like the
relationship of Del Boy and Rodney.

2. Charlie, played by Jack Glister has similar traits to Rodney as he is the taller and
skinnier of the twosome and tends to follow Frank rather than take the lead. We
developed this more by having Charlie follow Franks lead throughout the whole film
as we have various shots were Frank is the one often dictating Charlie’s actions. In
terms of costume, we also followed conventions found in ‘Only Fools and Horses’ as
throughout the majority of the film Frank and Charlie are wearing dingy outdated
clothing similar as to what Del boy and Rodney would wear.
To developthis idea, we combined the costume style of that
of ‘Only Fools and Horses’ to the costume style in
‘Superbad’, shown in the scene where Frank and Charlie are strutting through the
corridor wearing suits. We took the idea of the slow motion edited walk and the cheesy
type music from what was seen in a scene from Superbad. This is a key example of where
the action element and comical element of our film was combined. The costume relates to
the action and the way in which their facial expressions worked well with their slow
motion was made to make audiences laugh. ‘Dumb and Dumber’ is another film that
inspired us. The comical duo are very similar to Frank and Charlie because of their
stupidity and unawareness of it, however, we challenged the stupidity aspect by not
making Frank and Charlie as unintelligent to the extremes and D umb and D umber. Big
Pete and his Bodyguard are characters whose costume and persona were based on that
found in such films like ‘Casino Royale’ however we challenged the idea by, rather than
placing the characters in a strictly action based film we placed them in an action comedy.
We also took away the violence and aggression that may be associated with such films, as
keeping these aspects would have made our film gloomy dark, and unsuitable for our
target audience. Big Pete and his Bodyguard wore black suits throughout the film and this
added to the representation of the characters, presenting them as high class, high society
business men and drug dealers. Our film has a non linear storyline editing, as our
opening sequence of our film starts with various shots
from days based throughout our whole film, creating not
only audience engagement but audience questioning.
This is an example of a convention used in the film
‘Inception’ .Inception starts off with scenes that occur at
the end of the film which initially has the audience
confused but eventually after watching the film
audience questions are answered. This is the type of
response we wanted to get from audiences watching our
film, hence the reason why we incorporated non-linear
editing.
Despite being inspired by various action, comedy and action- comedy films,
we also challenged a vital aspect of the use of dialogue as sound as our whole film is silent.
We decided to challenge the idea of the use of the use of dialogue as we felt it would be
more interesting to show a conversation through the use of dialogue boxes, also, our brief
required us to create a silent film. In order for our audience to not switch off whilst
watching our film we used contrapuntal music throughout the piece to match the energy
of the action in each scene. Depending on the scene we needed music for depended on the
type of music we used, which differs from most silent films as they tend to use one type of

3. music throughout. For example, for the following scenes where Frank and Charlie follow
Big Pete’s bodyguard, we used the type of music found in such films as ‘The Pink Panther’
however, we challenged this as the Pink Panther is based on a detectives where as are
film follows the theme of get rich quick schemes similar to films such as ‘Catch me if you
can’. Once again we developed the use of the schemes by making them less corporate and
more humorous to go well with the genre of our film. We use split screens throughout
our piece similar to those found in such films as ‘CSI’, having said this we challenged
the idea of using split screens to show different scenes at one time, by using the split
screens to show the same scene from different angles, this was done in the scene
where Frank and Charlie were in the room with Big Pete laughing. We incorporated
the use of split screens as we felt it would be more interesting than just simply having a
total shot of the action going on onscreen. The setting of our film takes place in a dingy estate
similar to the setting used in ‘Only Fool and Horses’ so this used the convention that the sitcom
would use however, to develop and possibly challenge the idea we shot some scenes in a
prestigious hotel to highlight the difference of lifestyle between the body guard, Big Pete and
Frank and Charlie. Once again this corresponds to such films like ‘Rush Hour’ as some scenes are
also shot in expensive and prestigious hotels. Our film ‘Switch’ has challenged typical conventions
in various ways but has also used some. We tried to develop certain conventions that we
used whenever possible in order to create an added edge to our film and also to create
audience interest. To conclude, I am very pleased with the final product of our film and
I liked the typical codes and conventions we used, challenged and developed from
other real media products in the industry.