Coursework feedback

Main Task- 45

This group filmed together and then produced two separate edits to ensure all group members took a full part. Appropriate music for the genre has been added and is an effective way to begin the film with institutional credits allying it to Warner Brothers historical film noir output. Some of the early shots are dark but are overlaid with credits so meaning is not greatly affected. Sound is attended to in the use of an alarm to signify the start of the voice-over which clearly indicates the opening of the film. A range of shots are used as the detective dresses using a full range of shot types and clear continuity. The voice-over establishes the narrative with an accent further establishing character and showing an awareness of generic conventions. Use of costume and props is appropriate and considered. The final sequence is less secure in framing but does not detract from the proficiency of technical skill which approaches the top end of level 3

Evaluation- Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

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

The detective in our opening sequence was quite conventional as he had a detectives hat and smoked and wore a smart suit and tie. We also insinuated that we had a femme fatale, again, showing that we followed the conventions of film noir. Lighting was also used in our opening sequence to create shadows, a classic film noir aspect.These conventions are seen in many film noir's such as maltese falcon. The music we used was also classic to the genre as it was jazz, using it added to the feel of the sequence as a whole. However, we also challenged some film noir norms by not making our film black and white as we thought the film being in colour would make it better quality and more modernized.  Our femme fatale also challenged certain conventions as you didn't see her and she didn't talk. We did this because we thought it gave the detective more power from the beginning. 

The main difference between normal film noirs (such as maltese falcon)and our sequence  is the fact that we hardly showed the femme fatale, as said above we did it to give the detective more power and to make our storyline a bit more mysterious. A typical femme fatale would seem very innocent but actually be very devious. In some ways we kept the innocent part in as her not being shown could be seen as a form of 'protection' however instead of deviousness we added in mystery as we thought that one of the flaws in typical film noir was its lack of mystery as every film in that genre is the same. Another challenge (again as said before) was the fact that it wasn't in black and white. The inspiration for this was from the film noir 'Chinatown' this is one of the few film noirs that was actually in colour. Historically film noir was in black and white because t is a very old genre so when it first started there was no colour film, as time went on and film developed more, this category of film stayed with the black and white theme because it had always been a hit and was cheaper to do. On the other hand we did keep shadows in the film which is a typical aspect, alongside keeping the smart dress, trilby hat and a detective that smokes we thought that it would add to the overall effect of our film because to make it completely different to a film noir would take away a lot of the audience appeal.   

This is the start of 'Chinatown' as you can see like the start of ours there are hits of black and white (similar to our first shot) but overall it is in colour.

We also used jazz as a non-diegetic sound not only because it's typical to the genre but also because it was the best sounding music for our opening sequence it went well with the voiceover and also added to the overall mystery of it all, just like in horrors nursery rhymes add to the fear, in noir jazz adds to the mystery. A voiceover is also occasionally used in film noir to set the scene.  We used on because we thought it would tell the plot better that dialogue would but it also gave us a chance to keep the typical noir language expressions and accent.

In this shot we are establishing the scene and we added the title over it, the light so the viewer could see the mystery theme coming though from the beginning. 

We used another establishing shot of the detectives house to set the scene, it again adds to the mystery of the whole opening sequence

The close up of the alarm added with the audio of the alarm going off allows the viewer to know that its early on in the day. We did it at this particular time so that you could see the character transform into the detective by getting dressed.

The close up of his feet is the first thing the viewer see of the detective. This is when the voice over starts and we get to know the plot a bit more.

In this close up of the face we finally see the detectives full face the top of what he is wearing, we did this to show the viewer the conventions of film noir as most detectives would dress smartly, like our detective. 

The close up of the cigarette and ashtray was also done to show the conventions of film noir as many conventional film noir's have this aspect in it.

We then faded into an establishing shot of the school, this challenges what would normally be in a film noir as normally it is seen as a genre for older people but by setting part of our sequence in a school we thought it would be a good change.

 

Research into film noir

The Femme Fatale

How Femme Fatale's are represented in film noir:
1. The iconography is explicitly sexual with long hair (blonde or dark), make up and jewellery.
2. They usually have cigarettes which have sexual connotations of liberation and phallic power.
3. The dress they wear defines the woman.
4.Iconography of violence is a specific symbol of her unnatural phallic power.
5. A framed portrait of a woman is common.
6. They are usually the murderers which indicate narcissism or duplicity.
7. Women are generally centre frame or drawing our attention by focusing on the foreground.
8. Visual style expresses mood through darkness, both real in underlit and night-time scenes, and psychologically through shadow and claustrophobic settings which overwhelm the character.

cast and script

CAST

Detective Lance Bullock – Callum Prendgast

Tony Slinger/ Maroni Falcone – Charlie Bell

Bobby Slinger – Reece Mountford

Lisa Statham – Georgia Turner

Ben Woodward - Thug

SCRIPT

Scene 1 – LB’s Intro ET: 35 seconds

*Throughout this scene “I don’t want to set the world on fire by the ink spots 1941 is playing, almost as an alarm. There is an establishing shot of a house at night; the only light source is lampposts in the shot and the shot will fade in from black and will last about 3 seconds. The shot will then cut to grass blowing in the wind, until finally a close up of an alarm/radio clock that is the source of the music. A hand reaches out and smacks it down, this stops the music. The room is dark, only a portion of light is reaching the room via blinds. A man (whose face you do not show during this opening scene) sits on the end of his bed rubbing his face. A narration begins:

Detective LB:  “Todays gonna be a helluva day, Head guy Phillip J House has made sure of that, he’s been busting my balls about this for a while now, he’s got it out for me I swear. See he’s got me inspectin’ some kind of college for a Maroni Falcone, see you wanna hear a funny story? 3 murders, one of them a cop and over 15 assaults and this guy is hiding in a school would’ya imagine? Me personally *pause* I think it’s a load of crap but like I said; House may be an ass, but it’s rare he’s wrong. and so that’s where I come in, me, Detective Lance Bullock, I gots to find this guy, if there even is a guy and take him out. Easier said than done when hiding in a hoity-toity school, and better yet, word is that his men already know that we’re catching up and planning this little undercover shindig, if Maroni really is there, he’s good, but I’m better”

*Throughout this scene there are different cuts of the detective. One stumbling to the blinds and peeking out, doing his top buttons up, lighting a cigarette with a match (shisha pens and vapour) and a shot of the smoke blowing out, and finally a shot of him doing his tie up and walking out of shot, this shot should be when he says “But I’m better”

Scene 2 – TS, PS and BS Intro ET: 

The shot then cuts to an EST shot of the school, until a OTS shot of Bobby walking down the main halls, past the stairs, then a mid-shot of him walking towards the camera (David Fincher style) with the camera on a dolly, he fixes up his tie. He pauses as he hears loud noises he looks around the corner and the camera does the same. Tony has Paddy Statham up the wall and Bobby is watching in intrigue

Lisa Statham: Please honey I'm sorry!

Tony: Just get out of my face damn it

Lisa runs off past Bobby crying.

  

Tony spots Bobby and Smiles. He’s wearing a different type of Tie to Tony.

Tony: Bobby my boy!

Bobby: Uncle Maroni!

Tony Slaps Bobby

Tony: Keep your god damn voice low, it’s Tony here, and will be till I can secure a way out to Mexico, none of this Maroni business, you get me?

Bobby: Yeah sure uncle…Tony

Tony: Good any questions?

Bobby: What was that about just?

Tony: Don’t you worry your pretty little mug about that said whilst gently slapping his face walk with me boy.

They walk down the corridor, the detective walks past the shot casually but the audience don’t know it’s him as you never see his face in the first shot

Tony and Bobby walk down the corridor dolly camera again.

Tony: Reece, you’re new, you’re my nephew but you’re not special, I don’t care if you’re my son, you don’t cross family understood?

Bobby: Understood boss

Tony: I like you already. 

As they walk off the camera pans to the detective watching from the second floor balcony. A high angle shot showing that he is superior and he has been watching

 

planning schedule

3rd November 2014 - Planning schedule created.

7th November 2014 - Begin to organize when certain actors can perform.

11th November 2014 - Film all of the college scenes, borrow a camera for the night.

11th November (Night) 2014 - Normal lesson no filming, film the detective scenes at my house.

17th November 2014 - Free lesson - Re-shoot anything that needs it, add additional scenes if necessary 

28th November 2014 - Record the voice over at Sixth Form recording studio

1st December 2014 - Editing again making sure all editing is done so add on's can be added for example titles,

voice overs and sound effects.

 

8th December 2014 - Add titles, voice overs  and sound effects.

15th December 2014 - Evaluate our film opening

December feedback

You are making sound progress toward producing an edit. 

Your research and planning needs to be more thorough and you can add to blog posts to ensure that detail is there. A post about representation is thin and you need to follow up what is covered in class with your own research and analysis.

Your film demonstrates a good knowledge of the medium and technical skill.  You should complete this  by the deadline.

Production schedule
Analysis of audiences and representations needs to be thorough

Concentrate on updating the web-log by Christmas and complete an edit.

creative journey

Editing and filming- 1st week

This week we have edited footage filmed last week. We filmed Reece, Charlie and Georgia doing  the second half of our sequence. we added in fades and cropped a lot of the footage. We are using Premiere Pro which is very easy to use and allows us to see exact timings of each clip as well as allowing us to add in effects and crop easily. We cut a shot (on the left hand side of the picture)down by quite a bit because there were quite a few mistakes that needed to be taken out.

Unfortunately some of the footage we imported wasn't of very high quality. We had to add an anti- shake to  it and move around the centre of the shots.

Editing and filming- 2nd week

This week we continued editing, we added in a title sequence, a logo and the first half of our music. The title sequence consisted of the title of the film, and the credits, we used the same font throughout for continuity. We also added in  the warner bro's title as you can see from the picture. We used this in black and white so from the start the viewer knows the sort of film it is. Although we don't plan on making the whole film in black and white we thought it best to add aspects of it in. The music was fairly easy to add to the editing. We used garage band to choose a jazzy song to go with the theme. Next week we need to continue to add the music in and change how loud it is. We also need to add a sound effect to the alarm.

We realised that the second half of the footage used is not high enough quality so we have decided to film a different scene next week.