Research

 Before I started to plan my own film, I first needed to research the film noir/neo noir genre so I could gain some idea of what to include in the film and how to set it up.

Some aspects of my research included:

Watching film noir tutorials on youtube. For example Indie Mogul:

I also watched 'The Big Sleep' starring Humphrey Bogart. After watching this, we were able to note the generic codes and   conventions of film noir which include:

Film Noir

- Reflected time period- fear, mistrust, bleakness, with violent, misogynistic, hard boiled characters

-       Plots are usually complex, involving the downfall of a man, amnesia suffered by the protagonist was a common theme

-       High contrast lighting, deep focus, shadows and low key lighting

-       Femme fatale is the dominant attribute of the film noir, presented as a desirable but dangerous woman

-       Sometimes the hero is destroyed, but more often than not he overcomes the desirability of the femme fatale and destroys her

-       Traditionally monochrome

-       Unusual camera angles- tilts, lots of foregrounding, switching from object to object from point of view shots

-       The protagonist is usually a detective

-       Sharp, witty dialogue, humorous wordplay between men and women

-       Rain and night-time are common settings for film noir

I also researched how different people view Film Noir in terms of it being referred to

as a genre or not, for example,  Durgnat & Schrader suggest that film noir should not

be seen as genre but rather as a period or movement.

 Schrader sub-divides noir into three main categories:

        Wartime (1941-6) – ‘private eye and lone wolf’, more talk than action

        Postwar realistic (1945-9) – ‘crime in streets, political corruption, police routine’, ‘less romantic heroes’

        Psychotic/suicidal impulse (1949-53) – ‘psychotic killer is an active protagonist, despair and disintegration

James Damico, disagrees with Schrader and supports view that noir is a

genre. He claims that the visual style of noir is an iconography.

Other research into the film noir genre I have done includes watching 'The Big Heat', a film noir film, to again, further my knowledge of the genre and try and use some of the conventions that are used in film noir in my own film.

NEO- NOIR
We also researched the neo-noir genre and looked at the three different types of neo-noir films according to Leighton Grist which include:

Modern- updates and remakes of classic films of the genre into colour and contemporary settings, e.g. 'The Postman Always Rings Twice'

Modernist- films that radically challenge and interrogate the conventions of film noir, e.g. subjects like the representation of the woman in a sisogynist view. For example, 'Point Blank' and 'Taxi Driver'

Postmodern- 'mash ups', films that pay homage to or allude to the genre. E.g. 'Blade Runner'

MAL WOOLFORD
Further research we did as a class included watching two short films by director Mal Woolford called 'Ark' and 'Redblack' as they include aspects of film noir.

ARK

The first short film, 'Ark' was filmed in one shot and included the arc movement, hence the title.

The main differences I noticed with 'Ark' (neo noir) and classic film noir were:

- Ark was in colour, not black and white

- It didn't start with a crime like film noir normally would

- There was no dialogue in this particular neo noir clip

- It was in the countryside as opposed to being in the busy city

- It was during the day, not at night which is typical of film noir

Some similarities that I noticed included:

- A crime did actually occur

- There was a femme fatale (she seemed to have killed him)

- An unhappy ending occured

- The storyline was hard to follow, a typical film noir trait

REDBLACK

The second film we watched of Mal Woolfords was 'Redblack' When watching 'Redblack' I noticed more similarities and differences with film noir

Some differences were things such as:

- It was in colour, similarly to 'Ark'

- It was filmed in a car rather than in a stationary building or outside

- The clip didn't begin with a crime

- There were flashes of colour and sound in the transitions between the clip

Similarities between 'Redblack' and classic film noir include:

- There was a femme fatale (she had set him up for her crime)

- It was filmed at night, a typical trait with film noir

- The clip was in an urban setting- the streets of London

- There was a short voiceover at the beginning

- It was in low key lighting with high contrast

Other neo-noir films that I watched included 'Pulp Fiction' and 'Taxi Driver', again helping me to see the conventions of neo-noir films ad use them in my own short film

I also watched two other neo-noir film called 'Shadowline' and 'Stripes'. Because I am thinking of basing my own film on the neo-noir genre, watching these films enables me to pick up conventions that are typical to neo-noir genre.


STRIPES

The neo-noir elements that 'Stripes' has include:

- Themes of voilence
- Close up of objects
- Apartment setting
- Harsh lighting
- Flimed in colour
- Unusual shots/angles

We have been studying narrative theories and Tzvetan Todorov's five stages of narrative can be applied to 'Stripes'

1) Equilibrium - man in appartment making breakfast
2) Disruption of equilibrium - black man breaks in, ties him up
3) Realisation that disruption has occured - who has tied him up? why has he tied him up?
4) Attempt to repair damage of the disruption - approaches with knife and gets revenge
5) Restoration of equilibrium - justice is recieved when revenge is carried out

SHADOWLINE

The neo-noir elements that 'Shadowline' has include:

- Apartment setting

- Urban setting

- Difficult and confusing storyline

- Themes of crime- kidnapping

Notes on Film Noir, Paul Schrader

The Hard-Boiled Tradition

In the thirties, authors had created the 'tough', a cynical way of acting and thinking that separated one from the world of everyday emotions.

The hard boiled writers had their roots in pulp fiction or journalism, and their protagonists lived out a narcissistic, defeatist code.

The hard boiled hero was, in reality, a soft egg compared to his existential counterpart, but he was a good deal tougher than anything American fiction had seen.

The most hard boiled of Hollywoods writers was Raymond Chandler, whose script of Double Indemnity was the best written and most characteristically noir of the period.

Stylistics

There is not yet a study of the stylistics of film noir, and the task is certainly too large to be attempted.

Like all film movements, film noir drew upon a reservoir of film techniques and given the time one could correlate its techniques, themes, and casual elements into a stylistic schema.

Here are some more in depth characteristics of film noir:

- Majority of scenes are lit for night. Gangsters sit in offices at midday with the shads pulled and the lights off. Ceiling lights are hung low and floor lamps are seldom more than five feet high

- Actors and setting are often given wqual lighting emphasis. An actor is often hidden in the realistic tableau of the city at night, and, more obviously, his face is often blacked out by shaddow as he speaks.

- Compositional tension os preferred to physical action. a typical film noir would rather move the scene cinematographically around the actor than have the actor control the scene by physical action.

-There seems to be an almose Freudian attachment to water. The empty noir streets are almost always glistening with fresh evening rain and the rainfall tents to increase in direct proprotion to the drama.

- A complex chronological order is frequently used to reinforce the feelings of hopelessness and lost time. the manipulation of time, whether slight or complex is often used to reinforce a noir principl: the how is more important that the what.

Themes

Raymond Durgnat has delineated the themes of film noir in an article in the British Cinema magazine. Durgnat divides film noir into eleven thematic categories and covers the whole gamut of noir production, thematically organising over 300 films.

In each of Durgnats noir themes, one finds that the upwardly mobile forces of the thirties have halted; frontierism has turned to paranoia and claustrophobia. The small-time gangster has now made it big and sits in the mayor's chair, the private eye has quit the police force in disgust and the young heroine, sick of going along for the ride, is taking others for a ride.

Durgnat, however, does not touch up on what is perhaps the overriding noir theme: a passion for the past and present, but also a fear of the future.

Noir heroes dread to look ahed, but instead try to survive by the day, and if unsuccessful at that, they retreat to the past. thus film noir's techniques emphasise loss, noistalgia, lack of clear priorities, and insecurity.

In such a world style becomes pramount; it is all that separates one from meaninlessness.

Chandler described this fundamental noir theme when he described his own fictional world: 'It is not a very fragrant world, but it is the world you live in, and certain writers with tough minds and a cool spirit of detachment can make very interesting patterns out of it.'

Research of film noir and neo noir posters

FILM NOIR

- The femme fatale is in the forefront and her whole body can be seen which gives a position of power and makes her presence known

- The male is hidden behind blinds and only his face can be seen, depicting him as the weaker character in the film and the victim that he will probably be

- The dark colours, grey and black, connote the dark tone of the film- one which is bleak and miserable throughout

- The title of the film is bold and also  a similar colour to the femme fatales dress, again connoting the power she has throughout the film

NEO NOIR

- The title 'The Killer Inside Me' connotes violence, a typical trait in neo noir films

- The women are dressed sexually, Jessica Alba at the front is in her underwear and Kate Hudson is wearing red lipstick, connoting sexuality

- The dark background colours again connote the tone of the film- dark, mysterious and miserable





Planning

To prepare for my Advanced Production Portfolio, our media studies group decided to choose the genre of horror and create two short film clips around school.

I was absent on the day of filming. However, I had already been able to familiarise myself with the technical equipment because in small groups we had practised with them on the tripods and experimented with zooming, different angles and movements of the camera etc and my group did a 'Big Brother' style short clip.

- The main part of my familiarising myself with equipment and software involved editing the clips that had been taken while I was absent.
- I helped with trimming the clips in imovie, putting the clips in order and adding effects to some of the clips to add extra emphasis to the horror genre of the short film
- At the end of the clip, credits were added to make the film look more professional and we chose a font and background which fitted in with the horror genre.

I found iMovie simple to use and after watching the tutorial given, it was easy to follow the instructions and cropping and editing clips did not come as a difficulty.

Planning for own film

- The first thing my partner and I did when planning for our own short film was to think of the storyline we wanted. Once we had decided, we then thought of who could act in our film and what props we would need to use, the location we would film at etc..

- We also had to decide on a target audience for our short film. We decided to choose ages 16-25 because the actors we are using at 18, and we feel that the storyline has quite a mature theme that would appeal to the older end of the audence, 25 year olds, but may be not be suitable for people under 16. Also, although we are using a femme fatale in our film and following the typical conventions of film noir and neo noir, our male actor is black which challanges the typical cast of a film noir.

- In order to reach a broad audience, we decided to use a black boy as our main character to try and appeal to other ethnicities other than white. Our other character, Lia, is currently doing Alevel drama and so was a good choice for our film.

- We decided to shoot our outside scenes at dusk, in alley ways, because it will add to the tense atmosphere we will be trying to create and the streetlights in the alley way and on the road will be harsh lighting, a typical trait of noir/neo noir films.

- We then made a questionnaire for our target audience to fill out to help us get a better idea of how much people know about film noir/neo noir and whether they would be interested in watching a film based on either of these genres.

- We then constructed a storyboard to help plan our short film. We broke down each scene of our story and decided on the type of shot it would be, who would be in it, and for how long it would be filmed for, to help us fit the whole film to five minutes. For example :

Narrative

Barthes' enigma and action codes
At the very beginning of the film there is an enigma in that the audience dont know who Tosin is or anything about his character- is he a villan or not? What is he doing? etc...

There is also an enigma about the character of Adriana as we only see her very briefly at the beginning of the film. Again, the audience know nothing about her character, whether she will be a helpless female or whether she will be the femme fatale which is later revealed at the end of the film.

Other features in the film contribute to the enigma codes in the film such as the fact that there is no sound track when Tosin is walking to the house, just the pace of his feet which gives the scene an eeary feeling.

Also the very beginning when there is a black screen and just Tosin talking, the audience do not know what is going to happen next.

Propp
Tosin is expected to be the villain at first due to his clothing (hoddie commonly associated with thugs) but is then revealed to be the hero/helpless male

Lia is at first perceived to be the helpless female who will be the victim to Tosin however as the film develops she is shown to be the femme fatale (villian)



Institution
'Siren' is a low-budget, independent short film, and therefore, details as funding, advertising, showing and distribution would differ considerablly compared to blockbusters with money being put into them.

Funding:
-UK Film Council e.g. the 'Short Films Completion Fund 2009/10' OR 'Digital Shorts' fund.

Advertising:
- Review and poster in a film magazine, like 'Empire' or 'Total Film', would give the film good advertising amongst film enthusiasts.


- Publicity by entering in film festivals, e.g. The London Short Film Festival, Leeds International Film Festival




PLANNING FOR FILMING

When we started filming, we created call sheets to help us organise everything. An example of one is:

October
Thursday 14th
filming cancelled. Instead of filming we practiced shooting some of the shots and how we would shoot them, realising some of them needed altering- e.g. we shortened the POV shot going into the living room

Thursday 21st
- all of the alleyway shots
- Tosin walking along street
- Tosin entering house and short conversation with Lia
- Close up of Tosin

Friday 22nd
- put footage from camera onto imovie
- started to order clips but found that alley way shots/street shots did not have good lighting

January Monday 17th
- Had Lydia recorded an orginal composition directly into garageband using a keyboard
- Added the recorded sound to the flashback part of the film
- Having been told that the voiceover was too long, we recorded an edited version
- Trimmed the clip in which Tosin looks through the objects after being told it was too long
- Recorded Rachel peeling an apple to match Lia’s movements

February
Tuesday 15th
- Uploaded the final version of the film to Youtube

NovemberFriday 5th
- had to re shoot Lias scene due to costume change- different shirt- continuity error

- reshoot of Tosin entering house and talking with Lia
- reshoot of alleyway shots
- reshoot of Tosin walking along street
- Tosin looking at objects

Monday 8th
- ordered clips and created titles


Sunday 14th
- shot of shelf and Tosin picking up book
- flicking through book
- close ups of Tosin
- Tosin’s fall to the chair
- Tosin during flashbacks- low angles
- Tosin sitting up after flashbacks

Monday 15th
- when watching footage collected so far, we noticed that tosin’s hood was visible in the shot in which he sits up

Sunday 21st
- reshoot of Tosin sitting up
- Tosin standing up and going to fireplace
- Tosin looking through fireplace and the reveal of Lia behind him

DecemberFriday 3rd
- the flashback shots (book, Lia on stairs and tracking up lia’s arm to her face)
- Lia peeling the apple for after the credits

Monday 6th
- creating the flashes of colour between flashbacks (image on photoshop turned into clip in imovie) and the black clip the voiceover would go over
- finalised the order of clips
- changed the contrast levels for the shot of tosin looking through the fireplace and finding the knife (we used a different camera which had better picture quality so the clip was much brighter than everything else)

- created credits
- added fade to black at end of film

Friday 10th
- showed work so far to class
- added dissolves to scenes that didn’t flow very well

- recorded Tosin’s side of the phonecall for the voiceover at the start
- recorded Tosin and Lia’s lines for their conversation

Monday 13th
- realised that there was talking in the background of one of the shots in which Tosin is flicking through pages so recorded flicking through the book to match the clip
- realised that Tosin is standing on the wrong side of the shot when dropping the book, since he was unavailable for a reshoot, we cropped the shot (unfortunately reducing the quality of it)

- fixed some missing background sound by duplicating sound from unused clips

Friday 17th
- Added sound effects from imovie for most of our soundtrack, mostly droans to add an eerie effect
- Realised that the POV shot of the living room blurred at points so reshot


Sound
- When we had finished all the editing that needed to be done, we began to work on sound

- The first thing we did was fix background noise in some of our shots- e.g. the scene of Tosin walking over to the fireplace had background noise from other rooms in the house in it.

- We copied the sound from scenes that had similar noise and attached it to the clip

- A more difficult issue we had was talking in the background of the shot when Tosin was flicking the book so Kiera recorded flicking the pages the same way Tosin did and we attached that over the shot

For the flashback scene we also had someone record some music using garageband on the iMac for some original music in 'Siren'



THE FILM

ANCILLARY TASKS

Evaluation

FILM

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

FILM

Use conventions of real media products

Characters

Tosin

The misunderstood anti-hero (e.g. as he's perceived by the audience to be the predator, playing with audience expectation- the phone call at the beginning of the film doesn't show him in the best light to begin with)

He is the victim of the femme fatale who he falls for at the beginning of the film

Adriana

Her costume (short dress, bare legs, hair down) is seductive

Leaning against the door frame with arms folded across her chest, connoting dominance/power (typical of the femme fatale in a film noir)

- Mise-en-scene-- Location, Lighting, Costume

The location of our film was at my house and the surrounding area (the alley way and street) and all filming took place when it was dark/beginning to get dark so we could create a typical film noir atmosphere.

The alley way created a good mysterious atomosphere due to the fact that it was dark when we filmed and the orange lights in it. The darkness and harsh street lamps worked well together to give a ambiguous feel.

The lighting we used inside the house was harsh, bright lighting, creating bold shadows and strong lines on objects/walls- a typical triat of film noir.

The main bulk of our film was filmed in my living room. We used harsh lighting to create a film noir effect by using only certain spotlights to create harsh shadows in the room

The costume worn by the character of Adriana was a short black dress, bare legs and a jacket. The short dress connotes sexuality (typical of a femme fatale) and the black colour connotes darkness/mystery to represent her character.

The costume worn by the character of Tosin was a hoodie, jeans and trainers. This is not typical of a male in a film noir as they would normally be wearing suits, however putting Tosin in a hoodie and trainers represents his laid back/unsuspecting character.

Style- camera angles
The range of shots used in 'Siren' represent typical film noir qualities.

For example, the cantered angle to high angle when Tosin falls on the chair after finding the picture book

The fireplace shot and close up of book- focusing on objects

Also, the slight track and then arc when Tosin finds the knife in the fire place

POV shots were used to show Tosin walking into the living room, gaining a feel for what he is seeing- what he is letting himself in for.


Some shots that we used in 'Siren' are similar to that of film noir. For example:

FILM
Develop conventions of real media products

- Although the film is filmed in colour, the pictures taken for the stalker book are in black and white- a development in that some conventions have been used but in a more toned down way


FILM
Challenge conventions of real media products

- The main convention we have gone against when making a film noir/neo noir film is that our main male character is black. Typically they would be white but we wanted to challenge the perceptions that are usually linked to black (particularly black males) in films.

- Another way that our film challenges conventions of real films is that there is only one line we actually see the characters talking in the film. There is a speech from Tosin at the very beginning however the screen is black and we can’t see him, so by having hardly any dialogue throughout the film it challenges the conventions of real media products.

- The clothing worn by Tosin is not typical for the protagonist to wear in a film noir. Normally the protagonist wears a suit/smart work clothes, however in 'Siren', Tosin is wearing a hoodie with jeans and trainers, a much more causal look for the main character.

REVIEW
Use conventions of real media products

The layout of my review was typical of one from 'Total Film' as I used an example review as a template. The way it follows a typical 'Total Film' review page include:

- Large central image which is a screen grab from the film
- Tag line
- Informal language
- Star rating
- Film certificate
- Verdict at the bottom of the page
- Three coloums
- Same colour scheme
The mode of address used in the review was written for the target audience of the film which was:
- teenage girls and boys (students) aged 16-20
- middle class
- white/black (because both ethnic groups are in the film)

Challenged conventions of real media products (real review pages)


- Only used one of the characters in central image, most pictures on review pages have both the main characters in the picture

- Review pages would normally include films that you would like if you watched the one being reviewed, however I did not include this (mainly due to not having enough space on the page)

- The fact that it is a short film goes agains the conventions of a film review in 'Total Film' because they wouldn't normally include a short, low budget film in their magazine.



POSTER
Use conventions of real media products

- Follows the conventions of a typical film noir/neo noir poster by having the femme fatale on the front, e.g. Pulp Fiction

- The black reflects the dark tone of the film and the mystery throughout and the red connotes danger/passion/blood which is also included in the film

- The poster includes an age certificate, official film festival company, actor/actress names, a large title, a strapline, details such as director, editor, casting director etc and quotes from other media e.g. radio, tv etc...



Challenged conventions of real media products

- Main picture is a screen shot from the film, normally the film poster would have been set up with the actors in a particular setting and looking a particular way

2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

- The film poster reflects the mood of ‘Siren’ well as similarly to the film, it has conventions of film noir. The main picture on my poster is the femme fatale, showing her in a controlling position like she has in the film. It has a black and red colour scheme in keeping with the film- the black of her dress and the red of the blood.

- The review promotes the film as an independent, low budget short film. So the review is there to publicise the film for the public at film festivals, for example Future Shorts

- The three tasks are all connected and there are a number of aspects which demonstrate this. Both the review and poster have print screens from the film, so all the images are from the film itself, showing continuity. The review and poster are connected in that both are there to publicise the film and bring it to a wider audience.


3) What have you learned from your audience feedback?

- The people who viewed the film felt that they were the intended audience, showing we sucessfully targeted the film towards the group we wanted to- both genders, all ethnicities and within the intended age range

- The majority of people who filled out the questionnaire agreed that the lighting used was sucessful in creating shadows and mystery and the shots used were unusual, therefore fufilling traits of film noir

- A lot of the people asked to complete the questionnaire had good knowledge of film noir, therefore showing that our film demonstrates good use of film noir conventions as the majority of the answers listed traits commonly used in film noir


4) How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Research
I used the internet to research a number of things including:
- examples of posters and reviews of the film noir genre
- to watch Mal Woolfords neo noir films
- to find pictures from real film noirs to use as annalysis
- used youtube to watch film noir and neo noir clips
- used youtube to watch tutorials on typical film noir conventions, including Indie Mogul:



Planning
I used a digital camera to:
- take photos of each scene of the storyboard for the animatic
- take photos of location- living room, alley way
- take photos for stalker book

I used a video camera to practice some of the harder shots included in 'Siren' such as the fall to arc when Tosin finds the book and also for some of the longer shots, for example when he finds the knife

I used the internet to keep a blog and record all my findings

I used youtube to upload the animatic


Construction
I used a digital camera to take pictures as we were filming to use as evidence as filming progress

I used a video camera to film 'Siren'

I used iMovie to put all the clips we had filmed on and used it to edit the film, create titles and credits and to add a soundtrack

I used Garageband to record some original music (for the flashback)

I used Youtube to upload the film when we had finished in order to create easy access for people to view it and give us feedback

I used Photoshop to create the poster for the film and also the review page

I used an iMac to take printscreens of shots I wanted for both the review and poster