Thursday 29 April 2010
Tuesday 20 April 2010
Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
We have shown significant improvement from the prelim task to the full product. In the prelim task we had to show match on action, 180-degree rule and shot reverse shot. The preliminary wasn’t thought out it was all improvised and therefore it wasn’t planned and couldn’t reach it’s full potential and therefore means we didn’t manage to complete any of the criteria. In the prelim we worked in one place, which had very low lighting. We never included any elements that we were actually supposed to include do to it all being improvised. Due to the film being so dark the quality of the video is called into question, we did use effects to try and brighten the movie up, but it further reduced the quality of the video. When we compare this to the coursework task we managed to meet all of the tasks that were set (holding a shot steady where appropriate, 180 degree rule, tracking shot, pans, tilts, over the shoulder). We were extremely well organized when it came to planning out main task. Our group decided to split the various tasks between ourselves to ensure we met the deadline. After the unsuccessful prelim task we decided to go off campus to film our coursework task. We combined the Mise en scene (costume e.g. jackets and hats, lighting e.g. natural light, props e.g. gun, hat, trench coat, setting e.g. back alley setting) to create the perfect 50’s feel for our genre. The only problem with Mise en scene was the cars as they weren’t from that era but that couldn’t be helped. However one problem with the location and the time of year was that it got dark very quick. We did eventually use this to our advantage and used it to show progression of time, which combined with the black and white, was a very good natural effect. We used effects on the video (i.e. making it black and white), to set it appropriately to the time (50’s). The editing style (straight cuts, match on action, 180 degree rule) and camera work (canted angle over the shoulder shot) were done to show techniques from original noirs, however in the prelim we didn’t use a lot of horror conventions and so our prelim was hard to distinguish as a horror film.
Overall we feel that we have shown significant improvement from our preliminary task to our coursework task and have met the criteria set.
Wednesday 31 March 2010
Tuesday 30 March 2010
Production Logo Final Design
This is the final design for the shooting schedule
What Kind of Film Institution Would Distribute Our Media production of a Film Noir Opening?
Adam, Robert and I feel that our film opening if made into a full film would be distributed by a British company. We think this as our opening is of low budget and there are many British institutions out there that produce low budget films for TV. The institute that we would want to produce our opening would be Film4.
We want Film4 to produce our opening as they have there own production line named Film4 productions and they have produced a few low budget films. Films they have produce include Borat: Cultural Learning’s of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Bruno, Four Weddings and a Funeral, This is England, Train spotting and two well known films, The last King of Scotland and Slumdog Millionaire.
We think that a Hollywood production company wouldn’t be best for our opening. This is because they produce big budget films and the films they produce are always widely released in cinemas and with our opening being an independent film and low budget we believe that it wouldn’t give out a big profit if mass released. So if Film4 Produce our film opening it would be released to a select few cinemas in the UK, from this point if the film was received well and we made a profit from the release it would then be massed released by the production company, if no profit is made by the release then the production company would pull the film from the cinemas and would then either be released on DVD or shown on the production company’s TV channel Film4.
Shooting Schedule
Wednesday 3 March 2010
Programs we used
This shows a track we made in garageband. Each of the sections of the track increase in pitch to create suspense whilst the gunshot at the end symbolizes what the scene will be about. We created many others tracks in garageband but this is just a screenshot of one of them. We edited the pitch and the tempo for this one and for others we just mixed in a lot of different tunes from the same genre and listened to how they sounded and removed or added more as was required to create a track appropriate to Film Noir.
Risk Assessment
Tuesday 2 March 2010
Errors
Thursday 25 February 2010
Further Research into Similar media projects.
This scene represents our film by the fact that it’s a low angle shot that represent the scene in our film where the man is standing over his victim. Although in this film the man is grabbing onto his tie, in our film it should be him pointing a gun at his victim.
This is the sort of shot we want for our mystery man watching his victim, we want an over the shoulder feel shot with virtually no dead space on one side of the screen.
We want this shot to show the mystery man approaching his victim using the shadows to his advantage, to get the best possible surprise attack on him.
This is almost the same as the one above, except with the man being a little bit closer to the victim and they have noticed his presence.
This is the scene where the mystery man shoots the victim; we want this sort of idea to carry over into our film. We want it too be so that the audience is staring directly at the victim but with the gun in the frame as well.
Thursday 11 February 2010
Shooting Schedule
Date, Sets, Characters Required
Tuesday 16th Feb Back Alley of and Hart Lane Victim (Calum) and Murderer (Nathan)
Thursday 18th Feb Back Alley of and Hart Lane Detective (Adam) Murderer (Nathan) Victim (Calum)
Wednesday 10 February 2010
Plot Synopsis
Plot Synopsis
As the logo and all the titles (barring the actual film title) appear and slowly fade away, we are introduced to the first scene of a man hiding in the shadows watching another man. This then cuts to another shot of the man hiding behind a street corner as the other man slowly walks out of the shot. It then changes to a close up of the man walking away and the mystery man begins walking behind him. As the mystery man approaches the man in the foreground notices the man trailing him. A chase is then set in motion as the mystery man follows his “prey. Part of the scene is then filmed in the reflection of a car mirror, the chase continues until the “prey” reaches a dead end street. The mystery man pulls out a gun and a close up of the gun is shown as well as the gun shot is heard at the same time as the close-up. The camera then cuts to a shot of the “prey” laid on the floor, dead. This cuts to a low angle medium shot of the mystery man. The scene starts to fade away and eventually fades to black. This is then the cue for the film title to appear, which then disappears to show the dead body still lying there. It cuts to a shot of a mans feet and the camera begins to pan up his body. The camera passes up over his body until it reaches his face and shows he is looking at the body. The man then reaches into his jacket pocket, and pulls out his glasses and proceeds top put them on.
Organisation Of Actors Props and Places
Actors
Murderer: Nathan Stead
Victim: Calum Beach
Detective: Adam Burford
Locations
Possibly Hart lane (back alleys), unless better location is found.
Props and costumes
Gun
Trench coat(s)
Suits, i.e. trouser shirt and tie
Fedora hat(s)
Fake blood or other blood substitute
Sunglasses
Shadow Of A Doubt Script
EXT, back streets at night.
Mysterious man Hiding behind a corner in shadows, watching the victim waiting for a good time to follow.
Victim Walks down the street.
Mysterious man Walking out of the shadows beginning to follow the victim.
Victim Turns to see the mysterious man, then he begins to run.
Mysterious man Begins to pursue the victim.
Victim Runs into a dead end.
Victim Turns around to face mysterious man.
Victim
Of all the people I wasn’t expecting it to be you.
Mysterious man reaches into his coat and slowly pulls out his gun, and loads it, and slowly points at the victim. He then pulls the trigger.
Victim then falls to the ground fatally wounded. Looking up at his killer, with his vision slowly fading.
Fades to black.
Cut to title in the victim’s blood.
Slowly zoom out to reveal the victim’s corpse.
Slowly pan to the detective’s feat. Camera tilts upwards to reveal the rest of the detective.
Detective
Sighs
Not another one. Get forensics.
Detective reaches into his pocket and pulls out his sunglasses and puts them on.
We have to catch this guy before he kills again. I think it’s about time we cracked this case.
Wednesday 3 February 2010
Tuesday 2 February 2010
The Big Combo Opening Sequence Analysis
Analysis of the opening sequence to the big combo.
Main Stars
The Title
Other people who starred in it.
Associates to the other people.
Music Design
Wardrobe Designer
Production Manager
Production Designer
Film Editor
Music Editor
Assistant Directors
Set Decorator
Hair Stylist
Makeup
Set Continuity
Lighting
Sound
Special Effects
Director of Photography
Music
Produced By
Directed By
In the opening scene we are shown an aerial view of the city in which the story is apparently going to talk place. The camera pans around giving us a view of every inch of the city as we see the streetlights and cars. The only light shown comes from sources like cars and the many skyscrapers, this shows that it is night on the city, the sort of time when gangsters carry out their plans.
After the camera has panned through the city it shows people crossing the street to an unknown event, which is later shown to be a boxing fight, a key item in the 50’s cities. It shows the two fighters beginning to fight before cutting to a dark back alley
with limited light from a door, where a woman runs down the alley. She is cornered by a man and after checking her options she decides to run another way.
The man then pursues the women down another dark corridor; he is joined by another man as they both chase the woman down the corridors. Eventually the group run out onto a foyer area and the women is caught by the men. The scene continues to show the woman ordering the men to take her to get something to eat.
Monday 1 February 2010
Film Noir Research
Film Noir (literally 'black film or cinema') was coined by French film critics (first by Nino Frank in 1946) who noticed the trend of how 'dark', downbeat and black the looks and themes were of many American crime and detective films released in France to theatres following the war, such as The Maltese Falcon (1941) Murder, My Sweet (1944), Double Indemmnity, The Woman in the Window (1944).
Key Noirs are; the Maltese Falcon, a Touch of Evil, Double Indemnity, the first ‘true’ noir film is ‘stranger on the third floor’, with the last film noir being ‘touch of evil’. ‘Stranger on the Third Floor’ was released on August 16th 1940; whereas ‘Touch of Evil’ was released may 21st 1958. Films made after this period, like ‘Se7en’ (1995),’ L.A. Confidential’ (1997) or even ‘Bladerunner’ (i982).
Classic film noir is inspired by German expressionism, many of the stories and a lot of the attitude of film noir is derived from the hard boiled school of crime drama, this emerged during the United States during the depression.
The film noir genre and noir films are deeply inspired by German expressionism; it is a cinematic movement of the 1910s and 1920s, closely related to developments in theatre, photography, architecture, painting, etc. German expressionism moved to American film noirs when important film artists that had been working in Germany moved over to the U.S., they moved over to the U.S. due to offers from the ‘booming’ Hollywood film industry and the growing threat of the Nazi power.
The first Film Noir could have been a pre-world war 2 crime drama called Fury which was released in 1936 and was directed by Fritz Lang as it was categorized as a Film Noir even though it came out before the big period of Film Noir in America, but another movie is commonly stated as the first Film Noir and a true Film Noir, it was called Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) which was directed by Boris Ingster, this could be because it falls into the time period of Film Noirs or that crime melodramas were no really seen as Film Noir before this period as well.
When looking at Film Noirs we can see there are a many different types of characters in any one Film Noir. Thematically, film noirs were most exceptional for the relative frequency with which they centered on women of questionable virtue—a focus that had become rare in Hollywood films after the mid-1930s and the end of the pre-Code era. The signal movie in this vein was Double Indemnity (1944), directed by Billy Wilder, these characters are referred to as, femme fatales. A hardboiled detective or some form, however, the prevalence of the private eye as a lead character declined in film noir of the 1950s, a period during which several critics describe the form as becoming more focused on extreme psychologies and more exaggerated in general. A prime example is Kiss Me Deadly (1955) here the protagonist is a private eye, Mike Hammer. Hammer overturns the underworld in search of the 'great whatsit'... [Which] turns out to be—joke of jokes—an exploding atomic bomb.
Audiences Of Film Noir + What Makes Films 15 and 18
Audience of Film Noir
Film Noirs are generally adult oriented movies as they sometimes contain violence, sexual references, adult themes, drug references and drinking, smoking and foul language.
Classic Noirs when first released normally classed as PG as they couldn’t show many of the characteristics from above, for example they didn’t show much violence, had no foul language in them and showed hardly any drug references.
Neo-Noirs i.e. new Noirs are usually released as 18’s as they do sometimes contain violence, drug references, drinking and smoking and foul language, for example L.A. confidential is an 18 as it does contain these characteristics. This of course doesn’t mean that all New Noirs that are released are rated 18, as The Dark Knight released in 2008 is classed as a Neo Noir and was rated as 12 A in the UK.
Our opening
We intend our film noir opening to be fit for viewing for the ages of 15 and above meaning that anyone below the ages of 15 should not see this if it was a real Noir as the content in it may be unsuitable for them and they try to imitate the film.
BBFC
BBFC stands for British Board of Film Classification and it is a rating system that chooses what age rating film will be when they are released. They look at all key points of a film to see have any criteria’s that fit the definition of an age range. The criteria’s that fit the age ranges of 15 and 18 movies.
15 Films
Discrimination
In the whole of the film there must not be a single reference or phrase that can be related back to a racist or racially derogative term. Should a film incorporate this it need to be given a higher rating or remain unclassified.
Drugs
In the film if there is a particular scene that incorporates drugs it must not fully endorse drug use. It must not make the idea of taking drugs appeal to audiences of the film.
Horror
Scenes of strong threatening behaviour are allowed unless the scene becomes sadistic or even sexualised.
Imitable behaviour
In the film, there should be no scenes that glamorise easily accessible weaponry. There should also be no scenes in which suicide or grievous bodily harm to oneself should not be shown so as to allow these acts to be imitated.
Language
Certain words such as “fuck” can be used but must not be used in an excess. However the stronger words must only be used if they can be justified by the context of the scene.
Nudity
There are no constraints on the acts of sex in a 15 film. However the acts performed must not be in great detail or be too explicit.
Sex
Sexual activity must not be in strong detail and loose references to sexual acts are allowed. However the strongest of these references are not permitted unless the context justifies them. A sexual act with the sole purpose to arouse will not be permitted.
Theme
No themes are not permitted as long as the content is suited for persons of age 15 or higher.
Violence
Strong violence is allowed but it must not dwell on the actual infliction of the damage and the scene. The strongest of these gory images are unlikely to be accepted. Strong sexual or sadistic acts of violence are not permitted. Verbal references to sexualised violence must be discreet and have strong justification to the context.
18 Films
Material that breaches a law or is an offence of the law.
Where the explicit images from sexual acts that cannot be justified by context. Such images may be confined to R 18 only but some are in ordinary 18 films.
Where there are images that risk harm to individuals through behaviour. Such as violence or dangerous acts and harm to public health morals.
Sex scenes In 18’s can be used as education purposes and are permitted.
Sex material containing certain only normal sex can be passed as 18. However films, which have strong fetish material or incredibly explicit animated images, are also confined to R18 films. Material which is unacceptable for R18 films are also unacceptable for ordinary 18 films.
