PRELIMINARY EXERCISE

PRELIMINARY EXERCISE

As part of my AS course work I had to carry out a Preliminary Exercise, this involved filming and editing a short clip, to show what I can do, and to practice the skills I will need to use in my opening sequence. For this exercise I had to work with two other people, everyone got the chance to get hands on with the camera kit and editing software. The task was to complete a continuity task involving filming a character walking to and opening a door, crossing a room and sitting in a chair opposite another character, then exchange a couple of lines of dialogue. After filming this, we then used the editing software to finalise the sequence.

TWO EXAMPLES OF NEO NOIR

My first example of a Neo Noir is ‘Blade Runner’ from 1982, directed by Ridley Scott. This is a great example for a Neo noir because it uses sinister music in the opening titles which immediately gives the film a dark feeling and makes you feel uncomfortable. This is followed by a wide shot of Los Angeles in 2019, showing it in a dark and gloomy way, with high contrasts between light and dark, like in Noir films, although it has been shot in colour. The film is about four biologically engineered humanoids who use to be soldiers and slaves escape and come to earth illegally. The mission is to find them and stop them, although many problems arise.

My other example of a Neo Noir is ‘Memento’ from 2000, directed by Christopher Nolan. This is great example of a Neo Noir because of the camera shots used, for example the first thing you see in the trailer is an extreme close-up. Also it uses flashbacks and at the beginning of the film you see what happens in the end, Leonard kills Teddy. In the trailer the main character is doing a voice over in first person, often asking himself “what have I done”, he does this because he has amnesia, which you find out at the beginning of the film. He talks in a distressed way, often breathing heavily and getting angry, this transmits the his feeling of distress to the audience.

WHAT IS A NEO NOIR?

A Neo Noir is a more modern style of Noir. It uses modern characteristics, although the visual style is very similar to classic noir, in that it uses dark high contrast shots, and has very low key lighting, but it has been modified so is now often in colour and in a modern setting. Similarly the music and titles tend to be quite sinister which helps to give the film a uncomfortable feel to the audience.

TWO EXAMPLES OF A FILM NOIR

My first example of a classic Film Noir is ‘Double Indemnity’ from 1944, directed by Billie Wilder. This is a great example for a classic film noir because it has typical Noir characters, for example it features a ‘femme fatale’, who gets power through her beauty and seduction. Another character is the sales man, who puts everything on the line to get what he wants and to get the girl. The film starts with the ending of the story line; the sales man giving a confession to what he has done, this gives the film a typically non linear storyline. The film is about a plan to kill Phyllis Dietrichson’s husband, most of the film is about the collapse of the plan and Phyllis’ betrayal.

My other example of a classic Film Noir is ‘Maltese Falcon’ from 1941, directed by John Huston. This is about a private investigator Sam Spade, his assistant Archer and the ‘femme fatale’ client ‘Miss Ruth Wonderly’. Wonderly hires him to help find her missing sister. After being hired Spades assistant Archer is killed and the film is about Spade trying to find out why Archer is killed. This is a great classic film noir because  it uses a lot of the main conventions of film noir. Also during the opening titles you see only the face with a complete black background. The way the words are spoken makes you feel uncomfortable because they are spoken in a dramatic way. As the film goes on the music gets more dramatic and threatening.

CHARACTERISTICS OF FILM NOIR

Mise-en –scene

Mise-en-scene means ‘setting the film’ in French. This describes the set and location of the Film.
Mise-en-scene went against the normal locations of crime movies as the storylines started being created in everyday locations instead of just happening in the ‘wrong end’ of town.
The costume of the character helps describe the character to the viewer, it can tell you about the characters job, lifestyle and class, for example if the character had a long dark coat on then he would probably work as a detective or something like that. Also this can help to tell you what genre the film is, so if the character was wearing a long dark coat then you would assume that the film had some thing to do with detectives so crime.
Also it is normally filmed in a dark street or dark setting so had low lighting, with high contrast; black and white. Sometimes it would be filmed in the rain or with damp streets.

Dark damp streets

Cinematography

Cinematography is the camera shots and movements, what the filmmaker decides to include in each shot.
The camera movement and camera angle is very important in this, these can make you think different things about the character as you see them in different light. In Film Noir the cinematography usually had some distortion in it, and is very uncomfortable for the view to look at, which makes the view think more as they feel at awkward. So they often use low and high angles, extreme close-ups, and Dutch tilts as well as a few other camera shots.

Extreme close-up

Dutch tilt

Sound

The sound in Film Noir usually complemented what was happening, for example if a ‘bad guy’ was to enter the room then you would hear faster, louder music.
There are different types of sound in film; Music, Sound effects, Ambient sound i.e. background sound, and voice-overs. These are all used to create different affect, and some are usually used in some genres more that others.
Some sounds that is used a lot in Film Noir are; Downbeat music, heavy breathing, sudden noises, silence, voice over and everyday sound affects, these all help to create the scene in the film.

Editing

Editing is the last thing that you do when making a film. This is where you pick the best shots that you have and put them together in a sequence, so you would cut from one shot to another and cut out all the unwanted shots and ones that are not needed, then you would add the sound effects and any other affects, you would then have your completed movie.
Film Noir is often told non-linear; this is where the story is told from the end and in flashbacks which means that it would use jump cuts, so where is jumps from one scene to another. As Film Noirs were made cheaply, as they were made as a ‘B’ movie, they would often shot in the daytime but use it as night time using filters, which were cheap, but a good affect.

Narrative/Storylines

In Film Noir the storylines are about crime. Film Noirs usually have a detective, which gets into some kind of trouble, the hero and the femme fetale who normally causes or gets caught up in the trouble. Film Noirs are very dark and depressing and a lot of the time is filmed in dark damp streets.

Characters

The main Characters in Film Noir are; the detective, the hero, and the femme fetale. The detective usually gets caught up in the trouble by trying to help the femme fatale. The femme fetale is usually a beautiful woman, who is cruel and dishonest, but attracts men, she is willing to do anything to get what she wants.

Femme fetale

Detective

Ideology

Film Noirs are about Good Verses Evil, for example East Verses West. There are things that Film Noirs try to tell you, a lot of the time people make the wrong decisions even though they know what the right one is, and it’s obvious it will turn out bad in the end, and the viewer knows this.

ABOUT FILM NOIR

Classic Film Noirs were originally made in America. The heyday years of Film Noir were started in the 1940’s, during and after World War 2 and continued into the 1950’s.

‘Nino Frank’ gave Film Noir its name, in France, in 1946, and the term was first used by French film critics. As a lot of films that were being made at the time had a lot of the same features, the French noticed this so called it Film Noir. The term ‘Film Noir’ only existed after they were made.

Film Noir is ‘black film or cinema’, which looks ‘dark, downbeat and black’, with typical storylines which are depressing usually crime and detective films.

In Film Noir there was a lot of fear, despair, crime and violence, which could have reflected from the war, as this started after World War 2.

A film genre is the similarities in the narration which the film is based on. Film Noir is not a genre but is considered the mood, style, point-of-view, or tone of a film.
Film Noir is a mood; this is shown by minimal lighting, dark streets and long shadows.

When these films were produced there was an ‘A’ or main picture which has stars, a famous director, spent a lot of money. Then there was ‘B’ movies which were much smaller, and had more artistic freedom as no one was that bothered if the film was not a success, because they didn’t put as much time or money into making it. Film Noirs came under ‘B’ movies.

Film Noir was influenced by private eye crime books of Pulp fiction authors, with detectives and a lot of crime.
Film Noir developed from the crime sub-genre and gangster movies, it often used the same set and crews as ones used before, for other films.

The visual style of Film Noir is, very dark, and depressing, with long shadows, dark streets, creepy looking, and circling cigarette smoke.

The aural style of Film Noir uses soundtracks and background music to show the mood of the scene and to explain the characters, for example if you have a bad character the sound track may be very fast, dark, and loud. A lot of Film Noir films used ‘voice over’ for different affects.

All Film Noirs have crime or detective themes; this is based at an audience that likes hard, biting crime dramas.
The characters are quite simple, as normally you will have the detective, and the bad guys, and these are the characters that always appear in Film Noirs. They will normally be dressed in the typical detective costumes, for example long coats, and typical villain costumes, and looking scary.